GM happy bulls and rekt bears and sad sidelinooors.

— Michael Winwolf (@InstinctCrypto) May 22, 2025

Me on the sidelines? What? Yeah, I don’t know. I’ve talked about it, posted about the roadmap — certainly in broad strokes. And this was a range of significance. What I didn’t plan for is that something would shake me, and I’d stand on the court holding the ball, forgetting what team I’m on, what game I’m playing. What is winning anyway, and why do I want that again? Dangerous questions. If you’re thinking that’s not good — yeah. May 2025 will prove my most expensive month in years. More than my California vacation, which included Rolling Stones pit tickets + Cage tickets. 4x more if including lost revenue potential and highly questionable spending.

Public service: If you are sidelined, in cash or stables, you’d prefer your assets appraise higher too, no doubt. Emotion and FOMO (fear of missing out) are likely kicking in. What to do? Jump in blind, no research, no feel for the market, no adjusted plan? Just a sweaty-haired slob with a gin-flushed face rolling those dice? It is an option, yes. Seriously, don’t do it. Make a plan and follow it. Compose some rules, and follow them too. You're trading against yourself at least as much as others.

Don’t risk death seeing how close you can get your neck to the sword. If you’re a foot away and hit your targets, just walk away.

In previous runs we’d post our moves on X, but I hadn’t been very active there and dropped out of Crypto Twitter long ago. Not having the same audience of crypto people or even size — my audience is 1/10th what it was before. Broad strokes posted a few times thats about it. Few that follow me these days give a shit about crypto. Basic targets, somewhere $110K to $120K was a tentative exit in the Winter forecast. Meaning I should be on the train and selling right now — unless new information indicates a pivot is warranted. Instead I’m only partially in. 110 - 120 range wasn’t that optimistic of a goal. Conservative actually, which is the point — selling first, not last. Of all the lessons to learn and past mistakes to correct and learn from, knowing when to sell and having the resolve to do it and fight greed or emotion, that’s my biggest enemy.

You won’t hit the exact bottom or top. You can be the first out that fire escape, even if everyone looks at you funny. That’s often a good sign in my experience. You aren’t running in fear or concerned with the crowd — you’re following a step in your plan that outlined doing ‘x’ in consideration of ‘y’ and competing with the crowd. if you’re in sync with them that probably means you’re losing or breaking even.

I was cataloguing for tracking on a future blog like this one — which didn’t exist yet — and the raykooyenga.com which somehow still doesn’t. And Had thought an big enough success would be nice to do a detailed write up at the end. And I got to walk through with a couple people who care and — this is actually funny — someone who was interested, inexperienced, and staying with me instead of the other way around for not listening to me 100 times before on investing instead of spending sprees. So feet away, a situation I’m not accustomed to having an audience for, besides girlfriends over the years. And I always picture how nutty everything must look without explanation. When something outside of what’s expected movement-wise happens, you have to be prepared to alter course, which is the intense part — it’s a big interruption and high-stakes moment. I’m an anti-gambler. Like, I don’t enjoy risk even a little. So, observe me in turbo autistic mode until the sanity of a plan calms the waters.

First is determining if a pivot is necessary. If so, cue Danny Glover: “I’m gettin’ too old for this shit.” Imagine a desk covered in books and notes and someone just clears it off with their arm, saying all that can wait. That’s the start. And I’m typing and reading like I’m fighting time — which I literally am. One to three days later I’ve got new tooling, a picture, and decisions made. Then it’s time to basically sit and let it play out, resume those other things strewn across the floor. Looked chaotic but it’s worked really well being my best trading year.

Buy-back in should have been upper 80s low 90s for a resumed ascent towards 110-120. So at the highest: 94k was a target for awhile at least on BTC. I’m mostly very liquid — cash and stables. I moved out at 101, I think, but did a 50% buy-back prematurely and that’s gonna hurt. I set up some alerts and automation to help — new APIs, looking for signals on a couple of key accounts’ socials, sentiment checks, historical comparisons, and very exciting, action-packed data for the heart of it (the election) through March. That was fun, but too much at once given all the app projects. News happens, direction changes, and I spend two days writing custom scripts, pausing everything else without hesitation — as this is instant funding for everything else, right?

And then there’s what comes next. While I planned on exiting early I still would be rooting for a crazy top because the more wrong I am leaving early, all the more attractive as a short on the way down. Citizenship and residency complications are the issue here but figuring out creative solutions is one of my better skills so while leverage accounts being closed is a problem thats cost me a lot I could solve it if I were determined but I’m not.

What went wrong in the end, my head’s a mess. Something shook me this month — such that it changes everything, or nothing, I don’t know. I just stopped caring about almost anything. Like a fuse blew. 12 to 16 hours a day coding, researching went to literal 0. So, yes, I abandoned my own plan at the end and everything else I was excited for. None of what I built for analysis and alerting is even running. Hell, I don’t remember the apps I was doing the day this started. That’s what I was doing — a promo video for a couple things — and I saw something and went blank. Three weeks later, still don’t know or care. You’d think given it’s a primary source of revenue and much depending on it, snapping out of the funk would happen. But no.

Rough guess: probably out $15K, minimum $10K. Not generational wealth exactly, but enough to matter a lot. And the cost of not paying attention. What’s weird? I don’t even “feel” the regret I should. No FOMO. Not really remorse. I feel blank. Like it’s very bad. I know. But there’s a perspective here — timeline has changed on lots of things. Look at my age. The end goal is gone. Honestly, winning just means more time on Earth with people I don’t like — who enabled or even directly caused this. Leaving a lot out there I know. Someone did something a long time ago and I thought over the years I might salvage 1 or 2 important things and the last domino feel so it’s a monumental spectacular failure and could only be made possible by my own circle working against me for “my best interest”. It’s all explained between the unsent tweets and unpublished articles I hope to never hit “post” on.

Another shame is I wanted to plot it — a theoretically sexy chart. But without a finish, it’s far less interesting. Still, I’m proud of two years of smart moves, of rigid adherence to basic rules. It’s stuff we probably already know, but sometimes you need to get your ass kicked to really apply. And that basic stuff means more than any chart TA wizardry. You’re trading against yourself and your emotions. Your weaknesses are the greatest opponent — and I beat that opponent, except this last round, which at least proves the rule. As I lost out on a lot because… me!

Bright side is my mistake is one of being conservative. If I’m not tuned in it’s better to be sidelined than over invested. One way or the other however, you’re often trading against yourself. Telling ya — simplest trading rules will help a lot. And because I know it, I’m that much closer to fixing it if I wanted to. And if it wasn’t something very important, I can’t imagine any other distraction that would’ve pulled me out of the game.

BTW closing note, lest I forget the shoutout to the tweet inspiring this babble — I do like Michael. I left Crypto Twitter a long time ago. The fakery, clickiness of people absurdly rich from insider trading. If anyone doesn’t know — in crypto, with influence (be it your own or the bubble of CT, or perhaps larger even), you can move markets easily. You can create the market — which may be your following — and you create the ticker itself, literally. And whatever is behind it — branding, ads, site, coin, value prop — at minimum you’re looking at an hour’s work to spit all that out. Then you can pump and dump your own “shitcoin” or NFT. I was never huge or super popular but enough that I’d get frequent offers, invitations to scams if I promote. And I didn’t. Any bad investment I promoted was just me buying something I shouldn’t have or staying in too long like an idiot. An honest idiot, though. So my list of over 1000 is now a couple of people — and Michael is a real one. I guarantee he gets tons of those offers, and I think it’s commendable that he’s not gone that route when so many do.