Bear markets are no fun. I like when number go up cause I get pretty euphoric. That said, I am not having fun right now. Number has been going down (or sideways depending on your timeframe). Cause of that, lots of people who have entered the crypto space during its good times check out. I can’t fault people for leaving during tough times. However, I will list a couple things that keep me engaged and I hope that they may help someone survive the bear market.

My Magic Moment

Honestly the tech in blockchains are pretty cool. I think everyone has to hit their magic moment in order to realize this. My magic moment was when I first traded on EtherDelta. EtherDelta was a decentralized exchange (Uniswap didn’t exist at the time for you youngins) where users could trade ERC-20 tokens without a centralized party. I was speculating that I could buy tokens before they would be listed on Coinbase. In hindsight, I wasn’t very successful and bought many shitcoins that went to 0, but it gave me a great experience transitioning from a crypto holder into a crypto user.

Decentralization and Permissionless

Traditional finance is typically unfair or unavailable to those who are underprivileged. Apps like Aave and Compound are examples where I start to see financial services that serve the everyday people. Users don’t need to sign up for an account. They don’t need to be KYC’ed. The only limitations are having internet and some crypto assets (gas fees are different story for a different day).

I also appreciate self-custody. I would hate to have my life savings stored in a bank, only to have the bank itself or my government, to confiscate everything that I have. Self-custody does have some risks, but I kinda trust cryptography a bit more than I trust financial institutions and governments.

Regret Minimization

I bought my first partial BTC in 2013 and stopped paying attention after I sold for 4x. I started accumulating ETH in 2016 and my attention faded after the peak in Jan 2018. Looking back my biggest regrets were that I didn’t stay engaged in bear markets. I could have been so much richer, but that doesn’t mean I am not grateful for what I have now!

I’ll be damn sure to stay focused on anything interesting in this bear market. But to be honest, it’s hard not to compared to previous bear markets. There’s so much going on in DeFi and NFTs (my two favorite things btw) that I just can’t not look away.

Building

While I am admittedly a terrible trader, I am at least a decent developer. I’ve been building at RabbitHole, where we onboard people into the best crypto protocols. It has been quite rewarding on both personal and career perspectives. Building also keeps me kinda distracted from market fluctuations.

It’s not just me building, but the smartest, most talented, and most interesting people are diving into crypto full-time (don’t fade them!).

Anyways, I hope you have enjoyed reading the first article I’ve written in a while. Don’t be afraid and petrified of the bear market -- its where the best opportunities are made.