HODL! The Great Story of a Little Word

You, friends, fans and hodlers of Cryptocurrencies, I’m pretty sure that the word ‘HODL‘ is not unknown to you, or of course, that you have at least once asked yourself the question “HODL, isn’t that HOLD normally?” – The most famous typo in the Cryptosphere.

Well yes you are right, the original word is ‘HOLD‘. But the story around this little word ‘HODL‘ goes back to Wednesday, December 18, 2013.

Rendezvous on the BitcoinTalk forum, the user ‘GameKyuubi‘ published a short post, which could have done like the thousands of other publications present on the forum, go completely unnoticed and forgotten in a few minutes. But far from it, because of the gross spelling mistake in the title, this post has aroused an unprecedented interest!

The title of his post, “I AM HODLING“, created an almost instantaneous buzz within the BitcoinTalk community. We may think that this was done on purpose, but it is not, it is a simple spelling mistake, because in his post he mentions the term ‘Hold’ twice. 

When we read his post, we can deduce that the title is a simple spelling mistake, as you and I can do, inadvertently, but in GameKyuubi‘s case, he probably drank a glass of Whiskey/Whisky, or even several, before writing it.

GameKyuubi (Mike’s real name, he’s a guitarist and coder) is sharing his disappointment with the Bitcoin price drop (but also the situation of his couple’s life which depresses him a bit). Let’s put the facts in context. A few days before, the Bitcoin was worth $1000, the day before the post it was valued at $750, by the time he published his post, the price had dropped to $551, and quickly ended up at $150! It would take 4 years for Bitcoin to recover from this dizzying fall.

During this bear market, Mike thought it best to ‘HOLD‘ his Bitcoin, as he knows himself that he is not a Pro Trader, so he could not anticipate or take advantage of the decrease, and especially minimize his losses, so he opted for the ‘HODLing‘ solution.

I let you discover more in his post: (No changes have been made, it is presented as it was posted)

I type d that tyitle twice because I knew it was wrong the first time.  Still wrong.  w/e.  GF’s out at a lesbian bar, BTC crashing WHY AM I HOLDING? I’LL TELL YOU WHY.  It’s because I’m a bad trader and I KNOW I’M A BAD TRADER.  Yeah you good traders can spot the highs and the lows pit pat piffy wing wong wang just like that and make a millino bucks sure no problem bro.  Likewise the weak hands are like OH NO IT’S GOING DOWN I’M GONNA SELL he he he and then they’re like OH GOD MY ASSHOLE when the SMART traders who KNOW WHAT THE FUCK THEY’RE DOING buy back in but you know what?  I’m not part of that group.  When the traders buy back in I’m already part of the market capital so GUESS WHO YOU’RE CHEATING day traders NOT ME~!  Those taunt threads saying “OHH YOU SHOULD HAVE SOLD” YEAH NO SHIT.  NO SHIT I SHOULD HAVE SOLD.  I SHOULD HAVE SOLD MOMENTS BEFORE EVERY SELL AND BOUGHT MOMENTS BEFORE EVERY BUY BUT YOU KNOW WHAT NOT EVERYBODY IS AS COOL AS YOU.  You only sell in a bear market if you are a good day trader or an illusioned noob.  The people inbetween hold.  In a zero-sum game such as this, traders can only take your money if you sell.

so i’ve had some whiskey

actually on the bottle it’s spelled whisky

w/e

sue me

(but only if it’s payable in BTC)

Since that day, after more than 793,000 times read and 132 pages of comments (the last of which was on July 14, 2016), the HODL phenomenon has grown considerably, so much so that this little word is now part of the ‘Pop-Culture‘ of Bitcoin, but also of all other Cryptocurrencies. HODL has become the most popular MEME in this area.

The principle is simple, if you are not a professional trader, or if you simply want to bet on the future, you can opt for ‘HODLing‘ your Cryptocurrencies. Adopting this strategy is courageous, but it’s also a good strategy (I’m not saying that it’s the best, or that it’s infallible) in the long run.

A little later, that word ‘HODL‘ is subjected to a Retro-acronym, to become “Hold On for Dear Life” → “Hold on, as if your life depended on it.”

In 2017, the business press Quartz listed this word as one of the essential internet slang terms of Bitcoin culture.

Remember this little phrase that I think is cool:

Since you didn’t take your winnings and now you have losses, if you want to stay in the game, all you can do is HODL on

See you soon

Christophe WILHELM

Bitcoin Meister

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