By Evelina Lavrova
Jason Cassidy is a veteran of the crypto industry, co-founder of several companies such as Metaverse Property, Not Fungible, NFT art gallery and artist incubator, and CEO at GAME CREDITS. He has started his career in cryptocurrency in 2012 and is approaching his 10 year anniversary in the industry.
Here he shares a summary of knowledge that he has gained and learned over a decade, helping newcomers navigate the crypto space (source Jason Cassidy’s Facebook). Here are a few morsels of his wisdom:
Keep your circle of friends small and honorable
Crypto has too many shady characters and loyalties are often up for sale if enough coins are on the table.
Many high-profile individuals in the space have engaged in criminal activity of varying levels. It often takes Time for the Truth to come to light so I will not be naming names. However, please take the following to heart:
There is another World that plays out behind the curtains in crypto, and it is nothing like what is sold to the public. If something isn't sitting right with you, it's probably because it's not supposed to be.
One day in the future I will share my stories on this as will several other OG's, until then, keep your head on a swivel when living within crypto.
Focus more on volume than on price if you are chasing 100x or 1000x returns
If you are dabbling in alt coins this is a critically vital lesson to learn early on. Liquidity is everything in small cap coins meaning it will not matter what CMC or Coingecko tells you your Turdcoin is worth. You will not be able to exit the position if sufficient volume around that price point is absent.
The higher the market cap the more likely you will have less issues with volume. Train yourself to learn the story of a particular token or coin volume before fixating on the price.
Remember if you had trouble acquiring a large position in a small-cap coin because of the poor liquidity, expect the same situation to happen to you on the exit as well.
Define your goals before entering or exiting a trade. Plan the trade and then trade the plan
Going into crypto investing without a plan is often a recipe for disaster. If you set out clearly defined goals you will save yourself many panic-induced decisions that often will lead to financial loss.
Understanding what you want to get out of trade also ensures you are vaccinated against FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), which is highly infectious within crypto.
Doing what I am stating above takes discipline. By doing it you will get to your ultimate goal much sooner by exercising a modicum of patience.
The less you know about the market you are investing in the more valuable diversification becomes
Generally speaking, diversification is overrated. This does not mean diversification is without merit, as it is quite useful depending on the situation. It is over prescribed as an investment default when it is much more of a tool for a specific job.
Markets are made up of the collective actors within them and all of their accessible knowledge. Investing is playing a game versus the experience of others who can predict the future with more accuracy.
The more knowledge you possess on the market you are investing in the less need you will have to protect against risk. With more risk involved the value of diversification increases for the investor. So embrace it when it is needed.
If your gut tells you something is to be avoided, listen to it
Your gut does not care about bulls, bears, or FOMO. It cares about you.
Digital cash that is not retrievable is an online scammers wet dream. Crypto has ushered in a whole new era of thieves and the attacks are becoming much more sophisticated with each passing day.
Listen to your gut.
Listen to your soul.
If something does not feel right, hold firm when it comes to you opening up your digital wallet or giving up key information to a third party.
Make the extra effort
Crypto is an industry where many of the relationships you foster start and may continue on as purely virtual. There are so many wonderful souls in this industry and each of us has our own unique story.
Take the time to learn some of your friend’s stories, the path they have walked. If you meet someone in the space and you disagree with them, on a divisive topic show them kindness when they are expecting ruthlessness.
There is something truly special about this space when we put our egos aside and come together. Some of the best moments of my life have come from working with the people in this industry and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Keep your money off exchanges as much as possible
If you could see behind the scenes of some of the biggest crypto exchanges, you would quite literally soil yourself - I "shit" you not. Imagine what banks do with customers’ money, then 100x with exchanges that have little regulation.
Centralized exchanges are black holes for crypto as their world is a closed book to the public. This is why crime is so rampant among crypto exchanges today.
If you are receiving an incentive from the exchange to leave coins on the exchange, that is the interest you receive for putting your coins at risk with a 3rd party.
Not your Keys = Not your coins
Use decentralized exchanges or make short-term trades on centralized exchanges. Do not leave coins on any exchange long term unless you are doing so with full knowledge of the risk you incur.
Security is your friend
Before buying crypto for the first time, one should go through a crash course in crypto security. Without that, we are all just one bad decision away from losing it all.
I want you to watch out for the following. If you aren't sure, just ask someone you trust before making a decision.
- Hackers spoof emails of popular companies and create dummy sites that resemble the real company (for example, Coinbase). Check the website URL before entering in your personal information when accessing sites that you did not bookmark.
- Do not click random Discord / WhatsApp / Telegram links to unknown airdrops or giveaways. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. When in doubt, avoid and forget.
- Always ensure you know who you are really speaking to online. Impersonation of individuals is a constant attack vector so if a friend is reaching out randomly asking for help, first verify who they are before proceeding.
- Always Triple check the address field before sending crypto payments. Malware exists in all forms that will replace your sending address you copied and paste the hacker’s address in instead. Make sure you do your sanity check before clicking "Send".
- Use 2FA wherever possible and ensure you are using app-based services like Authy to generate your 2FA. Do not use SMS-based 2FA as it is an attack vector for SIM hacks that have successfully stolen hundreds of millions of dollars.
Profit and quality of life
Like everything in Life, moderation is key. The best way to live is to live well and this means a high quality of Life.
As you create wealth for yourself you will want to invest some of that into areas of your life that are not dominated by charts or red and green colored candles.
- Get a better mattress to sleep on, you spend 1/3rd of your life on it and it powers the other 2/3rd's of you.
- Spend money to free up your Time for hobbies. We become more interesting and creative when we have hobbies as outlets. Hobbies are a luxury these days, indulge in them.
- Improve your diet and the quality of food you put into you. We are what we eat, end of the story.
- Help someone you know as there is nothing better in this World than the feeling of helping others selflessly.
- Make sure your physical surroundings make you happy. I mean, they create a feeling of happiness inside of you. Maybe you no longer need the apt, you can spare a few coins to get a bigger space or a house outright.
- The place we spent most of our waking hours should inspire and bring out the best in us, or why else are we still there?
- Go on a fucking vacation and put down the phone, crypto will still be around after happy hour, I promise.
Money is simply a means to an end
Do you like the person you are today? Good.
Now, let's see the type of person you are once you have 5M USD to your name.
You learn a lot about yourself and others around you once vast amounts of wealth are introduced. How we respond to the World and how the World responds to us is perhaps the greatest theme no one dare speak about in crypto. With the amount of money being made here, someone needs to.
One should not find themselves changing who they are and what they represent because they have an increase in wealth.
Money is simply a means to an end, never lose sight of that.
Too many of our friends did along the way and there is often no coming back from it.
Crypto values hype over utility
This is a really, really weird space, isn't it? You can come up with an idea and flesh it out a bit, round up some troops and within half a year or less, you have a crypto company with a token offering raking up millions.
Investors’ mindset is to accept promises made today of a much better tomorrow. The problem is that too often, tomorrow never comes. This is the Hype Machine and it feeds off of the dreams of gamblers and investors alike, looking for the next quick 10x fix. It doesn't really matter to many if the tech works, as long as they get paid to play the game.
I got into the industry when there was a total of 4 coins on CMC, so I was 'in it for the tech' boys and girls. There are only a handful of blockchains today that have real value to offer the masses (people with under $100 to their name).
Those networks are starting to march down the path of taking their rightful place upon the Throne of Crypto. Until then, dogs, lizards, goats, pigs, and whatever else you can find on an Alabama farm will keep dominating the charts.
This is a phase of crypto and it is what it is, enjoy it while it lasts as the future will be much more focused on true utility, something utterly scarce in crypto today.
'Rumor has it'
Several top crypto influencers habitually trade against their own advice, and thus their own customers and fan base. There are many reasons why this happens but all of them revolve around Greed.
I cannot go into too much depth on this topic so I will only say this: “None of these people should be influencing you to do much of anything. You need unbiased advice to make sound financial decisions.”
This does not mean some of these individuals cannot be great sources of knowledge. I know many that can be.
I also know that he or she who controls undue influence over the people is a universally prime target for conflicts of interest.
It's Ok to be nervous, this stuff can be scary
If you have been watching on the sidelines for years and just couldn't build up the nerve to get into crypto yet, I do really understand. This space goes faster than most on Earth and it never sleeps.
Additionally, It's ok to feel overwhelmed if you are in the industry already. Let's just cut to the chase - there is a lot of money, emotions, politics, and very little sleep involved often.
That is a lot for anyone to handle, and we do it every single day. Day in and Day out. We take on a lot and crypto is not an easily relatable rabbit hole to venture down, is it?
Every single one of us could probably due with a deep breath in and even a big hug once in a while. I know I could.
Talking about these parts of our life help demystify them for us all, make sure you invest into yourself enough to make this a priority.
Sometimes the simple act of sharing these things as a community breaks down the very walls that created the barrier, to begin with, love.
Embrace the art of controlling your emotions
There are many reasons why but most of them boil down to psychology. If buying low and selling high is such sage advice, why do most people lose money overall when investing?
The emotional state you hold will be the lens you view the World through. During that time of a very bad or good mood, things will look skewed to the up or downside.
Beware about trading crypto and being too high or too low. Both are dangerous for the exact same reason, they simply play out differently. If you are too caught up in the groundswell of an emotional state, just walk away from the phone or laptop. The more regulated version of you a few hours later will be very happy for it.
Lastly, if you are unable to control your emotions routinely you will eventually be discovered by someone who can easily manipulate your decision-making. This is discussed behind closed doors and is often at the root of a lot of scams pulled off on unsuspecting investors.
Learn to build and research during bear markets
They suck and they always last longer than the Bulls. Bear markets can be a blessing as they remove the industry participants that were speculating on short-term gains.
The people who hang around during bear markets tend to have thicker skin and a stronger conviction for the technology and ethos it promotes.
Putting your head down and getting to work is the mindset when there isn't easy money to be made. The focus shifts back to utility and organic value creation. Hawt stuff.
If you can learn how to survive in the long bear market of Crypto Winter, you will have a field day during the Summer of the Bull.
Going against the crowd gains your wealth and loses your friends
Simply put, the crowd is rarely right. The Crowd got it wrong with Bitcoin years ago.
Within crypto, the crowd is really "the tribe" as there exists a high degree of tribalism. If you attempt to be agnostic or join the 'wrong' tribe, you can expect to be attacked by random people on the internet via social media.
The best investment opportunities are born out of situations that crypto seemingly cultivates weekly now. If you have the stones to bet against the crowd in crypto you can often make a fortune.
Just don't tell the tribe that.
The ones that say the least often yield the most power
There are few exceptions to this rule it seems. In crypto, the ones pulling the strings are rarely the ones being hit up for AMA's or podcasts or blowing up Twitter with 20K retweets.
There is a hierarchy and the handful of people with true influence and power in the space are almost never heard from by design.
Everyone has a role to play in this show and it has been utterly fucking fascinating to have a front-row seat to it for so long now.
"Truth is Stranger than Fiction.”
You cannot help someone who is not ready to be helped
Boy, did I struggle with this well into my 30's? The reality that many of my friends were not interested in such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity truly floored me. Then it happened again with another good friend, then another and another.
As I spent more time with other early adopters back then I found them recounting the same frustrating experiences. "Ya man, no one listened to me so I’m glad I met you guys finally".
The issue was never with my friends not being ready, the issue was with me not being able to accept that reality. Over the years I have learned ways to connect with people in such a powerful manner that they have a real struggle to not follow my lead - this took time and it's a skill I work at daily.
The bottom line here? When someone isn't ready, they aren't ready. All one can do is be supportive and wait for the Time to come where their path leads them to you because it will happen one day.
Faith is a beautiful thing.
Learning how to effectively assess a project for investment
First off, anyone can be fooled, Anyone.
That being said, often the easiest one to fool is well, a fool. To avoid foolish decisions, we want to always fall back on some detective PI work to help us determine if a project is worth our coinage.
- Public team members with a proven track record of success
- Strong focus on the utility of their products versus the hype of their products
- Clear rationale on why the project needs its own token. If there isn't a strong reason, the potential for a cash grab increases.
- Realistic road maps mean a timeline with realistic goals outlined that aligns with the company's stated vision. If they are promising the World, be wary.
- Are they operating out of a jurisdiction that has no crypto regulation or recourse if funds are stolen? Part of the setup for a rug pull is ensuring you operate in a region that gives you coverage against justice (legal).
- Do their tokenomics make sound financial sense? If they are an NFT, does the supply make sense for what the NFT represents?
- How accessible are the founders? New projects need to prove themselves as they are unknown commodities. Good startups understand this and work to foster a relationship with their industry. If the founders are not accessible to the public it is rarely a good sign.
- Are the employees that work for the project happy? Sometimes simply striking up a convo with a community manager or marketer can reveal priceless information not found in white papers or Twitter chart analysis.
- How well funded are they? If they are living off of token / NFT sales and have no fiat operating capital, they are exposed to market downturns. Make sure you know what a company's financial picture looks like before jumping into what may be a sinking ship with them.
Gains and losses don't happen until they are realized
This means that until you exit a position, you haven't yet actualized the gain or loss.
Beware the friend who always claims they made $ on random NFT's or shitcoins - until they sell out and take profit into liquid crypto or fiat, it's all talk.
The same works for positions when you are in the red and taking a loss. The loss isn't 'real' until you exit the position and thus establish it. If the situation allows, riding it out may well bring you back into a profit situation.
Knowing your limits to the up and downside is important to establish early on.
Completed crypto trades are the only ones that establish a true gain or loss.
Have a succession plan for your crypto
It is a grizzly matter to discuss however the cycle of Life completes for us all eventually.
Ensuring you have a system in place to safeguard your crypto is key in the event of an untimely passing or incapacitation.
Whether you are doing this through a lawyer or have a personal arrangement, work on a plan and have family that you trust to help enact that plan. Losing someone close will be tough enough as it is, having to learn that family wealth was irretrievably lost adds insult to a deep injury.
It's not a fun topic to discuss yet the act of protecting you and your family’s financial interests will be one of the most important acts you commit to for them.
If you have questions on this topic, reach out and ask as we all will have to eventually find time for this.
The Learning process never ends
It will simply evolve into new types of experiences that you can extract knowledge from. There are thousands of tiny pitfalls in crypto that can foil even the wisest OG's perfect trade. Some things that catch newbies and OG's off guard:
- Not knowing a coin's status that is being deposited on an exchange. The trading pair(s) could be down and / or withdrawals can be frozen. Many a trader have wasted precious time in a hot market or needlessly trapped coins on exchanges temporarily due to a lack of simple research.
Don't get Hotel California.
- Spending astronomical gas fees via Ethereum main net due to not paying close attention. I cannot recount the number of times I have heard someone tell me: "I think I just paid... a lot of money in gas here... I wasn't really watching closely."
- Make sure you are buying the real thing when it comes to NFT's. Oftentimes scammers will put up replica NFT products in hopes of roping in a clueless investor that is new to the scene. OpenSea is notorious for this.
- Paying too low a TX fee when needing a quick turnaround time. This happens at the worst possible moments seemingly yet it is common still. Make sure the new wallet you set up has market-ready TX settings before you begin actively using it.
- Forgetting about money in old wallets is a common occurrence. Oftentimes in a currency's infancy it has a low USD value. Over time this can dramatically increase and wallets that had a balance of $33 USD in 2017 can now be worth $3000 USD in 2021.
- Not leaving enough ETH in your wallet to complete a transaction, thus triggering the need to spend more money and time acquiring the extra required. Try and keep a watchful eye on your spending costs versus TX costs when using Ethereum mainnet.
