Cryptocurrency and the Psychology of Uncertainty

Ok so before I entered into Crypto I played poker at a fairly high level. Poker, like crypto is easy to the untrained eye and every man and their dog thinks they are one hop away from winning the World Series or in our case being the DeepFuckingValue of the crypto space. To outsiders it seems really simple, get good cards/well known coins and rake in the profits.

Are we gamblers? You and I, we hold different coins and we hold different perspectives on value and on life. We get judged by others outside the cryptosphere for taking outlandish risk, where they respect the stockbroker in his pinstripe suit for doing a very similar thing with similar information.

But crypto like in poker you can win with the worst hand (Uniswap kitchenbakeswap2.0 coin) or lose with the best hand (BTC) - and that comes down to judgment, timing and experience. Skills that a day 1 player/trader would not have in their repertoire. So I argue that due to this, crypto is a skilled endeavour rather than a gambling one.

I believe that not everyone is cut out for crypto and the swings it can bring. Not everyone can handle seeing $20k disappear while they sleep. Not everyone can handle not selling fully when their investment goes up 15%. You need to be a fighter, hungry for profit whilst balancing risk with a sense of calm and applying logic at all times. Luckily when I wake up to see my Portfolio has dropped by 24% overnight I can swear and release my emotions which was not possible when bluffing or going all in at a poker table and keeping my poker face for hours upon end.

Something I have found in my life is that betting on uncertainty is not only enjoyable but it’s also the best way of understanding it. Sitting on the sidelines doesn’t provide the same level of engagement or learning. Understanding uncertainty allows you to see with clarity the pitfalls of the human brain, the emotions involved and where we can trip up. Let me explain.

When something is 99% sure of happening - in our minds it’s seen more often than not of being 100%. It is a misplaced faith in certainty - this is at the crux of crypto investing. How sure are you that you hold the best coins? How sure are you that they will go up in value? When you’ve watched a coin rise consistently over the last 99 days and 25 of your friends have invested and keep telling you how much they are making - well it’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming you will follow in their footsteps and the trend will continue.

To be consistently achieving well in this game you need to be paying attention. Crypto forces you to question your thought process, forces you to often recalibrate and rethink your strategy. If you follow emotions rather than logic through research then long term you are probably going to be losing a lot of profit or potentially turning a loss. Sure you might hit the odd moonshot or two but that’s not sustainable. Then there is the battle between betting with your hard earned $ on your own opinions and judging someone else for theirs. One of the most refreshing aspects of trading is that you aren’t going to get kicked out the market for choosing an investment strategy that goes counter to the masses or the Bitboy crypto style YouTube professors of wisdom. The only thing that talks is the profit.

One final point I wish to make is that while I played poker it was a very strange dynamic at the table. You sat down and you went to war. You could chat and be friendly but ultimately you weren’t there to make friends, you were there to accumulate as many chips off the other people at the table as possible. You would say things like “Good luck” or “Nice Hand” which were veiled ways of saying “I wish myself all the luck and I want your chips” and “Why would you play those cards in that way?! That was stupid you maniac”.. the funny thing is with crypto is that there are winners and losers but it’s on such a distanced inconceivable level. You only hear of people losing and winning in crypto, you aren’t sat 5 feet from them. So I feel and this is genuine, that I wish everyone success. I know that is not possible, but I absolutely do wish that (unless you are a terrible person 😅). So when I see gain porn I don’t get jealous, salty or angry. I feel happy for that person. That wasn’t the case when I lost a $500 pot in poker to the guy sat opposite me 😂

Let me know if you found this insightful or interesting. Would love to hear how you react to seeing others on Reddit posting of their gains and losses, the humble brags and the not so humble brags.

Good luck in the crypto markets guys and we can all prosper and get some nice big gains in 2021. 🤑🚀

Submitted March 31, 2021 at 02:43PM by DigitalGoldDude https://ift.tt/3sJ3VDx https://ift.tt/2Z7cX2s