8 Crypto New Year’s Resolutions to Help You Survive in 2019

According to data from YouGov Omnibus, 26 percent of Americans will make a new year’s resolution in 2019. In general, these tend to cover the basics, such as eat healthier or exercise more, to more daring challenges, such as travel more and make more friends. Of those who set a new years resolution, 90 percent are confident they’ll stick to it, but 22 percent say that their new year’s resolution for 2019 remains the same as those for 2018. Despite this, however, just 4 percent of resolvers manage to stick to their promises, while 28 percent managed to complete at least one. In the spirit of crypto, let’s take a look at some potential new year’s resolutions to help the next year be your best yet! Can you fit one of these into your new year, or perhaps even all of them?

I Will Not Buy The Dips!

How many times have you heard the advice ‘buy the dips?’ And in 2018, how many times has buying the dips lead to a net profit? In the 2018 bear market, buying the dips could have led to catastrophic losses. Looking back over the past year, Bitcoin alone suffered six major ‘dips’ — periods in which Bitcoin lost a significant chunk of its value over a short period of time. Had you bought the dips in January 2018 and held until now, at the very minimum you would be suffering is 50 percent losses. Moving forward, had you invested at the lowest point following the May dip, you would now have close to 40 percent losses. While buying the dips in expectation of prompt recovery may be a viable strategy in a bull market, in a bear market, you are more likely to end up in a worse position than you started.

I Will Not Invest In Shady ICOs!

If 2017 can be considered the golden age of ICOs, then 2018 should probably be considered the dark ages. While it is true that the sheer number of ICOs increased in 2018, the ratio of high-quality projects to low-quality ones took a drastic turn for the worse as more people began to milk the ICO cash cow by tokenizing practically everything. Unfortunately, during 2018, the number of scam ICOS also grew considerably as nefarious groups began representing themselves as promising projects. Because of this, ICO exit scams have cost investors hundreds of millions of dollars in 2018, most of which could have been avoided by simply rejecting projects that lack an experienced team and/or minimum viable product.

I Will Finally Secure My Portfolio!

Although cryptocurrencies are widely considered to be more secure than traditional currencies, the safety of your cryptocurrency portfolio is almost certainly more vulnerable than your bank balance. If the finger of blame can be pointed anywhere, then the myriad poorly protected cryptocurrency exchanges are likely the best candidate. In 2018 alone, there were over a dozen exchanges hacks of varying severity, ranging from just a few thousand dollars, up to the $500 million Coincheck hacks. While many exchanges, such as Coinbase, are beginning to step up the level of security they provide, the facts are centralized wallets such as exchange and web wallets are points of vulnerability. Instead, perhaps it is time to finally take matters into your own hands by protecting your portfolio with a hardware wallet — it might just save you from an unwelcome surprise later on.

I Will Set Stop Losses!

Are you an avid cryptocurrency trader, or a long-term holder? Whichever the case, if you have been involved in buying or trading cryptocurrencies for any length of time, then you have probably been stung by purchasing an asset that lost most of its value without recovery. Unfortunately, many new cryptocurrency traders and even some more experienced traders neglect to apply a stop loss to the majority of their positions. As the name might suggest, a stop loss is designed to protect you against sharp price drops. If you are one of the unfortunate many that have been adversely affected by an unexpected price crash, then applying stop losses to any and all future trades will limit your losses in future while improving your position in the long run.

I Will Not Use Sketchy Exchanges

Are you a cryptocurrency trader that prioritizes the lowest exchange fees, wide asset selection, or referral schemes when selecting your primary exchange? If yes, then you may also soon be one of the unfortunate few to lose funds if the exchange is compromised at a later date. Although many newer exchanges offer appealing features that you might not find on large exchanges such as Coinbase, Binance or Yobit, they also tend to offer far less security, leaving your funds less protected than you should be comfortable with. In 2018, the great majority of exchange hacks were against smaller exchanges, while larger, more established exchanges are seldom compromised. If you have found yourself a victim of one of these hacks, why not make 2019 the year you say no to risk?

I Will Run a Full Node

Want to support your favorite blockchain without too much inconvenience? Consider running a full node in 2019. Particularly in the case of smaller or newly developed projects, getting enough people to run a full node to help secure the network against attacks and censorship is a challenge. Setting up a full node is usually a relatively painless task, only a requiring you to use the official ‘heavy’ wallet client, downloading a copy of the blockchain and leaving your machine running for as long as you can. Although setting up a full, or even a partial node, for newer projects is likely more challenging than simply running the official wallet client, the support it provides for the project should not be underestimated.

I Will Use Cryptocurrency Wherever Possible

As it stands, the vast majority of cryptocurrency holders invested in cryptocurrency for speculative purposes, intending to simply ride the wave and see a return on their investment at some later point. However, rather than being used as a speculative instrument, the long-term viability and success of most blockchain-based projects rely on their digital asset being used for its intended use-case, whether that be as a digital currency, or a utility token within the project ecosystem. To achieve adoption and potentially become the next paradigm in currency, cryptocurrencies will need to see significantly increased usage, which should, in turn, prompt their adoption by more retailers, merchants, and businesses. Although it may be less convenient to use cryptocurrency in many cases, baring the burden, however infrequently, does contribute to its success. For those cryptonauts who truly believe the future is crypto, this might just help us get there.

I Will Hold My Private Keys

When it comes to cryptocurrencies, your private keys represent your ownership over the funds contained within the wallet addresses generated by these keys. Despite this fact, many cryptocurrency users and holders keep their portfolio in a centralized exchange or web wallet that does not provide access to their private keys. This, contrary to the popular belief, means that technically do not own your funds, as ownership of the private keys is the only sure fire way to prove who the rightful owner of any contained balance. Because of this, it is commonly recommended to hold as many of your private keys as possible, ensuring you have full, unequivocal ownership over your funds, whilst also ensuring you benefit from any forks that may come your way. What are your new year’s resolutions for 2019? Do you think 2019 will be the year crypto retakes the spotlight? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!