Note to readers: Hello world is a program developers run to check if a newly installed programming language is working alright. Startups and tech companies are continuously launching new software to run the real world. This column will attempt to be the “Hello World” for the real world.
It was boom time in crypto land. You’d have to try really hard to lose money. XRP ripped. ETH defied gravity. MANA was indeed from heaven and DOGE cocked a snook at earthians on its way up to Mars. Investors who got in early talked up the virtues of the currency and more investors bought into the phenomenon. And then the biggest crash since the Great crypto crash of 2018 began.
Billionaire Elon Musk who earlier announced that his company Tesla will sell cars for Bitcoins backtracked on the Tesla-for-Bitcoin deal because Bitcoins take up a whole lot of energy to transact. As we know, Tesla wants the world to function on sustainable energy in the long run. On popular American television show Saturday Night Live, Musk said DOGE was a hustle. Some big investors dumped crypto holdings. Prices fell.
Regular readers of this column will recall the story of the Smiths who held on to the IBM stock for generations but never sold. The sum and substance of Smith’s actions, as author George Goodman explains is, “It is a parable of pure capitalism, never jam today and a case of jam tomorrow; but as any of the Smiths will tell you, anyone, who has ever sold IBM has regretted it.”
What the Smiths did with their stock, would be called HODL in the world of cryptocurrencies. That is, Hold On with Dear Life to your investment. Over the past few days following a crash in prices, several cryptocurrency investors have been doing just that. Several others have sold their crypto investments at a loss and some have started buying the dip.
So if you look at the last few days, it might look like a crash. But wind back long enough, cryptocurrencies are still up many times over.
And then of course the question of jam tomorrow. This again, depends on you as an investor and your needs. If you haven’t sorted out fundamentals like taking out insurance, creating an emergency corpus and so on, do that first. Crypto can wait. At some point, if you want jam, wait for it and sell some when the markets are up. But if you need liquidity (that is, I want jam NOW), crypto may not exactly be the right asset for you at the moment. It’s that simple. All the usual disclaimers apply: Don’t treat this as investment advice. And I’m HODLing my crypto.