What is this game and how do you play it?

This game consists on finding long term projects that can give you outsized returns in the future.

The hodling game, in a nutshell: You buy something that others will want in the future, and you hold for higher time frames.

Now, this game can be divided into two:

Long Term Hodling Game

This one is based on hodling The Crypto Bluechips.

In other words: Your focus should be on identifying projects that have strong fundamentals and long-term potential.

This game requires patience and conviction to hold through market cycles, so it’s better suited for investors who believe in the underlying technology and the adoption potential that a coin could have.

While the most common bluechips are Bitcoin and Ethereum, you can also think in terms of those blockchains, layer 2 scaling solutions, and infrastructure that may also fit long-term narratives.

When doing so, make sure to evaluate factors like team, technology, roadmaps, partnerships, and moat.

Short Term Hodling Game

This one is based on the narratives that are about to form.

At the moment I’m writing this article, some of the narratives that exist consist on “Crypto AI”, “Bitcoin L2”, “RWA (Real world assets)”, “Restaking”, “DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks)”, “Ordinals”.

However, this changes with each cycle.

Last one we had some hot narratives regarding DeFi, Ethereum L2s, NFTs, and so on.

The key component in here is knowing which projects seem legit and will attract other people’s attention, and when to exit.

Having a plan is something I’ve found fundamentally important in order to avoid becoming a “community member” or “bag holder” (a hodler who goes down with the project), as that would transfer you automatically to The Bag Hodler game.

Strategies for the Short Term Hodling Game

Now, what are some of the strategies that I think are useful in here?

As mentioned before, staying on top on the future narratives.

This is where gauging the sentiment on crypto twitter, crypto telegram, and crypto events is useful.

And I don’t mean just apeing blindly into whatever influencer is shilling, but rather looking at what analysts and alpha seekers are talking about.

While some of them will talk about a specific token, I prefer to look for those looking at the whole picture of where the space is moving.

Looking for different narratives and their potential is crucial.

I like to ask myself these questions:

• “Who will buy this?”
• “Is this a hot topic right now?”
• “Will this narrative die down quickly or is it a long-term hold?”

For example, in December 2022, the AI narrative became one of the hottest ones in town. Given that ChatGPT took the world by storm, the possibilities of it spreading to other markets (such as crypto) were high.

Why?

Because there was a gap in the market.

Crypto tends to look for decentralized solutions while the main AI players (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and so on) are very centralized.

This created an opportunity for the Decentralized AI narrative which fit perfectly with crypto.

AI kept growing in 2023 and making headline after headline. Stocks moved in that direction as well, therefor it was obvious that AI+Crypto projects would move in that direction.

And we saw it with projects such as Bittensor (TAO), PaaL, and even AI projects from the previous cycle such as Fetch.Ai pumping.

But that’s not it.

You can also grab some “alpha” by looking at what have the VCs been investing into.

In order to do this, you can join this channel on telegram: https://t.me/cryptorank_fundraising

T his will keep you updated with the latest funding rounds that have been happening in the space.

And you can even dive deeper by going to their website: https://cryptorank.io/funding-rounds

Once you’re there, you can filter it by “Tier 1 Funds” and “Early Stage Only”.

This will give you an idea of where the smart money is going.

Look for those projects with the highest amount of VCs, see what’s the narrative behind it as a way to predict where the market will go next.

The more confluence you find, the higher the chances for that narrative to spread to retail.