Hodl Meaning Origin and History

History of HODL

Cryptocurrency has made its rounds in virtually all news circles in English-speaking countries, if not the world. The first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, was released back in early 2009 by a still-anonymous source, Satoshi Nakamoto.

Although Bitcoin didn’t become popular until recent years, it’s had an active niche market since its inception. As time has passed, news circles have referenced the cryptocurrency ad nauseam – not at all ad nauseam if you enjoy cryptocurrency, culture surrounding it, and the proliferation of the digital currency throughout our society.

HODL

Those familiar with Bitcoin mining and investing have likely seen the world hodl in articles referencing it. But not everybody, however, is familiar with the phrase’s origins.

On a forum for Bitcoin named bitcoin talk.org, a user named GameKyuubi created a thread on the message board that concerned itself with the then-recent Bitcoin price crash – it was in late December of year 2013 – and said they would “hodl” the cryptocurrency despite its performance.

To this day, the thread has been read some 780,000 times, and includes the title “I AM HODLING.”

Why The Word “Hold” Was Misspelled

GameKyuubi had reported drinking whisky prior to posting. He might have drank too much, as he claimed his wife was out to a lesbian bar, in turn creating the legend that is holding.

In Financial Markets, Holding Investments Is Common Among Portfolio Holders

Financial markets are active all days of the week. Anybody who’s ever seen any stock share’s candlestick charts – the green upswings and red downturns representing the change in price of such shares – knows that the price of all stocks, bonds, and investments changes rapidly.

With Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, prices change regularly. As a matter of fact, cryptocurrencies are likely the most volatile investment in the world, causing people around the Internet like GameKyuubi to make emotionally-charged posts regarding their holdings – or should I say hodlings.

In finance, there are two general types of investors – active and passive. Active investors are more like day traders, purchasing large amounts of investments, watching candlesticks without blinking, and selling everything as soon as a gain is possible. These investors tend to believe they have high or even total control over their investments, although such trains of thoughts are typically cognitive biases.

Passive investors, by definition, purchase investments to hold them over the span of years, if not lifetimes. If you look at stock index performance over the long run, it rises a few percentage points just about every year. As such, buying and holding for several years – decades, even – will eventually net returns, given the investor relies on a widely-diversified portfolio.

GameKyuubi Is A Bad Day Trader

In the world of cryptocurrency/Bitcoin colocation and coin trading, most people don’t actually know what they’re doing. Although the same can go for traditional financial markets, it’s far more difficult to understand what factors move the price of Bitcoin and other cryptos – there simply hasn’t been enough research conducted on Bitcoin and friends.

As GameKyuubi of bitcointalk.org has admitted himself, he’s got no idea what he’s doing in terms of trading Bitcoin. Rather than waving “goodbye” to his current portfolio of Bitcoin, he decided to hold indefinitely.

Legend has it, GameKyuubi is still holding on to Bitcoin to this very day.

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