Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire

Happy Friday Bitcoiners!

My timeline this morning was a graveyard of broken dreams.

Will Clemente tweeted that his crypto groupchats were "just sad honestly, people completely giving up" (note the word ‘crypto’ and not ‘bitcoin’ 😂).

Joe Consorti was also dropping charts showing BTC just had its worst October in 11 years!

And the White Whale (ranked #1 on Hyperliquid just a few weeks ago)? Well, he got liquidated for $62 million across various trading platforms.

Meanwhile, if he'd just held spot Bitcoin, he'd be down ~15%. Instead, he's down 100%. From hero to zero - all because he just got bored.

That's the thing about leverage - it promises to save you from the frying pan of sideways price action. Instead, it throws you straight into the fire.

This week we're diving into👇

• Why boredom is the most expensive emotion in finance

• The three-act tragedy playing out in real-time

• How to not become the next cautionary tale

Let's get it⚡

1️⃣ Boredom: The Portfolio Killer

I waste 20 minutes every morning doom scrolling Twitter and Instagram. That's 120 hours a year training myself to need constant stimulation.

The average person checks their phone almost 100 times every single day. We're junkies for action. So when Bitcoin goes sideways for months, we get desperate, we get bored and we seek out new dopamine hits (just like I do every morning when I check my phone).

This boredom is so expensive, it cost one crypto influencer is life. He died in his Lamborghini in Ukraine after the October 10th deleveraging event when his scam could no longer pay a return to his investors.

During Bitcoin's five-month chop, volumes across cex’s and dex’s exploded from boredom, not opportunity.

As we explored in The Art of Doing Nothing, the best performing accounts belong to dead people who can't lever up (or those who forget about their Bitcoin altogether).

2️⃣ The Three-Act Leverage Tragedy

Act 1: The Treasury Stock Trap

Bitcoin was essentially been stuck between $100-120k since May of this year. Five months of chop.

So what do people do without their Bitcoin price volatility dopamine hits? They buy "Bitcoin Treasury Companies" at insane premiums for "leverage to Bitcoin’s price”.

Their results since July - I’ll let you be the judge 👇

• NAKA: $11.50 to $0.80 (-93%)

• HOGPF: $1.00 to $0.30 (-81%)

• MTPLF: $1,300 to $491 (-62%)

• MSTR: $430 to $254 (-41%)

Bitcoin? Down a mere 15%.

NAKA's CEO capitulated, saying they'll "get this over with as quickly as possible".

Imagine investing in NAKA and losing 93% because holding spot Bitcoin was too boring.

Act 2: The October Massacre

October 10th. The White Whale at #1 on Hyperliquid. Twenty-four hours later? Liquidated for $48 million on Hyperliquid alone ($60M+ across all his positions).

His liquidation cascaded as billions in longs were vaporized in less than 12 hours.

Act 3: The Capitulation

Bitcoin at $107k. Clemente's groupchats are "jaded, depressed, defeated". People rage-quitting for NVIDIA.

Peak despair. Leverage players wiped, abandoning ship instead of learning. Classic behavior we commented on in one of our previous articles (The Ego Trap).

3️⃣ The Boredom Antidote

So, how to prevent yourself from becoming a sucker for leverage?

1. Rewire Your Morning

Starting tomorrow, I'm going cold turkey - no phone for the first 20 minutes after waking. No Twitter, no charts, no dopamine hits.

Why? If I can't handle 20 minutes without stimulation, how can I handle months of sideways price action without reaching for leverage?

Every successful Bitcoin hodler I know has trained themselves to tolerate boredom. I'll report back in two weeks, but I already know this will work.

2. Zoom Out or Get Rekt

Everyone's whining about Bitcoin at $107k. "NVIDIA's up more! Gold's outperforming!"

But look closer at the chart below:

NVIDIA beats Bitcoin on every timeframe under a decade. But zoom out? Bitcoin destroys everything. The catch? You have to survive the boring parts to capture the violent upside.

Every cycle has dead zones where Bitcoin does nothing while shitcoins moon. Then suddenly, violently, Bitcoin rips everyone's face off. But only if you didn't get shaken out during the chop.

3. Stack Dry Powder (as well as Sats)

Revolutionary idea: Don't be 100% invested all the time. Ok fine, its not exactly a “revolutionary” idea but it is something that’s not talked about enough.

We’re often too busy being Bitcoin maximalists and always stacking sats to think about setting aside a small cash portion to buy the dip.

Remember - its totally ok to keep 5-10% in cash. Not to time the bottom, but because opportunity rewards the prepared.

Six months ago, everyone screamed "$250k guaranteed!". Now they're liquidated while cash holders accumulate at the $100k level.

As Understanding Your Circle of Competence taught us - know what game you're playing. This isn't the quarterly performance game. It's the generational wealth game.

Key Takeaway

Boredom has liquidated more portfolios than any bear market.

The White Whale went from #1 to almost nothing. NAKA shareholders lost 93% in less than two quarters. And holders of almost any Bitcoin equity have had their wealth absolutely decimated.

All because sideways price action made them reach for the leverage needle.

Your job isn't to get rich quick - it's to not get poor quick. And nothing makes you poor faster than getting bored of getting rich slowly.

The frying pan of sideways action sucks. But it's paradise compared to the flames of liquidation.

Stay bored out there,

@Publius256

P.S. We’re doing our best to orange pill the world by helping educate and share timeless Bitcoin principles.

If you enjoyed reading this article, please consider sharing it on Twitter (we'll retweet one audience member each week from @BitcoinNewsCom).