I got into crypto in April 2020, during my Youth Service (NYSC). I had heard about crypto in previous years, but none of it made much sense to me, so I just ignored most of the talk about it. Then in April 2020, after COVID struck, I had some free time on my hands and started doing some reading on crypto, especially Bitcoin and Ethereum. At the time, I had some extra cash to spare because I was getting NYSC allowance, but the lockdown was in effect, so I wasn’t going out at all. I put some of this into buying some Bitcoin. It was around $7,000 back then.
Over the next few months, I continued manually depositing some money into my crypto wallet. I set up a reminder just after the day I’d receive my monthly allowances from both NYSC and my PPA (Place of Primary Assignment). I did this to ensure I didn’t forget to make regular deposits.
Between April 2020, when I bought my first zero-point-something bitcoin and January 2021, the crypto-market was on a steady bull run that saw the price of bitcoin go from around $7,000 to a bit above $40,000. And the implication for investors, like myself, is that the assets we had were steadily appreciating. Those were incredibly good times! I would sometimes open my exchange account to look at the worth of the BTC (Bitcoin) and ETH (Ethereum) I had there, smile, and then close the app right back. At that point, I was still making my regular monthly deposits then, so life was really good.
Then, still in January 2021, I experienced my first major bear run- the complete opposite of a bull run. BTC went from above $40k and went back down to around $32k. It was quite the experience because I would wake up every day throughout the month, and my balance was somehow less than it was the previous day. I remember wondering whether I should still make my regular monthly deposit because, at that point, it seemed like everything was going to keep crashing.
At that point, I figured there had to be a better long term strategy to making regular investments in crypto than depositing lump sums and letting the market do what the market does – fluctuate!
I did some personal reading and learnt about dollar-cost averaging. It was, in a way, what I was doing already, but I wanted a way to automate it because while I was still making regular deposits, I was also taking my time, trying to figure out a good entry point. Also, I missed out on some good prices when the market dips by just buying once monthly. I wanted to be able to buy crypto weekly, or maybe even daily, but that sounded like a lot of extra work involving spreadsheets and setting a lot of reminders, so I just stuck to buying once monthly and praying I wasn’t buying the top.
Then when Accrue launched in the last quarter of 2021, it was the answer to my prayers. I joined the Beta Community set up a plan in October, and it’s been a smooth sail ever since. All I have to do is fund my account with lump sums at intervals, and there are several options for funding your account.
My biggest crypto mistakes:
One crypto mistake that I’ve made a bit too frequently is diving into a coin or token or project because it’s in the news a lot and is suddenly experiencing a bull run. This dive is mostly fueled by FOMO (fear of missing out). Then I try to buy some of it to make sure I make some money off it, in the short term or the long term. I’ve made some money doing this, but I’ve probably lost more money than I have made. FOMO-ing into crypto projects is a terrible idea! Considering how volatile the market can be since we’re still in the early days of crypto and hundreds of projects popping up every year.
I think one other big crypto mistake I’ve made so far was withdrawing a chunk of the money I had in crypto to loan someone some money. It wasn’t an emergency. They just needed the money for something and when they reached out, I was like “sure, I’ll get it for you.” I withdrew and sent the money to them. This was around September 2020 and BTC was hovering around $11k then. Shortly after, BTC went up to $40k and although I was still making my monthly deposits, I often felt like I was caught outside the club. Can you imagine how much more money I would’ve had if I kept all of that cash in?
How does Accrue help me?
My crypto investment is long term, so with Accrue, I’m able to keep investing every day (or week, or month) through the long term and continue through the short term ups and downs. I love that the whole process is automated.
Accrue helps me avoid making unnecessary withdrawals because breaking plans comes with a tiny percentage cut, enough to help me question whether I really need to withdraw this money. So far, I’ve not had to, and that works perfectly fine for me.
Accrue has been great so far because it has helped me remain optimistic whenever I sense that we’re in a bear market. I only invest in coins and tokens that I have some degree of confidence in, so whenever prices start to fall, I don’t fret so much. This is because I know I’m still buying, even as the prices go lower. So when the market stabilizes and those coins start to appreciate again, I get to reap the benefits – all without having to time the market manually.