Three Investing Blunders That Will Shape My 2026 Strategy

The investing market moves fast, and every year brings fresh chances to repeat old mistakes—or finally break them. As 2025 drew to a close, I took stock of where my decisions went wrong and what I plan to do differently when the next trading cycle kicks off. Here are three lessons that changed how I think about managing capital and market timing.

Lesson 1: FOMO Destroys Your Cost Basis, Even When You’re Right on Direction

My core strategy for Bitcoin (BTC) has always been disciplined—dollar-cost averaging a fixed amount at regular intervals, regardless of price action. It removes emotion and keeps any single purchase from dominating my portfolio arithmetic.

Until 2025, when I abandoned the plan entirely.

As BTC surged past the historic $120,000 mark in late 2025, I convinced myself I was being “decisive” and capitalizing on idle capital. The real story? Classic fear of missing out (FOMO) took the wheel. I made an outsized, unplanned purchase at precisely the wrong moment in the rally.

What hurt most wasn’t the subsequent pullback in Bitcoin’s price—it was what that one trade did to my average cost basis. I inflated my entry price substantially for no strategic reason. The long-term thesis on BTC remains intact in my view, but I paid an unnecessary premium to join the rally.

The fix: For 2026, I’m implementing a stricter rule. If I want to accelerate my accumulation beyond my regular DCA schedule, I’ll temporarily increase the size of my scheduled purchases within a defined timeframe. This keeps me engaged without the emotional baggage of a panic buy.

Lesson 2: Procrastination on Due Diligence Has a Real Cost

I knew about Zcash (ZEC) for years. I even watched its narrative momentum build throughout 2025 as privacy coin demand resurged. Yet I stayed passive, telling myself I’d “get around to researching it later.”

By early October 2025, that laziness had already cost me. Zcash had more than doubled in roughly a week as privacy-focused assets captured investor attention. A month later, it briefly surpassed Monero in market capitalization—another signal that the sector’s center of gravity had shifted.

Only then, sitting on the sidelines as the move unfolded, did I finally buckle down and do the research. When I eventually bought ZEC and started a DCA position, I was already looking at an immediate loss from my entry point. The current ZEC price of $400.13 reflects a market where early movers captured most of the gains.

Here’s the brutal truth: telling yourself “I’ll research this later” is just accepting that you’ll buy expensive if the thesis eventually proves correct. The cost of indecision is baked into your entry price.

The solution: In 2026, the moment something on my radar starts flashing as potentially interesting, I’m committing time upfront to really think through whether it belongs in my portfolio. It won’t prevent every mistake, but it cuts down the premium I pay for being a latecomer.

Lesson 3: Market Panic Is When Discipline Matters Most

April 2025 was turbulent. When the Trump administration announced new tariffs, the investing market seized up. Over two days, roughly $5 trillion in value evaporated as investors repriced recession risk. By April 9, a 90-day tariff pause was announced—and the market reversed sharply upward.

That volatility triggered one of my worst instincts: going inactive when things get scary.

I stopped adding to my core position in SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY). I also paused my purchases of Costco Wholesale because the stock looked both expensive and vulnerable to tariff disruption. The anxious voice in my head said: wait for clarity.

As it turned out, the tariffs never delivered the apocalypse. The market rose substantially through the rest of 2025. Costco’s stock went sideways, which meant I missed the chance to load up on a business I genuinely respect at better valuations. I sacrificed gains because I let uncertainty paralyze me.

The new approach: Unpredictable market shocks are opportunities to practice steadiness, not reasons to freeze. The strategies that work over the long term work precisely because they ignore the noise. 2026 will test whether I’ve actually internalized that lesson.

Turning Mistakes Into Systems

Investing isn’t just about finding the next big winner in the market—it’s about eliminating the self-sabotage that derails even good decisions. Each of these three blunders taught me something different: FOMO costs money through inflated entry prices, procrastination taxes you through late entries, and panic selling steals future gains.

The real edge in 2026 won’t come from predicting which way Bitcoin moves or whether Zcash becomes the privacy standard. It’ll come from staying disciplined when my emotions scream to do the opposite.