During the 2016 bull market, Bitcoin’s value skyrocketed 743%. During the 2021 bull market, it soared 777%. This means that a relatively small $3,000 investment at the beginning of those bull markets would've returned you a $18,000 profit.

Making money during a bull market is conceptually, quite simple.

Sure there will surely be highs, lows, corrections, and all sorts of fluctuations, but I’d take the bet that if you make 5 to 10 high conviction plays that expose you to multiple different narrative and then just forget about them entirely, you will (probably) be up in 6-12 months.

Issues arise, as we’ll see in a moment, when you try to take shortcuts.

It’s hard to believe, but when I first became interested in crypto in March 2020, Ethereum was trading at $116. By the time I write this, its value has increased 25x, and had even 40x when reaching its All Time High in November 2021.

$5,000 invested back then would be worth $138,000 today.

If I had approached investing rationally, I should have invested a portion of my capital into Ethereum, knowing it would be a slow and steady game that pays out over time when more people realize the power of this technology.

But this is not what I did.

Instead, I decided to gamble, take shortcuts, and form tricks and strategies to get more returns, more quickly. I traded in and out. I followed the latest narratives. Bided on the latest memecoins.

Some of these bets were profitable. Most weren’t. In fact, many of them led to significant losses. Four years later, I’m far from having 25x my initial investment. So why doing all these crazy things even when I know better?

I wish I could tell you it was greed. That it was for the thrill of the game. Or a tendency towards self-destruction, but the real answer stands in 4 words:

Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO)

Show me a picture of your wallet with some number in the green and my immediate response was that I needed to sell all my crypto to ape into these new coins. And not just ape a bit, but ape a lot, right now.

Forget the fact that the person probably just had an early token allocation and was now shilling his bag trying to use his followers as exit liquidity.

I. NEEDED. TO. INVEST.

And so often, I did. Not all of the time, but a fair amount of the time. I spent probably a few thousands dollars investing in the latest memecoin, chasing the daily riser as if it were the last slice of pizza at a party and I was on a diet for the past month.

And you would think that, after a few losses, I would learn my lessons.

But if you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while now, you’re probably starting to understand how my brain works, and therefore won’t be surprised that my reaction was rather:

“I must’ve done something wrong this time, let me try one more time..”

And so I returned, as always, to that dopamine machine known as crypto twitter, newsfeeding me into another vision of a perfect coin I could project all of my hopes and wishes onto.

I honestly did this for months, until finally realizing this wasn’t the way.

FOMO is completely irrational. When you see a token pumping, what you get is not only an individualistic incentive to ape into something hoping to make a 100x (that would be too easy and life isn’t supposed to be easy). No, you also get the peer pressure of everyone else doing it.

Your timeline is on fire, all your friends are already shilling their gains, and you feel left behind.

When you witness a friend making life-changing money by staking tokens into a new protocol and receiving a massive airdrop, or see a tweet about a trader flipping 1 SOL into $200,000 in 2 months, FOMO triggers that part of your brain that thinks:

"Shit, that could be me"

And at first, that feels like a good emotion – it feels like you’re learning through observation and following a data-driven path to success. It feels like you’ve spotted the small traders that seem to make the most money and believe you have a hedge that you should capitalize on.

You’ll usually go through a rabbit hole trying to figure out exactly what the person did, follow more closely their next calls, then start investing your own money.

But what’s actually occurring is you are outsourcing your emotions and rational judgment to guys pumping their bags when the good opportunities already happened.

See, in almost any area of our life, being proactive and putting in time and effort is a competitive advantage. If you want to get a job, you’ll have to send hundreds of resume. If you want a new partner, you’re in for many long and tedious date nights.

Investing is a rare exception where doing nothing is your competitive advantage.

And it’s hard. No one likes to invest, then simply let their money sleep. We all feel like we need to do something, optimize for more, and refine our strategy overtime. We’re seeking instant gratification and constant positive feedback.

But there is a reason passive has overtaken active investing in equities — it’s because it works. Want to know a sad truth?

Constant portfolio re-optimization is what destroys people in the Bull.

I've seen it time and time again. Friends feeling FOMO and constantly shifting their portfolio around by chasing the daily risers, ending up simply catching every retrace (buying too late) and then panic sell for a loss instead (selling too soon).

Because in crypto, a market driven by FOMO where all it takes is a viral tweet, an ETH address, and a few hours for hundreds of millions of dollars of capital to flow into a completely new asset, doing nothing is a competitive advantage.

Your best option to make it during this bull market?

Forget about potential 100x. Make high conviction bets and then just forget about them entirely. When a new shiny coin pops up on your radar that you are not already exposed to and you feel the FOMO, invest into it overtime instead with new funds instead of constantly re-balancing.

- Eliot

The once renowned list of entrepreneurs Forbes 30 under 30 is now depicted as a hub of criminals; shilling your prestigious job titles on Linkedin will only turn you into a meme, and Justin Bieber removed his Bored Apes NFT from his profile picture a while ago (a lost, truly). 

In an age of abundance, the power law of status signal has been reversed. 

And the new cool is to simply don’t give a fuck. 

Bragging Has Become An Implicit Sign Of Low Status

Just a couple of weeks ago, a dude named Dustin Varano decided to flex his latest achievement on Twitter, hoping to receive a stream of messages from people telling him how so amazing he was. 

But Dustin received the opposite reaction of what he was hoping for. 

The post quickly generated over 20M impressions, and thousands of people started making fun of him—tough crowd. 

In reality, it's not what Dustin posted that turned him into a meme (even though bragging about being on a yacht with 15 dudes is a weird kind of flex). 

It's simply that everyone spotted the flex.

And nothing is as unimpressive as someone trying too hard to impress.

It's like wearing a neon sign that blinks "I’m Desperate for Approval - Please Like Me." 

In short, it's just cringe. Don't try this at home. 

No, do you know what he should have done to flex successfully? 

Counter-signaling. Do the absolute opposite of what he just did.

That's what the REAL cool kids are doing to flex. 

They show they are so well off that they can afford to engage in activities and behaviors that people typically associate with low status.

Don't believe me? 

Let me make my case. 

Jack Raines, one of my favorite internet writers, publishes weekly blog posts about Finance and Career advice. In a couple of years, he grew his following to ~45,000 readers and has now managed to live from his writing. 

Now, with such promising opportunities ahead of him, you'd assume Jack would polish his Linkedin profile and showcase his impressive stats to please potential future advertisers, right? 

Well, he is doing the exact opposite.

He publishes satirical posts on Linkedin like this one, pretending he has landed a new job at Goldman Sachs by beating other candidates at a beer mile. With such kind of shitposting, Jack makes the buzz, attracts the wrath of those who think he is being serious, and prevents himself from being hired anywhere. 

But that's the whole point.

Jack is so good at writing that he can afford to counter-signal…

… which makes him even cooler and well-employable for those in the know.

*What a life*

Cobie, a thinker, writer, and crypto OG with 730K subscribers on Twitter, is another great example. 

He publishes fascinating blog posts on his Substack, and trust me, he's smarter than you and I combined. 

But guess the tagline of his newsletter? 

"Web3 Idiot, I publish without proofreading and then wish I did."

His Twitter bio? 

"Trying to kick a multi-decade internet addiction."

See, there's no mention of "Forbes 30 under 30", "ex-Google," or "founder of a very cool startup." 

He simply shows the world he doesn't give a fuck - and it works.

Alright, allow me a final example here.

Jason Levin is an online writer who I like to read from time to time. For some reason, I recently decided to go check his Linkedin profile (don't ask me why).

Here's how Jason describes his past professional experience working as a writer for a crypto publication on Linkedin:

"I partied at crypto conferences, interviewed a bunch of nerds, and wrote articles 3-5x/week for newsletter to 90,000 in crypto."

When he describes his other experiences, you can read:

"I drank a lot of coffee and made dank memes."

Now that's a flex that's so nonchalant it's practically a mic drop.

Yet, Jason seems to be doing comfortable salary writing for startups.

Why?

Because don't give a fuck is the new cool.

There's a reason why Elon Musk, one of the most powerful CEOs on the planet, doesn't show off with a Ferrari on socials but posts memes every day, smokes on a podcast and fights in a cage.

Because showing you're so well off, you can afford counter-signaling is the new ultimate flex.

See, we humans are a simple species.

We're wired for validation.

And oh boy, do we chase it.

Most of us are actually NOT desperate for more money, and we're not THAT impressed by people showing off how rich they are. We've seen so many pseudo-influencers flexing their net worth on Instagram that we're much harder to impress. 

But every single one of us is desperate for more attention, status, and respect.

And this will still be true in 100 years.

In an era where flexing how so rich you are has become too obvious to convince anyone, counter-signaling is your new best chance to get attention.

Because while money can still buy you an island and pretty much whatever you want, money doesn't buy you the intangible delight of knowing that people secretly admire you anymore.

Closing Thoughts

After being bombarded with the "Here's how I became a millionaire in 10 steps" threads, most of us learned to discount information where there are obvious motivations to exaggerate.

And don't giving a fuck has quickly become the new move to subtly say:

"I succeed so easily I don't need to flaunt my achievements - quite the opposite."

Because do you know what's cooler than winning in 2023?

Showing others you're winning so easily you can even afford counter-signaling.

Speak soon,

- Eliot

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