You may well be correct that normal people have a tendency to follow simple and straight-forward formulas that might not work to their advantage, including that in bitcoin we have a decently robust history of quite dramatic price performarce both to the upside and to the downside, which should spring curiosity in terms of trying to figure out why bitcoin had been engaged in that kind of price performance and/or if there might be some plausible explanation for the ways that bitcoin has historically performed in order to attempt to inform us about the nature of the asset.
Bitcoin's overall price performance and even explanations for what it is should justify investing into it and holding it, even if the justification might be to ONLY invest a small amount due to its historical volatility that has no real signs of going away.
That's a good point and many still don't think and realize that. Despite the overall performance of Bitcoin, they look down on how much potential they're looking at. I don't know where that narrative came from but they've been blinded by the explanation of the altcoiners that are still looking for the lottery ticket that they're waiting for. They will understand it the harder way that no matter what others say, Bitcoin is here to stay.
Shitcoiners can be very convincing when pumping their coins to newbies, since their explanations of the limited upside of bitcoin, as compared to their coin makes sense, especially for people who do not understand bitcoin or its addressable market very well. Even if these newbie no coiners do not end up investing into shitcoins, they also might end up getting scared away from bitcoin rather than merely considering some reasonable percentage to invest into bitcoin, even if it might only be 5% of their income.
Of course, many of us longer term bitcoiners recommend 5% to 25% for beginners, and it is not that we are trying to pump our bags (which many may expect that we are telling them about bitcoin so that they can pump our bags), yet many of us recognize/appreciate that newbies these days likely need to put more value in (as compared to the newbies from 8-12 years ago.
So, it can take some time investing into bitcoin and researching into it before there are better understandings of what bitcoin is and to consider that its investment thesis is not getting weaker with the passage of time.
We can help to correct the thinking of newbie no coiners and/or newbie low coiners in the event that they are having troubles figuring out a value in staying focused on bitcoin rather than getting distracted into either trading or shitcoins, but there is also likely ONLY so much that we are able to do in terms of helping them to be able to help themselves.. which I tend to tell them to just start out slow and to study bitcoin as they go, and surely just getting started can be quite an obstacle.. which maybe sometimes we might choose to send them somewhere between $5 and $20 in value.. depending on if they might be a friend, relative or a stranger.
Amazingly enough, there were several times between late 2014 (I think I started giving away in November) and 2015 (around 20 times) that I gave away bitcoin amounts of bitcoin between $5 and $20 to mostly friends and relatives, but there were a few times that I gave away to mostly strangers that I had met through some social and/or business situation in which the conversation turned to bitcoin. The purpose of these particular giveaways tended to be in order to introduce them to bitcoin, yet I was using a service (it was called Circle) that the time that allowed the person to claim their bitcoin. All I needed to do was to include their e-mail address in the "send to" field. If they opened up the e-mail, then the bitcoin was sent and it was not reversible. If they never opened the e-mail, then there was a possibility to cancel the sending of the bitcoin, which I did end up cancelling the send (like a year later) on a few of the sends, since the recipients did not open up the e-mail.
The BTC prices for my give aways during that period tended to mostly be between $230 and $390 during many of those various give aways, so the amounts of the give aways varied between 0.01 BTC on the lower end and 0.06 BTC on the higher end, which surely seems like a lot right now, but I would give away, and then I would replace with bitcoin buys, so yeah, it seems to have had cost me a few hundred dollars for my various give aways during that time... yet the amounts are quite great right now in terms of dollars.. largely each of the give aways are valued between $1k and $6k right now.. so maybe if I added them all up they would have been somewhere in the ballpark of 0.9 bitcoin... maybe not a big deal since it was attempting to build good will in regards to bitcoin, but still.. it was money that I could have kept, too... yet at the same time, I feel better as a person for having had given away that bitcoin, even if ONLY small percentages of the give aways actually resulted in the person getting involved in bitcoin, while at the same time, I did lose track of several of the recipients, too. These days for small amounts we might send through lightning or zapp or something like that.. .and sure there still are some services that allow sending within the service to other persons who have the same service... so some of those might not have any charges. I don't recall paying any transaction fees or charges to send those transactions using Circle, which paying fees might have had discouraged me from doing it.
Of course, past performance does not guarantee future results, yet the evidence seems to continue to support that bitcoin is in its relatively early times and is likely to continue to be volatile into the future.. perhaps with less of an upward slope, yet there is no evidence to support that bitcoin prices have topped out.
I agree, it didn't topped yet and that's why those who are discouraged about it, they need to take time and decide very well for this cycle.
It seems to me that anyone who is new to bitcoin and either a low coiner or a no coiner should not be concerning themselves if the market has topped, and surely the BTC price could go shooting up, which might cause many of us to consider that the BTC price has topped, and surely a newbie might come into bitcoin with smaller investment amounts and even anticipation that the BTC price might drop from their entry point, yet if they are investing a reasonable amount for their discretionary income for 4-10 years or longer, they still well might end up being better off for employing a strategy to get started and to get in rather than employing a waiting strategy that might not work out for them... but yeah, each person has to decide for himself and live with the consequences of his action choices (or his non-action).
I personally think that guys who are more worried should invest smaller amounts into bitcoin so that it is less likely that they become emotional about their investment, yet it still is difficult to guide guys in their level of aggressiveness and to figure out how they should balance their personal circumstances amounting to their finances and their psychology. Surely if they spend some times honing their own balances within
their 9 factors then that might help, but it takes some work to figure out balances.
Slowly but surely as they say and I agree that if they're worried about BTC's volatility, they should only invest with the smallest amount that they can risk. Later on, they'll understand why many are optimistic of investing and telling everyone to buy more.
There could be a hypothetical person who has a budget of $100 per week that he knows that he can put into bitcoin, yet he purposefully decides to ONLY put $10 or $20 per week into bitcoin and to hold the remaining $80-90 per week for buying dips, and that may or may not be a good approach, but at least, he had gotten started and he is consistently investing, even though he is also purposefully choosing a more conservative (perhaps whimpy?) approach to his weekly budget amount. I tend to recommend to not hold back more than 25% for buying dips, yet I understand that there could be circumstances in which the BTC price has done so much upward price performance that any person might decide to hold back a larger percentage for buying dips.. with the realization that anticipated BTC price dips may or may not end up happening.
Surely guys are going to have inclinations to want to do what they want and to forge their own path, and sometimes some of the guys will listen, even while they might choose their own path that might have way more allocation to shitcoins than prefered, but there is ONLY so much that we can do.
I had someone who I had been talking with about bitcoin and trying to make sure that he avoided shitcoins for several years, but just once or twice a year and maybe even some years that I might not have had seen him, yet last year I saw him several times during the second half of the year and into 2025, and at some point earlier at the end of 2024, he told me that he had sold a decent portion of his Ethereum and bought bitcoin with it, and so that position lasted several months, and then somewhere in March or April, he told me that he bought back Ethereum. I did not ask him if he bought back the whole Ethereum position, but I found it quite frustrating because he really was not listening to me, and he just traded, and there is ONLY so much that we can do, even though I had spent quite a bit of time with him, he has troubles resisting gambling and/or thinking that there might be some value in Ethereum .. or that at some point it is going to pump... which sure it might, but it is still a pretty dumb place to be putting time, energy and value.. at least from my perspective of the matter..
That's right, there is only so much we can do from these people. They've asked, we listened and we gave them suggestions on what should be for the good of their investing journey. I've been there and I understand your frustration, these people probably value our words at the beginning but if they think they're good enough, they're walking freely and deciding for themselves which is normal.
Even people who claim to not have a lot of ego tend to have a decent amount of ego, so people do prefer to make their own decisions, even when they might be relying on bad sources (without realizing it). Sometimes the mere fact that we have given them an alternative perspective to consider will be valuable in regards to their having information to do their own due diligence and their own research into the matter to attempt to verify the extent to which our perspective might have some validity. some folks might have seemingly solid trusted sources, even someone like an investment advisor who is telling them the opposite of what we are saying, and they might have had felt that their investment advisor is acting in good faith and has even helped them out extensively through the years, so they feel that they cannot deviate from the guidance of their investment advisor... even though in the end, most investment advisors will also proclaim that they are ONLY executing the wishes of their clients.. and surely over the years, I have had discussions with quite a few bitcoin naysayers who otherwise seem smart, but ultimately had been overly swayed by their investment advisor and they could have had make $100s of thousands or even $millions of dollars by employing some version of allocating to bitcoin, as I had suggested.
Prior to 2020, for new investors into bitcoin, I had been recommending 1% to 10% into bitcoin, yet since 2020, I have been recommending that newbies try to consider 5% to 25% into bitcoin, and sure of course these are beginning ideas, so a person ultimately is responsible for his own choices, and if he is whimpy or pessimistic about bitcoin, he can choose the lower end of the recommended range, and if he is more bullish or optimistic, then he can gravitate towards the higher end of the range.. and in the end, he is also not limited by the range, even though I am suggesting such range as a beginner consideration, yet at the same time, each person has to tailorize whatever investments they make (whether bitcoin or otherwise) to their own financial and psychological circumstances.
But if they already have some thoughts of doing something else, they shouldn't waste our time.
Sure some folks are disingenuine and/or not serious, and so we do have to determine if we might be wasting our time talking with them.. .and surely even in real life, there might be some folks who engage us in trolling kinds of ways and they really are not serious, even though they ask questions about the topic... so we do have to choose the extent to engage with seemingly unserious people or if we have enough patience, and surely sometimes we can even tell them that we are purposefully not talking with them about the topic because they are not sufficiently serious about the topic, yet maybe we could let them know if they take certain actions to show their level of seriousness, then maybe at that point we will choose to talk with them about the topic.
Oh well, this is a normal for btc guys like us when we're asked about certain things with BTC, we're always there to help but knowing that it could just make us disappointed, it's also tiring after realizing that we're already doing too much for others.
Of course part of being alive and a social being (instead of isolated and alone) results with our sometimes having relationships that are frustrating, and surely sometimes we are able to limit the interactions with some of the persons who frustrate us, but sometimes these people are within our circle of friends/relatives and we cannot completely avoid them.. even though sometimes we can establish boundaries or even communicate our boundaries in a way that they might realize that they have to take some actions, such as setting up an account and/or establishing a wallet, yet still if we have already interacted with someone who is overly frustrating us, then we might choose to avoid them in regards to all topics, even if they might show good faith efforts, we might not be interested in interacting with them on the topic of bitcoin and/or other financial and/or personal topics.
Great. Let me know if you have any questions, comments or concerns.. ... sometimes I feel that i need to update portions of those threads, but at the same time, the threads communicate many of my perspective regarding how to attack investing into bitcoin and concerning that many of us may well have to get through our BTC accumulation stages before some of the sub-topics in those threads would become more relevant, and surely some of the sub-themes are not without possible controversy.
It already has got a lot of information and helpful tips but if you've got some time in updating it, please do so for everyone to learn something new, information or experiences from you.
There are a couple of the tables that I would like to update, but surely it takes time to do so, and sometimes I am juggling other things and I feel that I am not ready or able to make such updates. For example, I have my own updated version of the fuck you status chart.. and the one in the thread has not been updated for nearly a year... it still communicates several of the ideas but is missing some of my new information and/or even the updates in the projections.. and there are some other areas too.. but it takes time to go through the various areas and even to decide whether a new thread might be preferred over ongoing updates to posts already made. .in which they are going over several topics at once...
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This is why being in this forum is a privilege. Most times when I'm in the midst of friends who are not here in this forum, I get to understand the level of wrong information they are carrying about bitcoin. I used to get upset about it earlier but that's not really right because we only tend to know what we can know.
Most people believe that bitcoin is just one of the regular shitcoins and sometimes they don't tend to give room to learn something new about bitcoin. I was in a crypto gist with a friend a day before, when he started bragging about how a particular altcoin would put perform bitcoin before the end of the year. During the process, I asked him why he thinks so, just for me to realise he doesn't have any reason for saying that. He only believed so because of the hype he got among his ignorant fellows who also didn't have any base for their argument.
I recall having a similar conversation with a relative in the summer of 2021 (somewhere around the 4th of July, I believe), and he was acting like he was so smart about his various investments into shitcoins. I suggested to him that since he is in his early 30s, any of his investments whether into bitcoin, shitcoins or otherwise should be attempting to have a 10-year or longer investment timeline, and I asked him if he were to get stuck with his investment choices and he was forced to hold for 10 years based on his going into a coma or some other hypothetical, then after 10 years which investments would he like to be in, and I suggested to him that bitcoin is likely the ONLY investment that is worth having a 10 year or longer investment timeline based on his age and other circumstances that I knew about him.
He told me that Cardano (ADA) was something that he wanted to be in for 10 years or longer. I told him that I did not know a lot about Cardano, but from what I knew, the promoter of that shitcoin (Charles Hoskins) is a scammer who had been involved in quite a few prior pump and dumps, and he (my relative) should not be praising Hoskins or his newest scam projects.. or evenbelieving the various bitcoin naysaying talking points in which Hoskins and his group are getting them to invest into that shitcoin (Cardano) instead of putting value into bitcoin. I told my relative that he was deluded to be thinking that Cardano was anything other than a pump and dump investment, and he could not seriously be believing that he is going to want to invest in that crap for 10 years or longer, as compared with bitcoin. That relative insisted that Cardano was a 10-year investment, and even considering that it was going to outperform bitcoin in the coming years based on that 10 year investment time horizon of Cardano.
Sometime around the next year, I asked that relative about his investment into Cardano, and he said that he sold all of it. So it is crazy that his actions did not even end up reflecting his supposed beliefs, and he did not even believe what he was telling me in 2021, even though in 2021, he acted like he believed what he was saying. That Cardano project did end up peaking in 2021 sometime after our conversation, and then it ended up going down hill quite a bit after its peak, and I am pretty sure that my relative sold at considerable losses both in dollar terms and in bitcoin terms.
People want to be smart, and surely he has a decently strong ego, and in most recent times, he has not really been talking about his various shitcoin investments, even though I am pretty sure that he is still dabbling in them, and I think that the last time that I saw him (and talked with him) in late 2024 (perhaps 5 months ago), we did not talk in detail about bitcoin and/or crypto, even though I am pretty sure that there was some things that I was talking with his wife about related to bitcoin, but then suggesting that the wife might need to get assistance from the husband in regards to some of the things that I was talking with them about, in terms of their kids too.. .. and surely there seems to have had been some awkwardness in some of the conversation even though some of the prompting of the conversation was coming from the wife rather than the shitcoiner husband who surely is more technically trained than the wife (including that I recall asking him if he knew about some kind of a technical matter related to wallets, and he claimed that he did not know, except generally about the matter that I was referencing... and I surely don't know as many technical details as what the guy should know since he works in more technical areas with technical training background as compared with my not having such training in my background).
Bitcoin is a type of crypto, better than any other possible shitcoins due to most of its features which may rarely be found among any other altcoins.
Sure bitcoin is a type of crypto, yet many times we do not refer to bitcoin as crypto because it is confusing in terms of various other cryptos trying to proclaim themselves to be similar to bitcoin, which ends up being problematic to be lumping them all together, even though technically, it is correct that bitcoin is a type of crypto.
One of the things that might need to be appreciated is that so many cryptos try to proclaim that they have improved upon bitcoin, and even if it were to be true that they made some technical improvements on bitcoin, it is likely that they clearly would need to be more than 10x better than bitcoin in order to take over some of bitcoin's network effects (those
outlined by Trace Mayer). In terms of Gresham's law, the money is likely to flow towards one and towards the best of monies, and so even on the moniness levels no shitcoin comes close to bitcoin, and bitcoin itself is greater than 10x better than fiat and more than 10x better than gold, so bitcoin has been taking market share away from both fiat and gold over the past 16 years, even though it is a bit of a slow process.
There are no shitcoins that are even close to 10x better than bitcoin, yet many of them try to juxtapose themselves as better than bitcoin in one way or another and/or that they will be taking market share from bitcoin.. so surely some folks can get confused and/or lured into those kinds of shitcoin talking points... or even develop hope around various shitcoins being able to absorb some of bitcoin's market share on more than just a pump and dump basis.
What matters is how good you are when it comes to sieving the information you have, picking out the right ones and discarding what ever makes you doubt the genuity of bitcoin. Be sure not to force your opinion on anyone, make your point and withdraw, forcing your opinion on them creates more doubt in their minds.
Sure. I agree with not forcing your opinion and/or point on others, yet sometimes it still might be important to continue to make your point, depending on the nature of the relationship and/or the nature of the conversation. It may well be the case that some friend, relative and/or acquaintance is pumping bitcoin naysaying nonsense or even talking about shitcoins, and there may be no need to back away from such conversations, even if you might be correct that sometimes there might not need to be any ongoing conversation and to just let actions speak louder than words, since each person can choose their investment allocations and how they might go about making their various investments in regards to how they are using their time, energies and/or money.
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There's no place for any shitcoin mentions on this thread, this place is about Bitcoin and and long term hodl. We are here to discuss the best strategies, opinions and mindsets on when to buy and hodl, our discussions should be centered on related discussions. Bitcoin has proven it's potentials over the years as a store of value and for investors that understands this they have to find the best strategy for them to stay focused on accumulation. We cannot overemphasize that DCA method remains the most effective strategy to accumulate Bitcoin on the long term.
Short term accumulation plan is not suitable for investors that wants to do Bitcoin investment, it's a volatile asset and it's price can dump and pump at anytime. But on the long term we'll always sees ATH price and that should be the focus of Bitcoin investors so that they will not panic or worry about short term dip, correction and rally then dip again.
There's always some level of risks in every investment that yeilds money, any investments that promises zero risk is probably a scam. Smart investors goes for investments that have low risks and high ROI, Bitcoin more than qualifies in this category. The only sacrifice is that you need to hold for a long term, the longer you hold the more profitable it becomes for you in the peak of bull circles.
I agree with everything you said Kelward, except any implication that investing into bitcoin is guaranteed to be successful. Sure, we agree that bitcoin is amongst the best, if not the best, place to put money for the long term. .asymmetric bet to the upside, but it is still not guaranteed.
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I should have started accumulating bitcoin longer before I came across this forum, but I had a mentor in my early days in the crypto world who had vast knowledge of bitcoin and cryptocurrency, and he told me that it was too late for me to invest in bitcoin and that only the rich folks can invest in bitcoin. The wrong impression made me believe that I was not in the right position to accumulate bitcoin, so I didn't even attempt to invest in bitcoin back then, but thanks to this forum, I was delivered from that wrong impression, and I am comfortably accumulating bitcoin.
It can be ironic and even unfortunate when some of the times we end up getting led down the wrong path and with the wrong impressions and/or frameworks by people who are otherwise smart... but we do not know enough to realize that they are wrong about certain topics, including bitcoin... so yeah, there can be really smart people providing very good reasons to NOT invest into bitcoin, yet history is quite likely to prove them wrong.. .. which is unfortunate when some people end up following their advice/suggestions/framework.
What I am trying to say in essence is that before some newbies came to this forum, they had already seen how people are making it big with bitcoin investment without them knowing those folks have held their bitcoin investment for a long time, and they had conceived a wrong impression that bitcoin is a quick way to get rich soon, which has led them to invest the money they cannot afford to lose in bitcoin with the hope of getting rich soon, but they ended up selling their bitcoin investment at a loss to survive. Thank God Satoshi created this amazing forum so anyone that thinks Bitcoin is some kind of investment where he or she can invest $1000 today and get $2000 tomorrow will be delivered from such a wrong impression.
Even with bitcoin being a great investment (if not the best place to put time, energies and money), some folks are going to screw up their execution, and if they end up investing with money that they actually need for expenses, then they don't necessarily realize their mistake until some time down the road when they need the money or they need some money and then they don't have any money, except for their bitcoin. which they end up having to sell some or all of their bitcoin at a time that was not of their complete choosing.
Many times guys will believe that they are being reasonable in their bitcoin investment, and they might even think that they are being smarter than everyone else because they are making most if not all of their money work... but then when they need money, they have no back up funds that are in their local fiat, and they have no other resource, except to tap into their bitcoin investment.
Yes, it may well seem that your money is not working when you keep 3 months of your local fiat cash in an emergency fund and perhaps even another 1-2 months in various reserve funds, yet sometimes we are not going to know when our income dries up and/or our expenses go up, and then we need some flexibility in our abilities to have cash available so that short-term shortages in cash does not turn into an emergency and/or does not contribute to our having to sell some or all of our bitcoin at a time that is not completely of our own choosing.
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Investing in shitcoins or altcoins is just like gambling, and you are not guaranteed to win.
Getting involved in shitcoins is not about not being guaranteed to win with the gamble, but instead it is about placing unnecessary risk and even engaging in behavior that contributes to lack of focus and lack of building your bitcoin investment because you are distracted with your time, energies and/or value into largely irrelevant and counter-productive products.
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I do think some of these hosts do it on purpose...
This creates debate, with more people interested in making an input, thus making their show go viral, which means more payout on those videos (it's YouTube, it’s everywhere on the SM though ).. yet, some actually have zero ideas or knowledge about what they utter, they just do it because some random dude or influencer said or speculated the same thing. It’s just sad that the main victims of these words are always the newbies and the uninformed, and once learned, it will be somewhat difficult to unlearn it.
I wouldn't be surprised if some of these hosts secretly do the opposite of what they are saying...
There can be reasons that seem to be very valid to be against bitcoin, yet they are also due to ignorance, yet they are are having trouble getting past the seemingly very valid reasons. .. so for example, in recent times, Trump and his family have been pumping shitcoins, and even engaging in abuse of his political position, so some folks attribute Trump's behavior to bitcoin and bitcoin-related kinds of dynamics, so then they have a valid starting point that disallows them to actually see past trump.
Another thing is that there can be folks who are influence by banks and by various monetary policies that have contributed to their own prosperity within the existing status quo financial systems, and so in several senses, they have difficulties recognizing and/or appreciating bitcoin beyond it being based on a set of wishes for folks to get rich the easy way rather than work that they might have done to get into their current financial and/or status position. So they might not even realize that their own position is blinding them from being able to see flaws in the system or being able to see what problems bitcoin is attempting to address.
Sometimes it can be difficult for some of those against bitcoin to see bitcoin in terms of having actual legitimacy, since it just seems like magical (and intangible) internet money, and they become receptive to the claims that bitcoin is a pyramid and/or a ponzi that is filled with several sub-ponzis.
So, yeah, there is asymmetric information, and those who are hating on bitcoin might not even be acting in bad faith in terms of their inabilities to see how bitcoin remains part of a solution and/or good place to invest time, energies and value.
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In as much as I would love to say the person deceived you by making you believe that it was already too late to invest in Bitcoin I would also say that you are the one that choose to be deceived because you didn't seek or try to find out if the information received or heard was wrong or not. It is very wrong to only seek or get information from a particular source because even in school after been taught one ought to go home and still research more concerning that particular information in other to be sure and understand it more better.
I know I missed starting my bitcoin investment earlier than the year I started investing in bitcoin because of the advice I listened to, but I wouldn't allow that to weigh me down from my bitcoin investment because shit do happen. I am still pretty early to invest in Bitcoin, so the most important thing to me now is that I am consistently accumulating Bitcoin with the DCA strategy, and I don't allow the mistake I made in the past to discourage me from accumulating Bitcoin. If I accumulate bitcoin for one full circle, I think I should have a reasonable bitcoin portfolio that I will be proud of.
Of course, all of us make mistakes, and we have to also figure out ways to go forward from our mistakes, and even sometimes it is good to reflect upon our own errors in regards to having had trusted some other people without doing our own due diligence, yet so many times in life, we are not able to do due diligence on every thing in our lives, so we sometimes end up relying upon the representations of others to our detriment.
Another thing is finding a course forward, and surely, it is better to learn about the mistake sooner rather than later, but still, having some course of plan and even recognizing how we got to our newer course of action might help us to know why we are where we are at and what kinds of mistakes we want to avoid in the future, yet at the same time, we are not necessarily immuned from making similar mistakes as we had made in the past.