Investors regret bottom fishing as cryptocurrencies crash

Le Dai of HCMC decided to sell 10 Binance Coins (BNB, the fourth largest cryptocurrency by market cap) at around US$300 each to buy Luna.

He hoped to get rich quickly by bottom fishing, but has lost two thirds of his investment now.

"I invested $20,000 last year in cryptocurrencies, but made losses all the time due to the market downturn.

"I decided to sell $3,000 worth of BNB to switch to Luna in the hope of recovering losses after seeing my friends make money from its volatility."

Dai bought at $0.00035 on May 15, but the price dropped further and cost him $2,000.

Luna had been one of the world's most popular cryptocurrencies, and was trading at nearly $100 in late April.

Now it is trading at $0.00017 and there has been a rush to buy by speculators who are betting that it will stage a miraculous recovery. Some cling to a belief that it is just too big to fail.

Tran Trung of the southern Binh Phuoc Province also sold a part of his cryptocurrency portfolio to raise $1,000. He invested that in UST at $0.1 after reading news about its developer trying to save the coin from falling.

"My account could rise 10-fold if it hits the peg of $1," he said.

But UST has yet to show any signs of recovery and is trading at around $0.08-0.09.

Many investors have been flocking to Luna and UST after they crashed on May 12, with some boasting on social media about making hundreds, even thousands, of dollars on an investment of less than a hundred dollars.

But others have lost big by betting on them.

"Many fear missing out once a token collapses and try to benefit from bottom fishing," Anh Bang, the administrator of a Facebook group on cryptocurrencies, said.

"The more they piled on, the more they lost."

He also questioned the wisdom of selling large-cap coins to invest in volatile tokens.