Buy the dip (BTFD)

A dip is a short-term fall in price within a broader trend. Buying the dip means treating that fall as a discount: if the long-term outlook has not changed, a lower price is seen as a better entry point. The cruder acronym BTFD, which adds an expletive, became a meme during bitcoin's repeated sharp pullbacks.

In crypto, dips of 10% to 30% are common even in strong bull markets, often caused by liquidations of leveraged positions rather than by news about the asset itself. Dip buyers may place limit orders below the market price in advance, or split purchases across several levels, an approach close to dollar-cost averaging.

The risk is mistaking the start of a long decline for a dip. Investors who bought every fall during the 2022 bear market kept adding as prices dropped further, and tokens of failed projects never recovered. Deciding in advance how much to commit and at which levels limits the damage if the fall continues.