Lesson Learned: The Cost of Chasing the Rally

Been trading crypto for a while now, and one of the hardest lessons learned early on was about chasing a parabolic move. It was late 2020, and $ETH was just starting to really gain momentum after a long sideways period. I had a decent position, but as it started accelerating, I felt the classic FOMO kick in. Every green candle just screamed 'missed opportunity' if I didn't add more.

So, what did I do? Instead of sticking to my original plan and position sizing, I started adding aggressively on strength, thinking it would never pull back. My average entry kept climbing, and my position size ballooned beyond what I was comfortable with. Sure enough, after a couple of days of breathless vertical movement, it had a sharp, albeit temporary, correction. Nothing catastrophic, but enough to trigger my stops on those later additions and wipe out a good chunk of unrealized gains from my core position. It wasn't about being 'right' or 'wrong' on the long-term direction, but about poor execution and letting emotion dictate sizing into an extended move. It taught me the hard way about letting winners run but not over-leveraging into overbought conditions, regardless of conviction. Stick to the plan and let the market come to you.