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With buy-and-hold investing, you generally choose stocks based on a company’s long-term success and prospects. Before investing, review the company’s standing, looking at things like earnings and sales, vision and background of management, and the overall status of the industry. HODLers typically focus on the long-term prospects of digital assets and don’t chase immediate profit. Come back in five years, Hexn and you’ll find that some of today’s hottest cryptos never quite made it to the moon, and that diamond-hand hodlers lost a lot of money. There are thousands of cryptocurrencies on the market today, and the number of long-term winners in that group is much smaller. Some cryptocurrencies are jokes, others are money-making frauds, and another group has all the right intentions but flawed technical designs.

It’s impossible to argue that long-term Bitcoin HODLers have not done well. Since its debut in 2009, Bitcoin’s value has climbed from just pennies to more than $60,000 at one point. So, a long-term buy-and-hold approach would have returned traders many times their initial investment, because the strategy prevented them from selling when things got tough. Whether you’re new to crypto or a seasoned investor, it’s important to make informed decisions about strategy—and that means knowing your options. Anyone interested in crypto’s future should understand what HODL means.

HODL or…?

Public’s Recurring Investing feature can help you use this strategy by automating your crypto investments. Trading digital currency is risky and the price canfluctuate significantly. On the other hand, the buy-and-hold strategy is widely considered to be a sound investing approach.

• Buy-and-hold investing occurs when individuals purchase an asset—often stock—and hold it for a period of many years.
• After all, we know that cryptocurrency doesn’t have the same proven track record that the stock market has.
• To make sense of such crypto-slang, CNBC Make It asked Peter Saddington, a serial entrepreneur and early bitcoin investor who runs a bitcoin community called The Bitcoin Pub, to break it down.
• HODLing requires a long time horizon, so it’s usually best for investors that don’t need access to their cash for a long time.
• As a result, hodlers are theoretically safe from some trading tendencies, be it buying at a high price or selling at a low price (the latter is also known as “SODL” – a less commonly used term derived from “HODL”).

Buy-and-hold investors tend to hold their assets for an extended period of time to profit from the long-term value appreciation. In contrast, traders are much more active in transactions and seek returns by buying at low prices and selling at high prices. This strategy relies on the theory that, although there may be short-term volatility in the market, stocks will provide a good return over the long term. However, as with crypto investments, it’s recommended to have a diversified portfolio and make well-informed decisions based on research or financial advice. However, whether it’s a good strategy or not depends largely on the individual’s risk tolerance, investment goals, and the specific cryptocurrencies they are investing in. Like all investment strategies, HODLing has its risks, including the potential for significant losses due to the market volatility of cryptocurrencies.

Does it make sense to HODL?

Some investors choose to HODL after buying during price drops, while others continuously invest over time, a strategy known as dollar-cost averaging. While some HODLers store their virtual currencies on centralized crypto exchanges (platforms for buying and selling cryptocurrency), many prefer to move their assets to self-custodial hardware wallets. A self-custodial wallet is strictly managed by the wallet holder, meaning there’s no centralized intermediary between the trader and their crypto. Keeping assets in a “cold” hardware wallet, like a USB drive, prevents hacking and theft— and unlike a centralized exchange, it’s completely offline. Although hardware wallets are less convenient to use, HODLers are hanging on to their assets for years, so they only have to worry about keeping the device safe until it’s time to sell.

• Our editorial team receives no direct compensation from advertisers, and our content is thoroughly fact-checked to ensure accuracy.
• Generally speaking, we recommend owning stocks for at least five years.
• Different countries and parties express different attitudes towards the use of cryptocurrencies.
• The misspelling set off a frenzy in the online world of crypto investors and the term quickly became a meme.

One in which long-term profits are sought, trying to get the maximum benefit from the cryptocurrencies they have. Moreover, in a normal crypto trading environment, people make money by buying and selling coins as their prices fluctuate. However, it’s actually this trading activity that causes  cryptocurrency markets to fluctuate, this is because they’re largely based on the forces of supply and demand. Increased demand pushes prices upwards while significant selling pressure drives prices lower.

“HODL,” one of the most frequently used terms in the cryptocurrency world, originated years ago from a typo.

The phrase makes more sense when used to refer to worthless coins or tokens – also called ‘shitcoins’ – that have little to no utility outside speculation. Just like HODL, BTD or BTFD is a term used to encourage more investment whenever an asset’s price corrects during a rally, i.e., it dips. The correction is interpreted as a chance to buy more with the expectation that the price will inevitably rebound to the previous high. The term whale means a very large marine mammal that lives in the ocean.

• Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy, so you can trust that we’re putting your interests first.
• Back in 2013, someone with the username GameKyuubi made a post on the BitcoinTalk forum.
• Blind faith in a product or idea might seem like a poor quality for an investor — like somebody refusing to sell shares of Blockbuster when Netflix was first on the rise.
• These investments are speculative, involve substantial risks (including illiquidity and loss of principal), and are not FDIC or SIPC insured.
• However, since they have outsized positions, they need to sell while everyone is buying, so they keep shilling the asset as they offload their positions and once they stop pushing it.
• With cryptocurrency, Morrison says, the importance of patience is even higher.

“HODLers” buy assets and keep them with the expectation that years down the road, they’ll be worth significantly more than they are today. It’s a healthy part of a sensible cryptocurrency investing strategy when combined with serious research into the quality and long-term prospects of your cryptocurrencies. Most of us will do better with a well-researched hodling portfolio than a short-sighted day trading approach. All investments involve the risk of loss and the past performance of a security or a financial product does not guarantee future results or returns. You should consult your legal, tax, or financial advisors before making any financial decisions.

HODL Culture

It’s a tricky game and quite challenging for traders to time their transactions exactly right so as to maximize their profits each time. However, as a HODLer, all you need to do is hold on and ignore all market fluctuations. The content of this article (the “Article”) is provided for general informational purposes only.

• Dozens of high-profile blockchains now use a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism to validate transactions.
• Value investors such as Warren Buffett use this strategy when investing whereby they identify undervalued companies, buy the stocks cheap and hold them for several years.
• The author admitted to being a ‘bad trader’ and decided to hold onto his Bitcoin investment regardless of the bear market, thus becoming one of the earliest Bitcoin investors to promote this strategy.
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Investors may have to experience extreme ups and downs of their asset values, which means they should have much larger risk appetites than investors of conventional investment instruments. They must have sufficient capital capacity to avoid forced sales or meet unexpected liquidity needs. Cryptocurrency is a type of digital currency supported by blockchain technology. It functions as a medium of exchange and can also be held as an asset or investment. Examples of cryptocurrencies include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, etc.

Can you HODL Bitcoin?

We do not include the universe of companies or financial offers that may be available to you. It’s been demonstrated that the post’s author made the correct decision. The price of Bitcoin began another surge in mid-2017 and reached a historic high of $19,167 at year-end. However, the price fell again after the 2017 surge; it hiked again during the COVID-19 pandemic and hit a new high of over $58,000 in early 2021.

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Even though this is not the original meaning, we think this covers the idea of GameKyuubi fairly well. As he said himself, in a zero-sum game like trading, they can only take your money if you sell. Low cap coins are ideal for pump and dump schemes since instigators do not need to make huge investments to achieve the desired price action. Bag holder is a negative term used to describe anyone in possession of a significant amount of coins or tokens whose value has fallen to a level that it is unprofitable to sell. The strategy has proved right for the most part, as some of the larger assets have seen incremental value gains over a number of years. However, if an analyst could zoom into the monthly price action of most of these assets it would be evident that most experienced wild rides in short-term durations.

HODLing as an investment strategy

Instead of buying low to sell high, i.e., timing the market, he would start HODLing onto his currency and not selling. “In a zero-sum game such as this, traders can only take your money if you sell,” he wrote. And if you’re a HODLer, capital gains aren’t the only way you can make money on cryptocurrency.

Pros and cons of the HODL strategy

Then, that person is left with “a coin they don’t want at a price they can’t sell it [at].” To make sense of such crypto-slang, CNBC Make It asked Peter Saddington, a serial entrepreneur and early bitcoin investor who runs a bitcoin community called The Bitcoin Pub, to break it down. Saddington first purchased bitcoin in November 2011 when one coin only cost $2.52.

The author admitted to being a ‘bad trader’ and decided to hold onto his Bitcoin investment regardless of the bear market, thus becoming one of the earliest Bitcoin investors to promote this strategy. HODLing is simple to understand, but it requires a lot of patience, discipline, and conviction. Suppose a buyer isn’t fully convinced about the future of their coins. In that case, it’s challenging to HODL through market downturns—particularly because cryptocurrencies are among the most volatile and speculative asset classes.

These schemes are often orchestrated through apps like Slack or Telegram, he adds, and advises curious chatroom readers to beware of such gimmicks. An investigation into “pump and dump” schemes by Business Insider found the practice to be an “open secret among many cryptocurrency traders.” “A whale is someone who owns a lot of cryptocurrency,” Saddington says.

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Still, if Bitcoin bulls are correct and BTC eventually becomes the world’s universal digital currency and preferred long-term store of value, long-term HODL’ers will benefit. “HODL can be employed, particularly when the market is declining, to assist investors in avoiding the urge to sell in a panic,” Porter says. Harry Turner, founder of The Sovereign Investor, says the key to Bitcoin’s long-term investing outlook is its leading market position and its fixed supply. Value investors rely on fundamental metrics like price-to-book (P/B), price-to-earnings (P/E) and price-to-sales (P/S) ratios to estimate the intrinsic value of a stock.

HODLing is a cryptocurrency investment strategy not unique to crypto but rather a rehashed term made to appeal to the eccentric crypto community. The term HODL emerged from a 2013 message board post on the Bitcointalk forum as an errant misspelling. With a relatively short history compared to other types of assets and fiat currencies, cryptocurrencies face a future with lots of unknowns. Without surveillance from a central authority, cryptocurrencies can be used for fraudulent activities, such as illegal transactions and money laundering. Hodling crypto only works with long-lived digital currencies that can build value over time. When you hodl one of the short-lived cryptos, that promised trip “to the moon” turns into a deep-sea dive with no return ticket instead.

“To HODL is an acknowledgment that while a lot of money can be made trading short-term volatility, a lot of money can also be easily lost,” Gagnon says. A good strategy, Morrison says, is to have a strong idea of why you’re investing in something when you buy it. And when you’re tempted to sell it, a key question is whether something about your analysis has changed. The devotion among HODLers comes from the culture surrounding Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, says David Duong, head of institutional research at the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase.