Quote from: Dimitri94 on May 14, 2023, 06:19:34 AM

There is a big gap between Bitcoin holding and gambling.

I would consider the difference between investing and gambling to be more on a continuum rather than having clear demarcations - and so there are likely many assets that could be used for either gambling or investing depending on how they are played in terms of use of information in skillful rather than luck kinds of ways... we can think of some kinds of gambling games that are nearly pure luck (and chance), and so sometimes we can consider extremes and there may likely even be some kinds of gambling games that can have the chances of winning greatly improved if you realize what skills might be employed in order to increase the odds.

Quote from: Dimitri94 on May 14, 2023, 06:19:34 AM

The fundamental thing that comes up first is that Bitcoin has volatility so it can go from high to low. But in gambling there is no such chance.

You phrase that in a strange way, and so I guess I kind of see part of your point in regards to volatility that could go either direction with some kind of assets, such as bitcoin, and sometimes people will mix up with the idea of volatility (and even difficult to predict) as if investing into bitcoin was merely a game of chance because it goes all over the place in terms of its price, its volatility and its many times bucking the trend in regards to what logic might suggest that its direction should be.

So, essentially, we likely are able to recognize that people are wrong about bitcoin when they fail to understand and or appreciate some aspects in bitcoin that might exist beyond some of the manipulation tools and/or sentiment (or momentum) indicators that they might be using in order to attempt to predict BTC price dynamics/direction.

Quote from: Dimitri94 on May 14, 2023, 06:19:34 AM

Gamblers bet money either get it back or lose it. If lost there is no second chance.

More sophisticated gamblers don't bet all or nothing in one shot... so your attempt to make that specific contrast does not seem to be completely correct.

Quote from: Dimitri94 on May 14, 2023, 06:19:34 AM

One of the great successes of Bitcoin is that some people win even when they lose temporarily. What does that mean? From what I can see, those who bought Bitcoin at the highest price around $70K can also boast of being Bitcoin holders. Because it will go to that stage again. While I can't guarantee the timing here, I can assure that it will reach that level or exceed that price.

You are guaranteeing while not guaranteeing. That hardly makes any sense, except that it is possible to say that bitcoin both has great odds to the upside, and that bitcoin is an asymmetric bet that allows for a decent potential for great returns as long as you are not fucking around with leverage.. but instead just merely deciding an amount to bet (invest) and then just waiting it out 4-10 to 20 or more years and then see if your bet (investment) paid off greater than if you had merely just kept it under your mattress or perhaps investing it in more traditional ways (such as stocks, bonds, gold or property).

Having an asymmetric bet to the upside is not even close to being guaranteed - even though people do not seem to be able to get the concept of "guaranteed" out of their heads.. they will say it is not guaranteed and then use words to describe it as if it were guaranteed... It is not an easy thing for any of us to get our minds around, and I am not even claiming to be completely exempt from such word/definitional traps.

Quote from: Dimitri94 on May 14, 2023, 06:19:34 AM

Those who held bitcoins at whatever price they were purchased did not lose. But those who fail to put it in their basket are losers.

That's all true. Historically bitcoin has tended to have great performance for anyone who did not cave in and who held long enough.. then they would tend to beat almost any other investments had they done the same thing - and with the added bonus that bitcoin would have had been much easier to get into as compared to some investments are not easy to get into... but even with bitcoin, there are ways that a lot of us could have still ended up losing if we had failed to sufficiently/adequately secure our coins.

We also know that historical performance does not guarantee future performance, while at the same time, there are no real signs that bitcoin's investment thesis is getting any weaker with the passage of time, but instead it is likely getting stronger with the passage of time.. even though again, that does not mean that there are not going to be a variety ways that guys (and gal) can lose their coins along the way or that there is even close to the same exact dynamics in terms of price potential of bitcoin if any one is starting to invest into bitcoin now with a current market cap of around half a $trillion versus getting into bitcoin when it was struggling to reach a billion prior to 2013.

Don't get me wrong, there is still plenty of UPside potential. but likely there are limits too.. including that currently monetary asset classes are (including other forms of assets that hold a monetary premium) is likely included as a full current potential in current dollars as less than $1quadrillion dollars which is ONLY a 2,000x (talking about current dollar value) - but then if we consider that new inventions and technologies will also cause some of the ways in which value is even possible to most likely to be going up.. then we might be able to even imagine a world that might have somewhere in the ballpark of $1-$10quadrillion of value in current dollar value - but still would ONLY end up causing the full market potential of bitcoin to be in the ballpark of 20,000x from its current place - even if we were to assume that all monetary value ends up flowing into /gravitating to the most sound of the monetary assets (currently held by dee cornz).

Quote from: Dimitri94 on May 14, 2023, 06:19:34 AM

There may also be times when a Satoshi becomes most desirable assets ‍and most expensive.

I don't disagree with this point, yet from a technical point of view, it's a pretty easy "problem to fix" to potentially add sub-satoshis as a further down unit.. even though.. it would not take away from your point in regards to satoshis being our current base unit on the bitcoin blockchain in terms of it being 1/100million of a bitcoin.

Quote from: Dimitri94 on May 14, 2023, 06:19:34 AM

So everyone should make good use of their time. Many people aim to get rich quick from bitcoin but the important lesson is “If You Can't Hold, You Won't Be Rich” which is my favorite quote from CZ about holding.

For sure.. something like.. don't lose your bitcoin, should be a prudent goal for a lot of people - even if they might not believe that they are able to accumulate very much based on their current situation.. but they still anticipate that they might be able to live a decently long time into the future.. so therefore, even if you are ONLY able to accumulate $10 per month at present times, then it still could add up to be a decent amount of money when we are looking 20-40 years down the road.. (and who knows the timeline with any kind of specificity).. .. and also if a person of very modest investing means believes that s/he has good chances of still being alive 20-40 years down the road, then s/he might want to spend a decent amount of time to figure out if s/he is able to improve the amount of his/her disposable income by either increasing income or decreasing expenses.. and so even if there might be some difficulties in this year or the next year, sometimes there could be ways to build skills, networks and/or abilities to be able to improve income down the road (in real terms not merely nominal terms... because your dollar is hardly going to be worth shit 20-40 years down the road if it were to still exist, it might cost $1million for a loaf of bread, so it is good to be making improvements in real terms, not getting mislead into believing conditions are improved merely because nominal terms have improved).

Quote from: Falconer on May 14, 2023, 03:01:00 PM

Quote from: JayJuanGee on May 12, 2023, 02:59:02 AM

Quote from: Falconer on May 11, 2023, 05:22:49 PM

My guess is anyone who has an investment in bitcoin without having an emergency fund in fiat, then sooner or later they will sell their bitcoin. At least 20% - 40% of the total investment budget must be saved as an emergency fund, this will definitely help them if an emergency occurs.

I am not sure if there is a need to set aside any kind of specific amount (on a regular basis) in order to maintain your emergency fund, yet there are a variety of ways to assess whether your emergency fund is enough, including some kinds of considerations that if your cashflow were to dry up for six months could you still survive?

So far I haven't been very strict about setting aside an emergency fund and I can tell you it's pretty flexible from one month to another. I mean, the amount can vary as the needs that I have to fulfill each month increase or not. But of course I wish I could put it aside every month as long as I have my salary paid out at the beginning of the month even if it's only a few percent of the amount I've managed to save. Part of it I think is good for investment, and part of it as an emergency fund.

You do not need to be adding to your "cash reserves" or your "emergency fund" every month once you get to a kind of sustainable level. I recall at one point in my life when I was single (no business and no family) that I had a monthly cashflow cushion of $500 (which just meant that the lowest point that the checking account balance projection would ever get would be $500)... but that did not account for other places in which I might have to draw if my income dried up or my expenses increased. When I added a business then I had to increase that $500 amount to $1,500 and there were times that I went up higher and down lower, and sometimes when I would lower it too much then I would see that I was getting into "pickles" too frequently, so I would raise it order to lessen my chances of getting into "pickles.".. so cash cushion is one thing and then how much in reserves is another thing - and if you are having to dip into your reserves frequently, and if you are always (or frequently) into the practice of engaging in replenishing it, then it may well be a sign that it is NOT high enough.. or something is wrong with your balancing of factors, your life style or maybe just the various ways of your income are really inconsistent or your expenses are "all over the place.".. it might also be a sign that you are overly investing into BTC (or whatever other investments that you might have) .

I would imagine that it would be preferable to get to a position in which you are not bouncing around a lot (sure some bouncing is probably not a bad sign in terms of needing to be somewhat aggressive and not overly whimpy in terms of how much you are investing into risky assets - such as bitcoin), and so it is not necessarily easy to strike something close to a balance - and the ultimate goal would be that you are choosing how much to invest into bitcoin based on "extra" cashflow that comes from income and/or fewer expenses, rather than every month struggling to replenish your emergency funds that are already overly depleted... and of course, those are judgement calls in which you have to figure out your own proper, appropriate and comfortable balancing.