As for people being hesitant because of all the downside risks they see, my impression is a bit more positive as I know people who bought BTC where I never thought they would. Some in their mid 50s, even 60s, and often times they don't fully understand the technology behind it, but they slowly but surely get this idea why it is very likely to be around for a very, very long time. Lots of people are changing their minds for the better, but it is of course still true that the vast majority is still skeptical although only a very tiny fraction of the skeptics could tell you in a few easy words what bitcoin is about. They are still in ignorance mode. But I am convinced that with time passing by, more and more people will either voluntarily learn about it, new generations grow up with it as if it has been there forever, and some people will learn the hard way when one day they ask themselves why their fiat can't pay the same amount of stuff it was able to pay 10 years ago. It's already happening and the number of people approaching me asking about bitcoin did certainly increase over time.
Well yeah, some of the fiat people who failed refused to buy bitcoin are asking why that bitcoin holder has not suffered the same denigration of wealth as the one who had failed/refused to invest in bitcoin, and yeah, so we have already been undergoing what may well be the greatest wealth transfer in history from the no coiners to the coiners, and some of the no coiners will realize earlier than others (do we call those precoiners?), and so yeah the wealth transfer process can be uncomfortable and at the same time, it also can be a bit subtle.. especially while it is happening and without using a zoomed out perspective.. and people frequently don't even believe in the zoomed out perspective when they see it.. many nocoiners and bitcoin skeptics will see the zoomed out perspective as an unsustainable bubble rather than as the wealth transfer evidence that it really is.
I am sure there are a lot of precoiners out there. Probably everyone who is 20 years away from death. If bitcoin keeps expanding and in 10 years from now there are people without holding a single satoshi, I guess it must be people who are about to die anyway. Others would be hardcore deniers. I have sympathy for folks on a fixed income to have some reluctance in regards to investing into something like bitcoin, so usually I suggest that anyone investing into bitcoin should have at least a 4 year time horizon, and surely there are some older folks who are already on a fixed income who already expect to live another 10-20 years or more, so even if their income is fixed (or mostly fixed), I would still think that they should be able to appreciate that there are decently good odds that their purchasing power is not going to keep up with their income, so they are likely better to take some moves to attempt to buttress or hedge their fixed income, which would be bitcoin.. and surely there are likely folks who are struggling to understand the ideas of how the ongoing debasement of the dollar (and other fiat currencies) is going to result in a near inevitable eating into their purchasing power, and it may well be that their property (assuming ownership of individual housing) and/or equity ownership might well not be enough to sustain their living style and maybe not even sustain it within ways that they would consider to be acceptable. Yeah, we cannot necessarily pigeonhole all of these folks in regards to the ability of their various income sources to keep up with their lifestyle and whether they might be forced into unwanted cutting.
In any event, it still can be difficult to get them to just consider that if they have 4 years or longer, then they should consider stocking away some of that value into bitcoin, even if it might ONLY be $10 to $100 per week... can seem scary to some of them, and maybe that is why some of them might not end up being truly precoiners, but end up buying some kind of fake bitcoin product, such as buying Bitcoin spot ETF shares rather than real bitcoin. Perhaps better than nothing, but still bitcoin gets its power from direct ownership and means in which more people can figure out how to hold and transact directly.
But one thing holds true: most people can't resist selling back and forth when they get started with bitcoin. Stories when someone sticks to a plan from day 1 are quite rare.
It is probably o.k. to play around with trading if there is some kind of way to limit your practicing amount.Let's say if a person comes to bitcoin and such person already had spent 15 years or more building his investment portfolio and he has right around $500k in networth through various quasi-liquid assets, so he decides to invest 15% into bitcoin, which would be right around $75k into bitcoin, and yeah maybe the first issue is how to accumulate such bitcoin, so then once he establishes his position, then he might be tempted to trade and/or to fuck around with shitcoins... so if there is a limit of 10% towards shitcoin and/or trading, then at least he would ONLY have a total budget of $7,500 for those things.. and hopefully he would be able to live within such limitations in terms fo whatever experimenting that he might attempt.
Another thing is that if he decides to continue to invest $1k per month into all of his various holdings.. so if he sticks to investing 85% into his traditional investment ($850) and 15% into bitcoin ($150), and so maybe from the bitcoin investment, he might want to take 10% and put into his shitcoin pot and/or his trading.. so that would be around $15 per month that could go in that direction based on these parameters. Surely, folks can create whatever parameters and limitations upon themselves....and sometimes people who have already spent a decent number of years building their investment portfolio, they are not going to be very inclined to be fucking around with either trading or shitcoins, and so we likely can logically infer that much of the temptations of trading and/or getting into shitcoins more likely comes from folks who are trying to get rich quick and they might not even know how to set trading and/or shitcoin limitations upon themselves, when they also should be focusing on bitcoin first and bitcoin investing first, but they may well get lured into trading and/or into shitcoins rather than focusing on first building their bitcoin stash.
Third party custody is dangerous, so sure Onecoin was outrageous, yet the various problems with third party custody are not going away any time soon, and yeah, you are talking about a different kind of scam that is not ONLY about 3rd party custody.. but the scam still relates to 3rd party custody, and also plays on desires to get rich quick, and abilities for individuals to send their value to some place that they believe, which is a good thing that people can send money without anyone stopping them, yet at the same time, there are folks who take advantage of their ability to receive that money.. so I am not sure how you stop Onecoin like entities, and why are you focusing so much on one coin. .Don't you remember Terra Luna, 3AC, Voyager, Celsius, Blockfi, Genesis/Gemini/Grayscale, and yeah you mentioned FTX/Alameda.. and some of those had been partially resolved, but they are not that long ago in BTC's history.... and the scams come in various kinds of newly invented ways.. so I am not sure how you believe scams are going to go away without ultimately interfering with personal sovereignty in bitcoin, the solution might not be worth it.. with the KYC and AML justifications to control on and off ramps.. I have my doubts about those kinds of supposed solutions. Sim swaps, ransomeware, and social engineering are also quite lucrative ways of removing folks from their coins.
My impression is that those who have substantial amounts of money available for investments are rather inclined to go into BTC with a rate closer to 100% and stay in it long term. The less money people have, the more they are inclined to double it up and this is a serious threat in this market. Too few people do the research and familiarize themselves with numbers like relative number of people owning BTC globally. If they figure out how little that number still is, they would also be able to see the growth potential. But many of them only watch the charts from the past and try to find a coin that does these insane jumps again.
And of course this thread is about buying or selling and maybe timings or so, but it's all a very individual matter eventually. There is no one true approach. But some basic things we brought up here should be sticked to and I think one is that someone should develop a target as to how many BTC they want to own and then don't consider selling until the target is reached. After that, strategy could be recalibrated.
And of course this thread is about buying or selling and maybe timings or so, but it's all a very individual matter eventually. There is no one true approach. But some basic things we brought up here should be sticked to and I think one is that someone should develop a target as to how many BTC they want to own and then don't consider selling until the target is reached. After that, strategy could be recalibrated.
I will agree that folks are distracted into various kinds of investments, and ultimately they have to figure out their own allocations in regards to their particulars.. and sure adjust from time to time based on learnings along the way..so maybe they start out by investing and holding BTC with a third party, and then at some point down the road they learn how to do self-custody, and some of these obstacles can be difficult for some people, so frequently we are likely hoping for more and more user-friendliness.. but yeah sometimes there are attacks on bitcoin in regards to how easy it is to hold bitcoin and/or to transact in it, so people get scared of those kinds of personal custody matters, too.. but personal custody and ability to transact privately are large parts of bitcoin's value proposition... .. .