Part 2 of 12 in the Crypto Survival Guide Series
Alright, let’s do the thing you’ve probably been avoiding: actually looking at your portfolio with clear eyes.
I know. It’s not fun. Opening up your wallet or exchange feels like checking your bank account after putting a downpayment on a new house and buying all of the appliances. But here’s the thing—you can’t fix what you won’t face.
The Avoidance Tax
There’s a cost to pretending everything’s fine. Bad positions get worse. Opportunities to exit with some dignity pass by. And that nagging anxiety? It doesn’t go away just because you’re not looking at the numbers. It just ferments into something worse.
So today, we’re doing a proper portfolio audit. Not to beat yourself up, but to get clear on where you actually stand.
What You’re Actually Evaluating
When you look at your positions, you need to separate four things:
- What you paid vs. what it’s worth now (the ego damage)
- What it’s doing for you currently (yield, fees, nothing)
- What it’s likely to do going forward (be honest)
- What it would cost you to get out (gas, swap fees, taxes)
Let’s break these down for both your holds and your liquidity positions.
For Your Held Tokens
Ask yourself these questions for each token you’re holding:
- Is this a “blue chip” that you believe will recover? (BTC, ETH, maybe a few others)
- Is this a project with actual usage and development, or did the team ghost?
- Are you holding because you believe in it, or because you can’t stomach realizing the loss?
- If you had cash instead right now, would you buy this token at this price?
That last question is crucial. If the answer is “absolutely not,” you need to ask yourself why you’re holding it.
For Your Liquidity Pool Positions
This is where it gets interesting, because LPs are more complex than simple holds.
- When prices move outside your range, you stop earning fees and end up holding whichever token moved against you
- Are the fees you’re earning actually offsetting your losses?
- Have both tokens in the pair dropped, or did one collapse while the other held?
- Is the pool still active, or has everyone else already left?
- What’s the APY really looking like after you account for token depreciation?
Here’s a harsh truth: A pool showing 50% APY is worthless if both tokens dropped 60% since you entered. You’re not earning—you’re just losing slower.
A Real Example: My Out-of-Range Reality
Let me show you what this actually looks like with my portfolio.
Total crypto holdings: ~$60-65K
Breakdown:
- Coinbase: ~$14K
- Other wallets: ~$3K
- LP positions: ~$42-45K
Do the math and you’ll notice something: I’m roughly 70% in LPs, 30% in holds.
That wasn’t necessarily the plan when I started 14 months ago. But when you’re building LP positions in what you think is a rising market, and you keep adding because the fees are rolling in… you end up LP-heavy.
Which would be fine if those LPs were still earning.
They’re not.
Most of my LP positions are out of range to the bottom. They’re not generating fees. They’re not doing anything productive. They’re just parked capital in depreciated assets, waiting.
I’ve been frozen like this for about 2 months now—since Thanksgiving 2025, when the market went from “meandering down” to actually diving.
So when I say “taking stock,” I’m not starting from a position of strength. I’m starting from “how do I make this less painful and more strategic going forward?”
The Simple Framework
Grab a spreadsheet or even just a piece of paper. For each position, write:
Position name | Entry value | Current value | Current yield/fees | Gut feeling
That last column matters. Sometimes your gut knows something your hopium won’t admit.
Then sort them into three categories:
- KEEP – Still believe in it, still performing, or too small a loss to matter
- MAYBE – On the fence, needs deeper analysis
- EXIT – Dead weight, false hope, or opportunity cost you can’t afford
A Quick Reality Check
You don’t need to make every decision today. But you do need to know what you’re dealing with.
When I finally sat down and did this honestly, I realized I was holding onto positions for reasons that had nothing to do with strategy:
- That “special token” I mentioned in Part 1? I held it because I didn’t want to admit I’d ignored good advice.
- Some of my out-of-range LPs? I’m holding because closing them would mean accepting the loss is real.
- A few small positions? I honestly forgot they existed until I did this audit.
The moment I admitted those things to myself, some decisions became obvious.
Moving Forward Without Moving (Yet)
Here’s what I learned: sometimes the right move is to accept where you are without immediately acting on it.
Take my main positions—WETH/USDC, SOL/USDC, and PENDLE/USDC. They’re all out of range. They’re all down. But they’re also positions in legitimate tokens on established platforms.
I’m willing to be patient and wait for recovery before I implement the strategies I’m learning. That’s not denial—that’s a choice based on my timeline and belief in the underlying assets.
The difference between denial and patience is whether you’re being honest about why you’re holding.
Denial sounds like: “It has to come back eventually, right?”
Patience sounds like: “I believe these assets will recover, I have a timeline I’m willing to wait, and I have clear exit rules if things change.”
See the difference?
Optional Action: Pull Up Your Numbers
If you’re ready, open your portfolio and write down:
- Each position you hold
- What it’s worth vs. what you paid
- What it’s currently doing for you (fees, yield, nothing)
- Your honest gut feeling about it
You don’t have to make any decisions yet. We’ll get to that in upcoming posts.
But knowing where you stand? That’s power.
Up Next: In Part 3, we’re diving into the psychology of all this—why it’s so hard to make rational decisions when your money’s on the line, the stages everyone goes through, and how to know when you’ve shifted from strategic patience to just… waiting and hoping.
