Lately, I have found myself overly cautious. Markets like this have a unique way of turning even the highest-conviction bull into a perpetual cynic. Inherently, most participants joined with an expectation of asymmetry, the premise of outsized returns, yet somehow instead found themselves stuck in recursive cycles of volatility and, to a larger extent, disappointment. Increasingly more, I hear the refrain that the market is “boring”. This really has a way of throwing me off.
Is it truly boring as so many claim?
Or has it simply been unrewarding for your bags, and we stopped having everything experience a parabolic moment and do silly numbers? 10-20x? (We did have Aster, Zcash, Plasma and other tokens melt faces in a similar fashion, fyi).
It is rather ironic that the more time I spend around markets, the more I view them through the same lens as poker. The top percentile hone in on optimising the process itself vs fetishising the result and outcomes like many of us succumb to in the space. In markets, this becomes exponentially harder; we largely operate with incomplete information, blurred and often delayed feedback loops, as well as path-dependent outcomes.
It is with a heavy heart that I say the addiction to volatility in my mind has deeply ossified into our culture and way of being.
We are in a place where we conflate action with progress, having exposure to developed conviction, randomness and honestly blatant luck, with a particular skillset. Inevitably misaligning timeframes and expressions.
For the most part, it is worth asking: Are you a trader? A persistent bag holder? Or just a hopeful one slightly high off copium?
The human mind is genuinely rather remarkable in its capacity to rationalise and then proceed to stomach things (personally guilty of periodically outsized copium) and honestly turns into the most efficient liquidity sink of all. I think operating under the assumption that most reap what they truly seek from markets is not a bad frame of thought, per se. Some seek validation or adrenaline or a sense of belonging, and I think for all of us universally, if you are playing the game, you seek capital. Capital preservation, let alone wealth creation, even a semblance of it, demands restraint, a kind of intellectual sobriety.
In the end, making money as an idea is awesome; it is mouth-filling. Objectively, who would not want to? Although in practice it is, in most cases, rather a tedious and boring process that requires the highest level of pedigree and, as with everything worthwhile, time. In my eyes, it is largely dependent on one’s discipline, patience and overall technical acumen.
Same as in poker, where the game will reward those who can detach from trepidation & recency bias, those who are here for the love of the game over the individual outcome and will continue no matter the weather, the time of day, nor the hand they are dealt.
I have had this line stuck in my head, and I think it is only appropriate to close out this spree of thought with it.
“The two hardest tests on the spiritual road are the patience to wait for the right moment & the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter.”