I don’t like to talk about crypto, but posterity is calling me once again. I wrote a crypto book just to settle this once and for all, but apparently, I still need to keep talking about it once in a while. In this context of the rich 1% in crypto, I do not mean the people who have the most amount of bitcoins or cryptocurrencies. Instead, I mean the people who are making the most amount of money from crypto. Let me explain.

You may have $100 million and decide to move it into crypto. I’m sure that puts you in the top 1%. But you have not made any money on it. You made the $100 million from somewhere else. So, the rich 1% in crypto here are people who have actually made money from the crypto space. I have been making money from crypto since 2017, so I know a thing or two.

Before we dive in, understand that this is not financial advice. Take it as my opinion and insight. Do your own research and findings. But this is to give you more perspectives and angles.

These 7 things are not really secrets, but many people don’t pay attention to them:

1. Crypto Investing is Not a Sprint

If there is one major problem in the crypto world that I have noticed, it is that people are short-term oriented. Even those claiming that they are advocates of the long term are short-term investors.

Always remember that the crypto market is not like the stock market where the SEC can hold you responsible for how you handle information. The crypto market is free (thank God for that!). But the downside of it is that people get to pump, dump and get away with it. Which calls for the average crypto investor to be smart.

In the end, the whole thing is a game. And you have to know what game you are playing. If you are just going to invest when it is fashionable and stay away when the going gets rough, then you shouldn’t venture in at all.

This is the first lesson. This is why people who have made the most money in crypto are people who have been in it for (at least) 4 years.

2. Little Drops of Water Do Not Make a Mighty Ocean

In school, as a kid, this quote was in one of our textbooks: Little drops of water make a mighty ocean. It sounded right. But as we grew up, no one needs to tell us that it is BS. Little drops of water did not create the ocean. This is not to get into the argument of how the ocean was formed. I don’t know what you believe but whatever formed those huge water bodies was big. Not little drops.

This is true in investing too. I am sure you have heard the story of someone who puts in a tiny amount in the S&P 500 and auto-reinvest dividend. And after maybe 50 years, they have built a sizable fortune. And that is okay!

That is a way of building a sizable fortune over a few decades with low risk. But that is all it will get you — a sizable fortune. Mostly you start with around $1,000 or even $500 and end up with $1m+ or even as much as $9m. It is a sizable fortune, but it is no ocean.

Let that sink into you. Don’t let anyone deceive you that you can turn $1,000 into $3.5m in 39 days with crypto. Even in the crypto bull runs, people make insane amounts of money because they have an insane amount of capital to put in.

This is the second crypto lesson. What you put in will be on par with what you get out.

3. Your Volume Determines Your Playbook

When people ask me about how they should invest in crypto, the question I ask them back is this — how much are we talking about?

This is because your volume will determine your strategy. For example, playing for short-term gains is terrible if you are playing with a few thousand dollars. However, playing for short-term gains with a 6-figure capital can be very interesting.

The strategy in my crypto book is for everyday people who earn income monthly and want to put aside a bit of that to invest in crypto. And this is a long-term, gradual build-up strategy. But when you have a large amount to play with, you need to rethink your playbook.

Note that 7-figure monthly is large. Also 6-figure weekly is large.

4. If You Follow the Crowd, You Lose Money

It is that simple. It doesn’t get any simpler than that. If you are following public consensus right now concerning your bitcoin or crypto portfolio, you are holding the short end of the stick.

The crowd will always lead you astray. Learn as you wish. Gain perspective. But never make an investment decision based on what everybody is doing or what someone says everybody is doing. It is always a trap.

Just because you have fallen into the trap once doesn’t mean you can’t fall into it again. I only buy or sell when it is the right time for me according to my strategy. I don’t care if the world is going to end tomorrow.

By the way, the worst way to invest in crypto is to buy based on speculative information. Don’t do it.

5. Follow the Cycle and You Won’t Miss Your Way

If there is anything to get from this article, this is it. And I explained this in the crypto book. There are 4 phases of the crypto cycle:

• The bullish phase

• The crash phase

• The pain phase

• The confusion phase

They all follow each other. At the time I wrote the crypto book in 2021, we had exited the bullish phase and was at the crash phase. As those transitions melt into each other, you can’t tell exactly when we move into another phase. But you can tell what phase we are in.

This article is written in February 2022, and I am pretty sure we are in the pain phase. And my personal opinion (and prediction) is that it is going to be a very long phase.

I get appalled by people trying to pump bitcoin during this time. No matter how hard you try, it will keep going down. It is the same in the bullish phase too. No matter how much people take profit or short the market, the price just keeps going up.

Stop trying to turn the bear market into a bull market with one tweet. It is unreasonable. Crypto is in a bear market at the moment. Allow the cycle to have its course. The more people stay in denial and try to give it a short-term pump, the more they delay the next bull cycle.

You can’t force the bull. There are too many players in the crypto space to even think about doing that. If you follow the crypto cycle, you won’t miss your way.

6. The Current Price of Bitcoin Cannot Be Explained

Some people are saying that the bitcoin price is crashing because of the uncertainty with Ukraine and Russia. I call that BS. It is pure nonsense. There is no rationale or correlation. I have been in crypto for long enough to study the pattern of events. None makes sense.

Crypto has been in a bull market during major bans. And it has been in a bear market during bans. It is all just a fancy correlation. None is consistent.

Therefore, never bother your head about what someone is saying as the reason for the bitcoin current price. Don’t get me wrong. It may be true. But there is no way to prove it. Hence, it doesn’t matter. No explanation makes sense. The cycle always wins.

7. Strategy Beats FOMO

FOMO means fear of missing out. I saw a lot of people jump into crypto in 2021 based on FOMO. The outcome wasn’t pleasing. This is why I don’t like talking about crypto in the bull cycle. People are looking for validation to jump on the bandwagon. They think it is fast and easy money.

Having a strategy beats FOMO, every day. FOMO results in losing money. Trust me, I have been there.

At this moment, crypto is in the bears. Someday, the bulls will return. But don’t take my word or anyone’s word for it. Think and adopt a strategy that works for you.

Conclusion

If you are interested in more insight on this, you should get my crypto book.

Cheers!