If you've been in the cryptocurrency market for a while, you've probably made a lot of mistakes. The longer you are in the market, the wiser you become. That's why it's vital to learn from your mistakes. This advice may seem effortless, but when it comes to bitcoin and cryptocurrency, the hardest thing to control is our emotions. Feeling the emotions of a big move up in price or an equally strong move down is the perfect recipe to start taking actions you may regret. Almost all of us regret getting into bitcoin too late. No matter who you talk to, they always wish they had gotten in sooner. There is no point dwelling on it; as there is nothing you can do about it.
However, there's a mistake that almost everyone has made that depending on how often you've done this, can cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars. Simply put, it pays too many fees for purchases, swaps, and transactions, but there's a lot more to know. I'm just as guilty of making these mistakes and after doing the math, it's pretty shocking how much money I threw away.
The first step of this philosophy is, of course, to avoid fees when buying crypto as much as possible. While Coinbase may be the most convenient or easy-to-use exchange, when you buy cryptocurrency there, you pay a premium. Although it may not seem like it at first. This is especially true if you make smaller purchases on the exchange. A dollar here, two dollars there and then five dollars. It all adds up. When I first got into cryptocurrency, I bought whenever I had spare cash, no matter how big or small the amount was. I did that every day, sometimes multiple times a day. The fees may not seem like much, but in my situation they ended up being worth a few hundred dollars. Which could then buy 0.06 BTC or 2 etherium. Fast forward to today and that bitcoin would be worth about $ 3,
Unfortunately my tendency for wasteful mistakes continues.
During that time, I had two main ways to accumulate cryptocurrency. The main way was through normal purchases and often these were quite small amounts. The second method was from profits from my bitcoin blogs, also quite small. I've always heard experts stress that you should withdraw your funds from exchanges as soon as possible. The whole "Not your keys, not your bitcoins" approach I strongly believe in. This triggered a desire to send my funds elsewhere as soon as possible, even if the amounts were quite small. Again, I did this several times a day, every day. Then the fees were pretty cheap. Using Coinbase and sending bitcoins would cost close to $0.20 per transaction, and sending ETH would be around $0.10. At the time I thought it was cheap and didn't have a second thought about doing the transactions. But now the shift to date and the prices of these coins have appreciated significantly. That means I was paying close to $ 2-3 for each bitcoin transaction and roughly the same for ETH transactions. Although that may not seem so bad, especially since transactions today can be roughly the same price. But if I were just more patient and pooled my purchases and transactions, my portfolio size would be much larger today.
Now consider all the predictions for bitcoin prices in the coming years. Those small transactions I posted a couple of years ago could increase in a hurry into quite large amounts. My point is this. When making purchases or sending transactions, don't rush. Be patient. Find and use an exchange with low fees. Wait to send transactions until you receive a significant amount to send. Then check the transaction price for that day; if it's expensive, wait and wait for fees to drop. Be smart with your money.
The same approach applies if you use Uniswap. Unless you are transacting for a large amount, the fees can make the whole process ultimately not worth it.
As I mentioned above, there are many mistakes we will make while learning about bitcoin and cryptocurrency, and many of these mistakes are unavoidable. It's part of the learning process. But patience and being smart about your fees is one of the few mistakes you can control and can literally save you thousands of dollars. Be careful.
What about you? Have you ever added up how much your fees are worth in dollars today? What mistakes are you making with bitcoin and cryptocurrency?