Fear, Loathing and Opportunity: How Crypto Traders Are Handling the Drop

2018. Nov. 20. 08:45

The last 24 hours have been the worst the cryptocurrency markets have seen since the 24 hours prior. Things have been looking grim for weeks in fact, but on Nov. 19 the situation went from bad to critical as BTC fell below $4,500, dragging the rest of the market down with it. While some investors used this latest blow to bow out, others have used it as an opportunity to re-up on cheap coins.

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Mind the Drop

There’s rarely a dull day in cryptocurrency, but Nov. 19 will go down as a particularly memorable one, albeit for all the wrong reasons. Plummeting crypto prices, on top of a week of plummeting crypto prices, have left many traders in despair and others vowing to rage quit. So somber is the mood that the normally morbid humor that accompanies a price drop has been largely absent from crypto Twitter.

“Now is the time for compassion, patience, respect,” tweeted Andreas Antonopoulos. “Lots of people have lost lots of money recently and it is not helpful to make empty promises, share shitty memes, or criticize others’ choices.”

Today for the first time in this bear market I saw people capitulate, throw in the towel, ridicule this movement and the technology and vow never to touch Crypto again. Even the bravest went quiet…

— Ran NeuNer (@cryptomanran) November 19, 2018

On 4chan’s /biz/ messageboard, the atmosphere was equally downbeat. “That’s it, I sold,” conceded one poster, accompanied by an image of weed-smoking Elon Musk photoshopped to resemble Brendan Fraser being justed. “I’m free. I’m finally free from this fucking hell of scammers … It was fun and games for a while, but now it’s just a cruel sick joke. I bought [BTC] at 15K. No human can look at their money disappear before their very eyes and not be bothered. You know we’re going to 3K, right?… Let’s all stop pretending that this is gonna be anything but a bear market until 2020.”

One Man’s Fear Is Another’s Opportunity

People respond very differently in times of crisis. For those who missed out on buying bitcoin during last year’s bull run, now blessed with fiat currency sitting on the sidelines, today has been most serendipitous.

“I’ve transferred 100 now for bitty,” read the message I awoke to from a friend. “If it goes down I’ll pick a tiny bit more up, if not, at least I got a wee bit at a decent price.” I duly hooked her up with BTC, and true to her word, she messaged later to say “I transferred another 100 … bitty is having a dip again.”

How many more dips bitcoin can endure before it finally bottoms out is anyone’s guess. What can be said with confidence is that sub-$4.5K BTC is an attractive proposition for investors who thought this day would never come. While some members of crypto Twitter sought “the best capitulation tweet” (and found no shortage of candidates), more sanguine heads have urged delicacy. The majority of cryptocurrency traders had the perspicacity not to invest more than they could afford to lose. For those who got greedy, however, the current market has brought nothing but pain and regret.

There are also those whose very jobs could be at stake should assets such as ethereum fail to recover. One ICO that raised funds in 2018 and elected to keep its war chest in ETH has conceded it will struggle to cover its payroll should current prices persist for another two months. Despite conceding that his job may be at risk, an employee told news.Bitcoin.com “this is Wall Street crash ’87 for the modern age. It’s actually extremely exciting.” Few would dispute that assessment but they would welcome some respite from a year that started with a roar only to finish on a whimper.

sending hugs to *everyone* in the crypto community. we're all learning something valuable this week about investors and speculators. hoping this marks the start of a broader culture shift for our nascent industry.

let's hit restart. pic.twitter.com/7RbbA4kyi2

— Meltem Demirors (@Melt_Dem) November 19, 2018