Ah well... sometimes you catch some pretty nice opportunities in crypto, and other times you miss them. No big deal, you can't get the all... and my philosophy in all of this is not to go hunting for opportunities, but to avoid disasters. Of course, that does mean that sometimes I really miss some big profit chances... but it does mean that I don't lose big either, and that is MUCH more important to me!
That said, I do try to stack some of the luck in my favour when I have the chance. Yesterday was one chance that I had to make a nice killing... but I completely missed it! Partly due to lack of preparation, and partly from tiredness... most lack of preparation, at which point I called it a missed opportunity and decided not to jump in without adequate consideration! Judging by some complaints that I have seen on Twitter... others jumped without consideration first, and got burnt!
If you have followed my blog for a little bit, you will see that I am a pretty big fan of the crowdsales on CoinList. Many of their 2020 sales have gone on to getting some stupidly big returns (SOL, FIL, FLOW) and I enjoy the fact that they are vetted projects and with off-chain sales. On-chain sales are a complete nightmare...
CoinList sales are often characterised by longish lock up times depending on the round that you buy into and the particular project as well. Well, the sales are also known for their terrible queuing system... that is starting to be alleviated by priority queues for long term users. It really helps against the bots and multi-account farms that get a purchase spot and then sell their accounts on the OTC market.
Yesterday, the long awaited FLOW unlock was due. Everyone that had purchased into the FLOW community sale had a 50% unlock, with the rest coming in a linear fashion over the rest of the coming 12 months. Given that everyone in the sale purchased at around 10 cents, and the trading over the past year has been between 10-50 dollars... well, it has been a nice ride! But on paper only... However, given that staking rewards were always unlocked and free to trade, I have no complaints!
Well... it was to be expected that with a huge unlock coming, that there would be a correspondingly huge dump. It appears that many purchasers on the CoinList sale had their tokens locked on the CoinList platform itself! I had taken mine out to a non-custodial wallet and staked it there instead. How is that above chart on CoinList Pro for an unlock dump? Might have been all the multi accounts?
Anyway... despite the fact that I knew that the unlock was inbound... I had made two mistakes that stopped me taking full advantage of this. Mistake one was not preparing to unlock some of my staked FLOW... I tried doing this yesterday, and found out that it will take two epochs to unlock the stake. Each epoch is roughly a week... ah well, no quick dump and repurchase for me! That said, I still unlocked some FLOW in order to sell later... it is best to convert some of that paper gains into concrete profit.
Second mistake... although I knew that it was highly likely to dump on CoinList... I didn't set up a range of limit orders until it was already well underway. I blame this on the fact that I was travelling stupidly early in the morning... and my brain was fried! I forgot to send myself a reminder as well... so, I just completely forgot to do it!
By the time that I remembered... the dump was well under way... that candle wick going all the way down to around 7 USDT! From 17!... it recovered, and I suspect that it will continue to recover slowly as this shock even dissipates. I did end up setting up limit orders all over the place and some of them managed to trigger... but it was a lost opportunity! Plus, it was crazily painful to try and set up a grid of orders... as the CoinList order book was completely overwhelmed!
Still... given that FLOW was still trading normally at Binance and Kucoin, my next thought was to consider the stupidly easy arbitrate opportunity. Even market buying at 12 dollars and selling at 17 immediately after transfer sounded too good to be true! Well, even in my sleep deprived state, I know that if something is too good to be true... then there might be a good reason for it. First of all... why aren't bots hammering his easy money? There must be a reason... it is also partly the reason why I think that most of the FLOW unlock must have occurred on CoinList or got caught off-guard (like me) with the unlock duration?
Now, I remembered that CoinList can be a little bit slow at times with withdrawals... they have always come through for me (likewise for deposits...), but I have seen complaints. So, I just decided to check out the withdrawal page to see if withdrawals had been suspended. Well... that notice wasn't very confidence inspiring... and considering that I was too tired to test it out, and I had a concert to get to... well, I figured that I would just stick with picking up cheap FLOW on the CoinList order book. No desire (or confidence) to try for arbitrage...
Still... I have to say that I've not been disappointed with the whole FLOW thing. With the staking rewards, I have easily paid off the initial investment and have had more than enough to put towards other CoinList crowdsales. So, in the time-worn old saying... I'm happy with what I got. No need to be more greedy... missed is missed, but I can't complain!
Now... if I can just remember in two weeks to cash in a little bit more of that profit! Plus, the whole affair reminded me to unstake DOT in preparation for the upcoming parachain auctions! Unlock duration for Polkadot is 28 days, so... do it now if you want to be ready for the first round of auctions!
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Oh No! I also Missed it.
Ah well, there will be other chances!
I have no idea what that all meant but have a couple of Cents instead. 🤗
tl;dr
Had a chance to make money, missed it... the world keeps turning and I'm still alive and happy!
Nice article, I thought there was gonna be a (The early bird may get the worm, but it's the second mouse who gets the cheese) maxim at the end where you came out on top despite the lost chances like if the withdrawal system had been suspended for everyone xD.
No, this is more a... Missed easy profit, but I'm not dead and things are still okay and there will be a next time!
Lol, Exactly! I've decided to check out CoinList after your story, who knows maybe if I'm lucky I can catch some easy profits
Good luck with the sales, until you get a decent amount of karma don't expect to win a purchase queue in the lottery!
Be careful not to get burnt by the slow deposit and withdraw times.
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