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Wow JJG now I know the reason why you where selling your Bitcoin and still accumulating, that feeling of not having enough yet it happens and a some people are in such situations right now they don't really know if they have accumulated enough or not.
JJG you said what helped you really realize and have confidence that you had enough was when Bitcoin price going up from in the $500s in early to mid 2016 and into the $2k to $3k arena in mid-2017 surely such a move in Bitcoin will help someone know if he has accumulated enough or not.
It seems that each of us has to figure out how to valuate our BTC holdings in way that makes sense to us, and now days, I like to use the 200-WMA, yet back in the 2014-2017 time frame, I was measuring the value of my BTC holdings in the same way that an overwhelming majority of folks measure such BTC values, and that is using the spot price.
I think that using the spot price is a kind of default, even though the spot price inevitably is fluctuating so much, we still tend to wand to use it, and surely we might compare the spot price to our average costs per BTC, and perhaps if we get into being several times in profits, then we start to feel that we have a cushion from price corrections, and surely I was not immuned from that kind of thinking.. which these days I continue to believe it is better to attempt to use something more solid (and like a bottom price) like the 200-WMA to valuate our BTC holdings.
In any event, whether we end up being correct or in error, each of us likely has to figure out what kinds of ways to measure our bitcoin holdings in order to help us to decide wether we are going to stick to whatever course of action that we have or if we might change our course of action based on our valuation of our BTC holdings.
Yes each of us likely has to figure out what kinds of ways to measure our bitcoin holdings and when doing this we may also make some mistakes and from those mistakes we will know the right thing to do whether we will remain or change our course of action based on our valuation of our Bitcoin holdings.
I think reading your story can make it very easy for some else to figure out what kinds of ways to measure his bitcoin holdings because believe me some set of people won't be able to do it there self until they get support from someone, there are some investors that has a lot going through there head and they find it hard to think through some things and that is why this forum is very important people like you Sir JJG help people know how to go about there investment, from all this discussions a lot of people are learning and is making them take the right decisions in there Bitcoin investment.
Maybe if the price went from $500 to $200 maybe you won't have this confidence that you have accumulated enough so maybe is safe to say the high rise in Bitcoin can help someone find out or build the confidence that truly he has accumulated enough or not.
Your whole story of your Bitcoin investment journey is an inspiration and a learning ground for both new and old investors so Sir JJG keep sharing your thoughts and experience.
You are likely correct with a presumption that I would have had continued accumulating BTC between $200 and $500 and perhaps I would have had continued even up to certain prices above $1k, yet at the same time, it was a combination of the quantity that I had accumulated (which reflects upon how much value that I put in), and not ONLY my average costs per BTC that motivated me in regards to self-assessing the extent to which I had enough or more than enough. The tipping off point might not have had been exactly any kind of a bright line, but instead a combination of factors, and surely the size of the BTC stash happens to be a pretty major part of the assessment, even though the target continues to move in terms of its dollar valuation.
Part of an ongoing problem in using spot price to valuate our bitcoin remains that we may well continue to consider that we have a relatively large price cushion, and then all of a sudden the BTC price drops 70% to 80% or more. Another factor that quite changed my own assessment of my status is that I had more than 20 years of investment experience prior to getting into bitcoin, which meant that I had been able to front-load my bitcoin investment, and so many normal folks (including many folks participating in these forum threads) are not coming to bitcoin with lump sum amounts, and they are going to have to tend to accumulate bitcoin for at least one or two cycles without even looking at the prices and/or the extents to which they are in profits, but instead their better financial interests (and perhaps even long term psychological interests) are likely going to be better served by their staying focused on ongoingly accumulating bitcoin without thinking too much about price - even if maybe they still are lured to the price, they might develop some tactics of holding back some of their ongoing bitcoin buys for price dips that may or may not happen, but they might feel good by their being able to have money during times when the BTC price does end up dipping.
You are right Sir JJG when you said that Part of an ongoing problem in using spot price to valuate our bitcoin remains, and just like you said that we may well continue to consider that we have a relatively large price cushion, and then all of a sudden the BTC price drops 70% to 80% or more, so it is better to valuate our bitcoin by the quantity we have and not by spot price of Bitcoin.
Bitcoin price movement is not guaranteed one may feel Bitcoin price won't go below a particular price and it those and when it those if you valuated your Bitcoin by spot price you will noticed the mistake you have made, so one should consider accumulating enough by the quantity of Bitcoin and not the spot price of Bitcoin.
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Waiting for the price to doubled before selling is actually a very good way to sell your Bitcoin as someone who has accumulated enough Bitcoin Because it will still keep your investment going.
I provided an approximate formula to briefly described the rate at which I was selling, yet my formula is incrementalist, so I was not waiting for the BTC price to double before selling, but the way that the formula was implemented, I would make sure that I did not sell any more than the allotted amount at various price increments - so for example, in the beginning, no more than 10% for every time the BTC price doubled, and surely as I already mentioned, that amount has gravitated downward (to currently less than 3%), and it is not exactly a precise amount but a ballpark amount that is mostly erroring on the side of holding an overwhelming majority of the value, allowing the value to continue to compound upon itself, so that after several doublings (several times compounding), there is way more options to sell larger amounts if I were to choose to do so, yet many times, I don't feel any needs to sell off larger amounts, even though I am authorized to do so.
Oh now I understand you just don't sell when the price double you had an allotted amount to sell at various price increments and you also made sure you don't sell more than that amount and that is how you allow the value to continue to compound upon itself, hope I'm not mistaken Sir JJG.
Those who are regretting now for selling off all there accumulated Bitcoin at once may have not if they had this idea.
Surely there are a lot of folks who sell off way too much bitcoin too soon, and I am not sure if it is greed or what, since they may well be selling before they have even accumulated enough and they are frequently selling with a motive to buy back cheaper.. which I think that those are inferior ways of thinking about bitcoin and/or how to manage a guy's bitcoin holdings.
From my perspective, first there is a need to get to a state of overaccumulation.
Then there is a need to not sell too much BTC too soon so that even if you choose to start to sell some of your BTC, you are never overly selling it and you are not selling with expectations to buy back cheaper, so you set your BTC sales amounts to be at such a level that you would not consider that you had sold too much, even if the BTC price kept going up... so largely you are likely continuing to sell from your overaccumulated amount and you are never running out of your overaccumulated amount to sell because the amount that you are selling is relatively small within the overaccumulated amount.
Surely, my whole system likely revolves around selling too little, and since I have already benefited from at least 8 doublings (compoundings), I have a lot of extra pent up bitcoin that could be sold, since the overaccumulated amount has been growing through the years rather than shrinking.. In other words, even though I have been continuously selling, I have not been overly selling.. so there continues to be a lot of extra that could have had been sold at earlier stages but it was not sold.. so it is just sitting within my BTC holdings as extra bitcoin that could be sold at any time, whether the BTC price is up, down or sideways.
Yes there's need to accumulate enough Bitcoin before thinking about selling, if you only accumulate little and then sell you are not different from a trader, we should have our own target and works towards getting to that target before selling and that target should be one that we make us accumulate enough Bitcoin.
Yeah I also I think that expectation to sell and then later buy back cheaper when there's a dip is not right because you will turn to and investor who waits for a dip before he can accumulate and how long will you continue to wait for a dip knowing fully it is uncertain to happen.
You are right JJG I think one should set his Bitcoin sales amounts to be at such a level that one would not consider that he had sold too much even if the BTC price kept going up.
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Yes truly the bitcoin investment has outperformed expectations, a lot of people never believed Bitcoin will grow this big.
Your sustainable withdrawal plan is a very good one.
It seems to me that we can proclaim that bitcoin has outperformed expectations, while at the same time, understanding and appreciating that bitcoin's performance is still within expectations.
Maybe another way of saying it is that bitcoin has performed amongst the most bullish of expectations, so if we had set up various bear-case scenarios, various bull-case scenarios and if we had assigned probabilities to the various scenarios, bitcoin's actual performance would be within the higher of the expectations but it is not outside of expectations... which means that any of us could have had seen these actual bitcoin performances as within better-case scenarios playing out rather than worse case scenarios.
Some folks might even proclaim that bitcoin is right in the ballpark of prices, adoption, etc, that anyone could have had expected. There surely have been reasonably smart folks proclaiming even more bullish scenarios and even back in the earliest days of bitcoin. I believe within the first year of bitcoin's existence, Hal Finney had outlined scenarios in which he saw bitcoin's addressable market justifying well over $10 million bitcoin prices... so there surely have been a lot of bullish cases for bitcoin outlined over the years, even in bitcoin's earliest of years.
You are actually correct Sir JJG let's also take for example what is happening now in Bitcoin States are now adopting having a bitcoin reserve and more state are proposing to have there own bitcoin reserve this was not so years back Bitcoin has now become more valuable and known it was year's back so from this one can see the future actual bitcoin performances as within better-case scenarios playing out rather than worse case scenarios.