Cryptocurrency bull market 2024: how not to fall victim to your own greed during «euphoria»

The cryptocurrency market finally entered a bull phase at the end of 2024. This offers many opportunities, but inexperienced users can easily get confused and fall victim to their lack of knowledge or greed. Therefore, investing in the middle of a «green» sea requires a competent approach. By following the rules of diversification, project research, risk management, and the chosen strategy, you can protect your assets and make a good profit.

The most important rule is never to invest more than you are willing to lose. Now let’s move on to a brief overview of the crypto market, risks, and investment protection.

Finally growth

The approach of calendar winter coincided with the end of the crypto winter. The last few months have been very lively and eventful. Bitcoin (BTC) has been updating its historical highs and is steadily moving towards the $100 thousand mark after Donald Trump won the US presidential election. And altcoins are following suit.

Numbers are important:

• A new historical record for bitcoin (BTC): $99,317.
• A new historical record for Solana (SOL): $264.64.
• Ripple’s four-year high (XRP): $1.6350.
• New historical record of TRON (TRX) $0.2248.
• A new historical record for Sui (SUI): $3.94.

Key events in 2024:

• The total capitalization of the crypto market reached $3.33 trillion.
• ETFs for ETH and BTC have been approved.
• ETF applications submitted for SOLand XRP.
• BTC pond The 7th largest asset in the world by capitalization.
• Thousands of new meme tokens have emerged, the most successful among them: PNUT, CHILLGUY, GOAT, GIGA, NEIRO. DWF Labs and Wintermute.
• Total capitalization of tokenized real-world assets (RWA) achieved 12 billion, attracting support from major players such as BlackRock and Boston Consulting Group.
• The victory of Donald Trump and the Republican Party in the US elections.
• Formation of an advisory board with representatives of crypto companies.
• Resignation of the main opponent of cryptocurrency Gary Gensler as Chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
• Interesting promising projects have emerged: Grass, Deep, EigenLayer, Avail.

It all looks very appetizing. Especially when even Bernstein brokerage experts advise «buy everything you can». But there are many «but»…

How not to get depressed because of memes

The main trend of the end of 2024 and probably 2025 — memcoins. The most popular blockchain network for launching such projects is Solana (SOL), and Pump.fun is the leader among the platforms. As expected, this is where you can find the largest number of fraudsters. According to Blockaid research half of the tokens launched under the pre-sale scheme on Solana turned out to be scam. In addition, influencer bloggers mercilessly milk naive subscribers for a couple of hundred bucks: 86% of memes promoted by them, lost 90% of their value in three months.

Three simple and effective strategies for making money with memecoins (and more):

Copywriting. This is a strategy in which an investor finds wallets of successful traders, analyzes trades, and copies them. Smart addresses can be found using blockchain scanners, GMGN or in token charts. Before you start trading, it is important to check the trader’s activity: the organic nature of the trades and the absence of indicator cheating. If you have been losing money for several trades in a row, look for a new pattern for copytrading. The main sign of a promising token is if several smartwallets invest in the project.

Hype. Meme tokens are often created following current trends, which can be tracked through X (formerly Twitter) and trading aggregators. Examples of recent trends: AI agents, famous animals (e.g., PNUT), quotes from famous people, memes, DeSci. However, the more tokens are created within a single trend, the lower the chance of a good profit.

Subsidence. Pay attention to a drop in the price of a promising coin and buy it. However, you need to be able to distinguish between a temporary drop in value and a final collapse. What can help you with this: the size and activity of the community, the prospects of the trend, and the storage of coins by large players (the so-called «whales»).

General recommendations for trading cryptocurrencies

Crypto markets are cyclical. The current phase of rapid growth will not last forever. Changes in sentiment, regulatory news, or macroeconomic factors can trigger a correction. For example, the sharp correction in 2021 resulted in investors with excessive risk positions suffering significant losses. Therefore, during bull markets, it is important to think strategically, taking into account both potential profits and possible losses. This will help you:

• Diversification of the portfolio, i.e., the distribution of assets between the main cryptocurrencies (BTC, ETH), stablecoins, and promising altcoins or memecoins to reduce risks.
• Avoiding excessive leverage.
• Stop-loss orders. Setting limits for the automatic sale of assets helps limit losses even if you don’t follow the market all the time.
• Portfolio rebalancing. Reviewing and adjusting the asset allocation will allow you to record profits and keep the risk level within a comfortable range.
• Partial fixation. Sell some assets at price peaks, leaving the rest anticipating growth.
• During the growth phase, many new projects will appear on the crypto market, and many of them will be fraudulent. Therefore, before buying, thoroughly research the team and technology, tokenomics, utility, and long-term prospects of the token, and evaluate the activity and support of the project from the community. It’s a good sign if the investors include Paradigm, Binance, a16z, and have raised $50 million or more in funding.
• Buy and hold (HODLing) is the best strategy for beginners. But it is not suitable for all tokens. It is better to use this method for strong cryptocurrencies rather than for new projects or memecoins that can quickly depreciate.
• Automated trading with bots — for the more advanced. You can either develop a trading bot yourself, install a ready-made one, or buy one. But not robots like this guy (he asked ChatGPT to help him write the code for the bot and lost about $2.5 thousand as a result).

«Red» checkboxes

If you are offered to «make a lot of money with zero risk» or download something and get rich — on social media, via email, calls, or in popular apps, it’s 100% scam. Obviously, at the very least, you shouldn’t click on unknown links, let alone open suspicious archives and files.

Here are some common scenarios:

• Celebrity imitation. Scammers will pretend to be famous people and promise to multiply your money if you invest in a certain project. At the very least, these can be hacked social media pages.
• Online romances. If a dating site suddenly offers to invest in cryptocurrency or asks you to transfer tokens, don’t do it. No matter what the pretext.
• Scammers may impersonate representatives of well-known companies or government agencies. They may pose as Amazon, Microsoft, banks, or other well-known organizations and report «suspicious activity» in your account. And then they will ask you to buy cryptocurrency to «protect» money or disclose keys (passphrase, etc.). Here you can find some examples.
• Fake crypto tokens. Fraudsters create fake tokens or coins and advertise them on social media or websites. Check information from reliable sources before buying.
• The account of your friend, colleague, or acquaintance can also be hacked.
• Sign transactions carefully and check the address where you are transferring your assets. Be careful what sites you follow the links to. A one-letter mistake can completely zero out your account.
• Drainer. This is a malicious transaction that will take all the funds from your cryptocurrency wallet when you sign it. The most unpleasant thing is that it can be hidden under the guise of receiving a win, participating in a draw, etc.