Ben Simpson argues that in crypto the bigger mistake is failing to sell losing positions, not buying bad assets. Using examples (Sui; RWAs and AI projects), he explains that timely selling can prevent larger portfolio losses and that investors must update strategies as market data changes. Selling, he says, is the hardest but most important part of investing.
One thing I've realized in crypto is people don't lose money because they buy a bad asset. They lose money because they don't sell. And this is a part of making, you know, a poor decision or, you know, when you buy an asset that didn't play out and you have to take a loss. I've taken so many losses in crypto, you know, over this year, even taking losses on Sui in the short term, you know, painful. But if I look back and go, that's where I sold Sui, it's down another 35% since that point. Then I've actually saved my portfolio 35 to 40% in that asset. On the other side, people don't sell because they hope it's going to come up. And what ends up happening is they just draw the altcoins down even further. And I did this back in January, February, sorry, of this year. I sold a lot of my RWAs, my AI projects that were down 20, 25% in the portfolio. And guess what happened? Months on, I look back down, they're down 70 to 80%. So you're always going to buy assets that don't perform. That's a part of investing. But it's those that don't sell and don't move on from those decisions that get caught out. And that's when data changes. You've got to be able to update and iterate the strategy because that's, that's the game. Data changes, life changes, markets change. You've got to update and iterate. And selling is the hardest part. That's the thing that gets people caught up, and that's the thing that's going to hurt your portfolio over the long term.
