What Does HODL Mean? How a Typo Became a Crypto Meme

what is hodl

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. The value of a single Bitcoin has gone from under a dollar when it first came out more than a decade ago to five-digit figures in recent years. Despite high market volatility, many cryptocurrency owners believe in the long-term financial prospects of Bitcoin and other tokens. At the same time, many other people believe that buying cryptocurrency is equivalent to gambling. Therefore, traders interested in crypto need to carefully understand what they’re investing in with crypto.

Understanding the HODL strategy

Cryptocurrency is still relatively new and isn’t subject to the same regulation as traditional investing. As with any investment, you should make sure you understand cryptocurrency before you begin investing. HODL is a term used in the cryptocurrency world to describe a buy-and-hold investing strategy. The best time to HODL is when you have a firm conviction in the potential of a cryptocurrency and are willing to ride out market fluctuations. It’s not about short-term gains but the belief in the technology and its future value.

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This means that you can get started with GPU computing quickly and easily, without having to worry about managing your own hardware. The term is, however, used to describe huge losses, and even though ‘huge’ is considered a relative term, losing a lot of coins qualifies as being rekt. The new definition helped illustrate the gist of HODLing to the masses. It takes a lot of emotional strength not to sell a plummeting asset, hoping that it will revert to greater heights. Upgrading to a paid membership gives you access to our extensive collection of plug-and-play Templates designed to power your performance—as well as CFI’s full course catalog and accredited Certification Programs. Take your learning and productivity to the next level with our Premium Templates.

HODL: A typo that became a crypto investing strategy

The term originated from a 2013 online post to the Bitcointalk forum where the typo appeared. The price of Bitcoin in 2013 was volatile at the time, surging to over $950 at the beginning of December 2013, up from just over $130 in April of the same year. The poster encouraged people not to sell and that they were “hodling” [sic]. On the crypto side, the markets were weighed down primarily due to fears of a supply overhang. For Bitcoin, the German government began liquidating its $3 billion position and the timeline of the $9 billion Mt. Gox distributions was confirmed. Like many investing philosophies or mindsets, the importance of sticking to your plan may be as important as having a good plan in the first place.

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what is hodl

The cryptocurrency world is full of exciting and interesting eccentricities, including the lingo. Hopefully, by going through this article, you have familiarized yourself with some of the more common unique terminologies used within the blockchain space. 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. The term ‘flippening’ is used within the crypto circles to refer to a hypothetical moment in which the market capitalization of Ethereum surpasses that of Bitcoin. The latter is the oldest and largest cryptocurrency by network value and Ethereum’s market cap has trailed Bitcoin’s for several years. 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.

But long-term cryptocurrency investors, on the other hand, tend to hope for more substantial gains. Although the term HODL originated in the crypto community, stock market investors have been HODLing for a long time. You can HODL any stock you own, but its usually best to avoid HODLing risky stocks.

Bonds with higher yields or offered by issuers with lower credit ratings generally carry a higher degree of risk. All fixed income securities are subject to price change and availability, and yield is subject to change. Bond ratings, if provided, are third party opinions on the overall bond’s credit worthiness at the time the rating is assigned.

Options transactions are often complex, and investors can rapidly lose the entire amount of their investment or more in a short period of time. Investors should consider their investment objectives and risks carefully before investing in options. Refer to the Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options before considering any options transaction.

  1. HODLing is an investment strategy derived from the traditional financial world where it is referred to as buy and hold.
  2. Most investors are likely to experience emotions of FOMO at least once in their investing career, usually a lot more than that.
  3. It’s not about short-term gains but the belief in the technology and its future value.
  4. When the time comes to sell several years down the line, reflecting on your goals will help realize profits and understand that it is better to leave the last 10% to the rest.
  5. Many long-term HODLers take the examples of successful gains as a validation of a strategy that at times can border on zealotry.
  6. The post, which expressed frustration over his inability to play the markets, started with the infamous line I AM HODLING.

Depending on your investment strategy and risk profile, HODLing can be a good approach. However, crypto markets are highly unstable and there is no guarantee that HODLing will be successful. Each investor should make a decision based on their goals and risk tolerance. If youre uncertain about your ability to play the market or want a long-term investing strategy, HODLing may be right for you. Cryptocurrency is a type of digital currency supported by blockchain technology.

It can be difficult for even professional traders to time short-term trades. And there are psychological biases that negatively impact investors’ decision-making. Since the original HODL forum was posted in December 2013, Bitcoin prices are up about 2,500%.

what is hodl

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. It is, however, more difficult to engage in market timing strategies in crypto where price volatility is high. HODLing is an easier and more rational method to take when investing in blockchain projects. In crypto, the comparable strategy to value investment would be ‘HODLing,’ which works the same way.

There’s legitimate FUD, as in when a serious problem has arisen that’s spooked the community. China’s ban of ICOs caused everyone in the ecosystem to freak out, reasonably so at the time. The phrase has also been (mistakenly) described as meaning “Hold on for dear life.” It works, but it’s not where the term came from. Courtesy of the acute bull run the cryptocurrency space just experienced, there’s more new Bitcoiners and the like to welcome than ever before. Ledgers are also much more secure than ‘hot wallets’, that are used on centralized exchanges, with the added security bonus of having exclusive access to your coins.

Dollar-Cost Averaging attempts to reduce volatility with repeated entries over a long period of time, creating an average entry price if you ever stop buying the asset completely. The effectiveness of this strategy is profound and when utilized properly can remove almost all emotions away from investing, usually for no effort at all. When following this strategy, total revenue in economics: definition and formula the accumulation of your crypto of choice is the only metric that happens. When the term was invented, by forum poster ‘Gamekyuubi’ misspelling hold all the way back in 2013. If an investor was to follow his advice when Bitcoin was trading at $100, they would have more than 300x their initial investment without ever touching it, proving the art of Hodl.

But these phrases have extended beyond crypto to other assets, such as stocks. During the run-up in the stocks of GameStop and AMC in 2021, individual traders rallied around the phrases, egging each other on to continue to hold or even buy more on the dips. The term HODL emerged from a 2013 message board post on the Bitcointalk forum as an errant misspelling.

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. “I believe this is crucial for new investors because they are more likely to act emotionally or impulsively,” Porter says. Bitcoin’s extreme volatility has produced a handful of horrendous annual returns throughout the years. For example, Bitcoin shed 50% of its value in less than 48 hours of the Covid-19 pandemic-induced sell-off in March 2020. The original crypto plunged to $4,000 before ending the year around $29,000.

The cryptocurrency space is still extremely new and it’s likely most coins around now will not be around in the future, so choosing the correct coins and projects to HODL matters for long-term success. Remember, the cryptocurrency market does not have a proven track record of over 100 years like the stock market, so hedging your bets on the largest coins now would be most experts’ advice on beginning to HODL crypto. It’s important to state that debating whether or not a HODL strategy is worth it when investing in cryptocurrency is entirely different from the question of whether to invest in cryptocurrency at all.

The value of T-bills fluctuate and investors may receive more or less than their original investments if sold prior to maturity. T-bills are subject to price change https://cryptolisting.org/ and availability – yield is subject to change. Investments in T-bills involve a variety of risks, including credit risk, interest rate risk, and liquidity risk.