Imagine Bitcoin dropping 30% in a week. Your portfolio is bleeding red, your stomach is churning, and x is full of panic and “I told you so” posts.
Here’s what to do when Bitcoin falls and your conviction gets tested.
Step 1: Close the Price Tracker
Stop refreshing the price. Checking every five minutes won’t change the number, but it will destroy your mental health. Bitcoin’s volatility is a feature, not a bug. If you can’t handle 30% drawdowns, you shouldn’t own Bitcoin, but selling in panic is the worst possible response.
Set a time to check prices once daily at most. Better yet, once weekly. Your long-term conviction shouldn’t change based on short-term price movements unless something fundamental about Bitcoin itself has changed.
Step 2: Check the Fundamentals
Has Bitcoin’s fixed supply changed? No. Is the network still running? Yes. Have governments somehow shut down decentralized nodes globally? No. Are institutional investors still accumulating? Check the data, not the sentiment.
Price crashes happen for dozens of reasons: liquidations, macroeconomic fears, regulatory headlines, or simply profit-taking after rallies. None of these change Bitcoin’s underlying monetary properties or long-term trajectory.
If the fundamentals haven’t changed, the price movement is noise. Painful noise, but noise nonetheless.
Step 3: Zoom Out
Look at Bitcoin’s historical chart. Every previous all-time high was followed by crashes of 50-80%. Then Bitcoin recovered and reached new highs. This pattern has repeated for 16 years.
The people who got rich from Bitcoin didn’t avoid the crashes—they survived them. They held through 2018’s 80% drop, 2020’s COVID crash, and 2022’s bear market. The crashes are part of the journey, not evidence that the journey was wrong.
Step 4: Review Your Thesis
Why did you buy Bitcoin? If you bought because the price was going up and everyone was talking about it, you’re in trouble because that reason no longer applies. If you bought because you believe in sound money, decentralization, and long-term monetary transformation, nothing has changed.
Crashes separate conviction from speculation. If you can’t articulate why you own Bitcoin beyond “number go zoom-zoom,” you’ll panic sell at exactly the wrong time.
Step 5: Dollar-Cost Average or Do Nothing
If you have cash and your conviction remains strong, crashes are buying opportunities. Accumulating Bitcoin at lower prices improves your long-term position. If you don’t have cash or aren’t confident enough to buy more, simply hold what you have.
The worst decision is panic selling. You lock in losses, miss the recovery, and typically buy back in at higher prices later when FOMO returns. This pattern destroys more wealth than any crash.
What Not to Do
Don’t revenge trade trying to make back losses. Don’t switch to altcoins hoping for faster recovery. Don’t check Bitcoin on X where panic and schadenfreude amplify each other. Don’t make financial decisions based on emotion and social pressure.
Bitcoin crashes test your understanding of why you bought it. If you survive with your position intact, you’ve passed the test. If you panic sell, you’ve learned an expensive lesson about the difference between speculation and conviction.
Build Bitcoin Conviction Through Understanding
Surviving Bitcoin volatility requires more than diamond hands. It requires understanding the economic principles that make Bitcoin valuable regardless of short-term price action.
Strengthen your conviction through education with Genius Academy‘s Bitcoin microcourses. Explore Saifedean Ammous’s “The Bitcoin Standard” for the Austrian economics foundations that explain Bitcoin’s long-term trajectory, and Natalie Brunell’s “How Bitcoin Fixes Money” for clear explanations of why Bitcoin’s monetary properties matter more than temporary price movements.
