Sometimes you lose

Investing has become boring and stressful over the course of the year. As the markets, stocks and crypto, housing likely to follow, have entered a downturn. The dip continues to dip. All due to war and widespread inflation.

The coverage and conversation around investing has waned in the last 6 months due to the bear market. The crypto lads are applying to McDonald’s, twitter-ers (what is the term for Twitter content creators?) are quiet or shilling shitcoins and YouTubers are reacting to every piece of news that drops around the market.
People’s interests have faded somewhat, and investing has become a harder sell to audiences. Ad rates on platforms like YouTube have now down decreased significantly with company cutting back on ad spending. These all come together to diminish the allure of investing.

I digress.

If you’re into crypto at all, you know about Terra Luna. You saw what happened in May. What you may have not known is that I was a strong believer in the project, and I had a significant, to me, sum in Anchor Protocol. And a decent chunk staked in Luna itself.

No one saw the attack coming. But I was on holiday when this was going down, so I didn’t see it start to crumble. Maybe if I did, if I was paying attention, perhaps I would have withdrawn and redeemed some value. Alas, I was enjoying myself in Bulgaria and didn’t have a clue until after the fact after it went to zero. For me, that represented £5,000 roughly in savings gone. Poof.

As I write this, that feels significant, I could really use that money, that security. The markets are wrecked, there is a war, and as rampant inflation globally. However, I’m fine with the loss, I never invested anything that we couldn’t live without. I would never do that to my family, that would be wholly irresponsible of me. I think the less than here is to not invest with reckless abandon because that’s not investing, that’s gambling. Only invest in people companies and protocols that you believe in, and only invest what you’re willing to lose. It’s clear that there are recessions on the way.

In response to this, I will be taking a break from actively investing. I believe dollar cost averaging is the best strategy over time, but I’m taking the next few months to build up cash reserves and when we’re at peak despair I’ll be ready to deploy the capital.

This isn’t an attempt to time the market, but playing defence.