The idea of this post is to create a list of mistakes that people (including myself) have made, so that smart Bitcoin beginners can hopefully avoid them by learning from someone else’s experience.
I’ll start with a couple of mistakes I made some time ago, and I hope no one repeats them.
I deposited some sats on Celsius and BlockFi because they were offering around 6.5% APY, and I wanted to earn more Bitcoin. Now I understand much better the importance of self-custody.
Another mistake I remember was mixing KYC and non-KYC UTXOs. I had bought BTC both on exchanges and via P2P, but I wasn’t using a proper wallet with labeling features. At some point, I consolidated some of those UTXOs together… and now I no longer know which sats came from KYC sources.
What about you guys? What rookie mistakes did you make? Let's help others avoid them.
I do not say I should have bought it earlier (though I wish I had) because that is the nature of the beast. You get it when you get it.
My main mistake was wasting a lot of time and sats on half assed privacy measures. Buying at atms or using mixers -- if your main use case is buy and hold, I suspect you are better off just being careful when the time comes to spend, rather than on the way in to your cold wallet. Coin control can do wondrous things.
Good point ! I used also some coinjoins in the pre-fork era. But once the LN was well established, I stopped doing it, I realized that I could put my sats in a better place to work.
1- Nunca olvides las claves de las billeteras eso es lo peor, asegúrate de escribirlas con claridad,si es posible hazlo legible plasticalo y guardalo en la caja fuerte haz un testamento si es posible o seguro económico en fin perder la dirección de tu billetera de criptomoneda es lo peor y no se lo recomiendo a nadie así que pon correo asociado con Google, día año y mes incluso la hora y un OJO bien grande y si por casualidad pierdes la memoria una copia para tu familia o amigo real de confianza. 😭 Dónde están mis Bitcoin satoshis o mis 7mil dólares 😭.
I had a friend who didn't put a password or key on his Phoenix wallet where he had a channel, and his young son closed it while playing. Luckily, he recovered it, but this taught me that I should be more careful with my sats.
I was using Boltz swap service and juggling multiple swaps and messed up by sending the wrong amount to the wrong address from a canceled swap. Thankfully I was able to RBF successfully before it got confirmed. I'm sure I could've worked things out with Boltz after the fact, but I was shitting bricks while I was trying to RBF.
Pre mature orange pilling and pre mature pushes to get people to self custody. I am damaged by the heavy weight of my friends losses. Ultimately it’s their fault for not taking my warnings and advice seriously, but it wouldn’t have been a problem if I had more patience and understanding.
Not everyone is ready. Not everyone cares. These days I am extremely selective with who I really talk bitcoin with.
Waiting for the dips to start buying.
That is a classic one! Thanks for sharing it
I never lost any sat or do stupid things with my BTC.