Now’s the time to tighten your portfolio up. I’ve been reviewing a few portfolios recently, and the same mistakes keep popping up over and over. If you can avoid these, you’ll save yourself a lot of pain. 1. Create an Exit Strategy from the Cycle I used to visit Las Vegas a lot for fun. One night, I sat down to play blackjack with a friend, and he had this strange little habit. Every time he won a hand, he’d take a chip and put it into his pockets. He literally took chips off the table every time he won. He kept building the stack in his pockets. Me? I keep gambling. Eventually we’d hit the losing streak and lose everything we came with. I’d walk away with nothing. Him? He had a few hundred dollars worth of chips in his pocket. It was because he took “profits” every time he won. He wasn’t lucky, he just paid himself every time he won. He told me that you always gotta pay yourself a little or else you’ll eventually give it all to the Casino. They often say that Crypto is a casino. We always hear the stories about how people roundtrip each cycle. I can’t help but think people would win more if they used a similar strategy to my friend. Most people end up roundtripping because they don’t have an exit strategy in place. If they win some profits, they keep re-investing the profits back into the cycle. Until one day, the cycle simply tops. At that point they’re in a losing position, but it’s hard for them to walk away with a loss. So they hang on. They may have an exit strategy for a trade, but not one for the cycle Solution: Have an exit strategy for each cycle. Take profits on the way UP. I personally take profits into a long-term bitcoin stash. You can also take offramp profits into fiat. 2. Too Many Tokens I’ll look at someone’s portfolio and it has 20+ tokens. That’s not strategy, that’s someone spraying and praying. What’s the problem? A. You simply can’t stay on top of that many tokens. Being focused is one of the few edges you can have in this space. B. And second, your winners don’t move the needle. You catch a 10x but it was only 2% of your stack. It’s not just about picking the right coins. It’s about sizing up when you’re right. Solution: I keep it simple with 5 to 8 tokens. Enough to stay diversified but not so many I lose focus. 3. Not Cleaning Out the Garbage You bought a bunch of A.I. tokens earlier this year and now they’re down 90 percent. You’re still holding on "just in case" they moon. You fucked up a long time ago because you don’t have proper exit strategies. And second, you’re bagholding because you don’t want to admit it was a bad trade. Selling those tokens clears up mental bandwidth and gets rid of emotional baggage. Plus, even the scraps you get back from selling those losers can add up if you rotate them into something better. Solution: Develop proper exit strategies. It can be as simple as “Sell if the token goes -30%” 4. No Clear Thesis Your portfolio is all over the place. One A.I. token, a meme coin, two DeFi plays, a Layer 2, a random Launchpad, and some RWA stuff. There’s no pattern. Looks like you’re just buying whatever’s trending on Twitter. Here’s the thing. There aren’t many edges left in crypto. One of the only ones that still works is going deep in a narrative before everyone else does. That means understanding the tech, the teams, and what’s coming next. You can’t do that when you’re spread across 8 different sectors. Solution: Pick a few narratives. Go all the way down the rabbit hole. Also, Dexu is a great way to stay on top of what narratives are doing well. 5. No Stablecoins I always keep stables in my portfolio. Even in bull markets. They help with volatility. More importantly, they give me dry powder to buy the dips. If a hot new token shows up and I want in, I can just buy it. But if I’m 100 percent deployed, I’m stuck. Now I have to figure out what to sell. Probably at a loss. Probably in a rush. That’s when people start making dumb decisions. Stables give me options. They let me stay calm. Sometimes the best move is having cash ready while everyone else is overexposed. Solution: Your stablecoin % should reflect where you think we are in the cycle. 6. Your Portfolio Doesn’t Match Your Goals Someone wants to 20x their portfolio this cycle, but they’re holding ETH, LINK, and ARB. Another person says they want to protect their capital but they’re deep in the trenches. Are you seeing the problem? If you want high growth, you need to take risk. That means small caps, early stage plays, and narrative bets. If you want to protect what you have, then you need majors, stables, and maybe some real yield. There’s no right or wrong here. But your allocations need to reflect what you’re actually trying to do. 7. Overexposure to One Token If you stick around Crypto long enough, you know that shit can always happen. • Terra Luna • FTX • Blue Chip protocols getting hacked. • The head developer quits • Someone fakes a death Even if you’re right, you don’t want your whole cycle to depend on one bet. Solution: Re-balance often. Set rules. I don’t have >20% on any token with the exception of Bitcoin. Final Thoughts Most people don’t lose in crypto because they picked the wrong coin. They lose because they had no plan. The Crypto gods have given you another chance. Lock in, tidy things up, and get ready when we're in easy mode again.(Edgy - The DeFi Edge 🗡️)