Don’t Panic Sell Bitcoin

Don’t Panic, Bitcoin Will Recover

Dr. Josh Cotton
Sep 8, 2018 · 3 min read

The headline for this article will age well. That is because the Bitcoin market is highly volatile and evokes panic for those who watch it. Having been in this space for 5 years, I can tell you, it takes time to become resilient.

Rapid swings in price create FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) and Loss Aversion (fear of losing what you have). Given the speed and size of the price movements, fear can quickly turn to panic and panic leads to bad decisions. FOMO drives people to panic buy and Loss Aversion drives people to panic sell. Worry and fear is often an irrational response to limited information. One way to deal with fear is through research and knowledge.

As a researcher, I am trained to look for multiple pieces of independent data and place them all on trend lines to determine the combined projected outcome of whatever it is I am trying to predict. With Bitcoin, there is a lot of data to look at and a lot of patterns in that data. One of the most consistent trends in the data for Bitcoin is “growth” the upward movement of the price over time.

Bitcoin Breaks the All Time High, Often

Bitcoin broke its all time high in 2017 over 100 times. And Bitcoin has broken its all time high hundreds of more times throughout the years. Statistically speaking, the more times a pattern repeats, the more likely it is to repeat again. Patterns are like muscles, the more they are used, the stronger they get. One of the most common patterns observed in the Bitcoin market that has been repeated hundreds of times implies Bitcoin will one day break through the $20,000 barrier once again resetting its all time high. Breaking previous records is just what Bitcoin does. It is able to sustain growth over the years because adoption of cryptocurrency remains at or below 2% of the world. For those who do buy in, over the years they have watched as the price of Bitcoin has soared.

As of August 2018 the Bitcoin was down approximately 70% from its last all time high which was around $20,000 and yet, even at $6,500 the Bitcoin price is up 2,800% from 2015’s average price. Nearly 3,000% growth in 3 years is not a good reason to panic. Yet, headlines from August 2018 in the media urged panic:

Bitcoin meltdown: world’s biggest coin plunges 10% Wednesday (Market Watch, August 8th, 2018)

Bitcoin Climbing to $7,500, But This Report States BTC Price Will Only Further Plunge (CoinGape, August 4th, 2018)

The crypto market has lost 20% of its value in 2 weeks and bitcoin is still dropping (Business Insider, August 8th, 2018)

Don’t Believe the Hype, Bitcoin Will Never Die

Never is a strong word but Bitcoin was first lunched in 2008 and is not going away. So do not panic. It has risen and fallen hundreds of percent over the years but is still trending upwards. Cryptocurrency is the invention and Bitcoin is the most proven example of cryptocurrency. The world loves crypto but it fears Bitcoin. Regardless, Bitcoin is built into the infrastructure of the Crypto Economy and has too much support to ever fade into the oblivion. For more on this point, see my earlier article:

Bitcoin and Ethereum will Never Die (September 7th, 2018)

Continue this discussion on Twitter @BitcoinCensus

Josh Cotton, PhD is a Fortune 500 consultant, the Founder of VetStoreUSA, LLC., the Founder of the MilitaryToken™ project, a nonprofit leader, has advised Admirals, Generals, and CEOs, is a published researcher and a social scientist who has been studying the Blockchain community since 2013. Follow him on Twitter @BitcoinCensus

Dr. Josh Cotton

Written by

Fortune 500 Consultant & Founder of MilitaryToken.io, a nonprofit leader & social scientist studying the Blockchain Community since 2013. Twitter @BitcoinCensus

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade