Post
Topic
Board Nigeria (Naija)
Re: Balancing Financial security and Bitcoin Accumulation
by
JayJuanGee
on 18/07/2025, 18:36:18 UTC
[edited out]
‎You are right, the guys consistent $50 per week habit already gives him a strong DCA foundation, so the main decision lies with how to structure that $5k....

I agree that the main focus is the $5k funds, but the $50 per week is not an automatic decision that he should divert all of it to BTC in contrast to keeping some of it or all of it still going to his historical investments.  Nonetheless, I do consider that the most compelling answer would be to transition the $50 per week towards bitcoin - yet there could be some unknown facts that might cause him to weigh the considerations differently, such as if he were to have tax advantages with the account or if his employer were matching the funds, and surely I had not mentioned those kinds of possibilities that could exist with the other investments that he had been doing.

‎Personally, if I were advising him, I would  probably lean toward this kind of breakdown,
‎1) with 40% DCA ($2,000), he can Invest $125 each week for 4 months, along with his usual $50/week. This keeps things steady and less stressful during price swings.

‎2). 30% Buy on Dip ($1,500): Set automatic buy orders that trigger if Bitcoin drops starting at a 10% drop and then every 5% down, up to 30%. This way, he can grab BTC at cheaper prices.

Of course, there are odds that the BTC price will not dip that far, and if the BTC price keeps going up are you going to adjust the prior amounts?  Since you are presetting the amounts, you likely would be setting from our current price or perhaps from the price in which you bought BTC last.. but if the BTC price keeps going up without any of your orders filling, are you just going to keep your buy orders in place.  Right now a 30% dip from here at $118 would take your lowest automatic buy order to somewhere in the $82k price range, which surely seems low from here, but not outside of the realm of what could end up happening.. but yeah there is also a risk that none of your buy orders would get filled, ever.. even the one going down 10% (which is around $106k), and so then you don't have shit for bitcoin, yet at the same time, you have $1,500 i cash that you had not used... By the way, I am maybe using stronger language than I need, and holding back 30% for buying on dips is not totally unreasonable... .

‎3). 30% Immediate Buy ($1,500) he can Buy some right away to lock in a position. Since he is  in it for the long term, it is  good to have some Bitcoin now.

I might have had considered 50% or more for this category, or maybe expediting your DCA portion to be over a shorter time period of a couple of months.. but yeah, these are surely flexible categories, but still good to lock into some commitment because if we give specific facts, you need to employ in a specific way otherwise your plan is not clear (especially when talking about it in forum thread like this one).

‎The beauty of this split is it gives him exposure now, allows for disciplined entries over time, and still positions him for a dip if the market turns.....No approach is perfect, but this balances patience and action well  especially for a beginner building conviction and like you said, the most important part is owning the decision and understanding what each part of the strategy is doing for you......

Exactly.  If you are specifically that person, you likely have to commit to something, since even non-committing has consequences, so it is likely better to commit, even if like you mentioned previously, some of the money, could be put into some kind of a reserve fund that would then allow considering what to do with that part later, even if it is put into a reserve fund it is held in cash or cash equivalents, unless you actually decide to put it in to some kind of a fund that locks it up for a period of time.

Allocating 10% of his portfolio ($5k) to Bitcoin is smart. He can redirect his weekly $50 investments into BTC for consistent exposure (DCA).....
Remember the $50 weekly is already something that he is used to doing, so it would be coming out of his discretionary income, not from the extra $5k that he is taking from his investment portfolio to allocate it towards bitcoin.
That makes sense, Keeping the $50 DCA from his regular discretionary income means the $5k lump sum stays intact as a one time allocation..... It is a smart way to build exposure without disrupting his overall cash flow or investment balance.....

Surely people who have lump sum amounts have more options than people who are completely reliant on their discretionary income.  Of course, some young people, and even some people who have never gotten into any practice of investing, they might not hardly have any lump sum amounts available, and surely I am presuming that even folks without any investments, they still may well have 2- 6 weeks in cash, since there are likely not very many folks who completely operate on $0 in extra money and 100% wait for their paycheck.. and even though surely there are people who live like that, it seems to me that we should at least aspire that we are trying to make sure that we are not that kind of a person in the future, even if we might have had lived that way in the past... just as a basic safe living style, we likely need to try to keep a couple of weeks of cash as our back up and extra funds, even if we might spend 100% of our paychecks within the period that we get them.

I don't have a problem with the invest immediately, but I do have a problem with your saying DCA without specifying how much time or how to spread it out.  Over 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year or longer?  and what if the BTC price goes up?

You are also completely ignoring the buy the dip component, and don't get me wrong.  I am not a big fan of buying the dip, but it surely could be a great thing to consider during any periods in which a guy has lump sum amounts available, so that if he buys with a portion of the lump sums right away, then the buying on dip could be a good supplement for any nervousness he might get from buying a bunch of bitcoin in a short timeframe.
You are  right,  just saying DCA without saying how long isn’t helpful. Maybe he can spread the $5k over 3 to 4 months, so that  he is  not putting it all in at once. That way, he avoids buying at a high point......

That is reasonable, and yeah there can be variance based on the specific financial and psychological facts of that particular person including that in regards to exactly what he chooses to do, he may well want to take into account his 9 personal factors, too.

And yeah, keeping some cash aside to buy if the price dips is smart too. It can help him feel less worried if the price goes up or down after he starts investing.....

I have frequently considered that if a guy puts a decently large amount of money into bitcoin at one time or over a short period of time, then he is way more justified (and reasonable) to hold some money back for buying on dips as compared to guys who are not putting in large sums of money at once and who are merely DCAing within their discretionary income on a weekly-ish basis.

If a guy already has an emergency fund that has the 3 months, there is no reason to top it off, unless he might anticipate that his expenses had gone up so that the amount  that he had no longer would cover 3 months of expenses.  Otherwise there is no need to top it off.  On the other hand if you are referring to putting some extra money in reserves, then that is a bit of a different story, since reserves are flexible in terms of what they could be used for consumption, buying the dip, as back up to the emergency funds, so yeah reserves have some flexibility, yet if we are trying to invest in bitcoin, and we are a fairly new BTC accumulator, we have to be careful in regards to keeping too much cash and being overly timid about putting value in bitcoin, yet at the same time, each person does have to get used to bitcoin, so you are correct in your inclination to error on the side of conservatism (whimpy) in regards to the bitcoin investment rather than overly aggressive... the level of aggressiveness can be increased later down the road as the person gets more used to investing in bitcoin.
‎That makes sense, so If the emergency fund already covers the full 3 months, there is  no need to top it off unless expenses have gone up. I also see your point about reserves  they are more flexible and can be used for different purposes, including buying dips or as backup.......

A thing with reserves is that they could be for a large variety of things.  1) saving for a new phone computer, 2) saving for a car/motorcycle, 3) buying dips, 4) wife/spouse wants a short vacation in 3 months (maybe overnight or a couple of nights) or maybe it is a fancy dinner or a birthday gift, 4) child wants a bicycle for his/her birthday in 2 months, 5) plumbing/roof needs to be fixed but there is some ability to delay it, but if it is delayed for too long it is going to end up costing more money, and/or 6) other things

Some of the items might have income earning potential, so would likely be a higher priority and some of them might be for luxury goods that might have some flexibility in terms of deciding how much is wanting to be spent on such.

Since the money had not been spent, it can also be used as emergency funds if an emergency happens.
 
When it comes to Bitcoin, I agree it is  smart to avoid being overly cautious or overly aggressive. Starting steady and adjusting over time as comfort grows seems like a good approach.....

Yep.  There is some advantage in spending some times just getting used to what we are doing.. since if we are either new to investing and/or new to bitcoin, we might need to get used to channelling a certain quantity of our discretionary income every week, so just as we are doing it, every week, it may take us several weeks before we start to feel comfortable with the amount that we are spending and that we are still able to meet all of our expenses, even though we are dedicating a certain quantity of money on a weekly basis to go into bitcoin.
 
What do you mean by "long term"?  Are you talking 4-10 years or longer?  I think that the guy that I specifically provided would likely have at least a 10 year time horizon, yet some people do get anxious in regards to their wanting to reach overaccumulation status or fuck you status, and I have difficulties seeing this particular guy on his particular budget being able to get to overaccumualtion status in much less than two full cycles, even if he gravitates towards more aggressiveness.  Yet it could depend on his goals too.. since if he merely wants to continue with a $25k per year income, then it could be the case that he might be able to get close to reaching that or even superseding it in less than  8 years.. especially since he already has an investment portfolio that is two years of his current income... so this particular guy is in a pretty good position relative to his current income, and he has not even added bitcoin into the mix, yet..
Yeah, when I said long term, I was thinking in that 8 to 10+ year range , at least through a couple of Bitcoin cycles. I agree, this guy is in a strong position already, especially with an investment portfolio worth two years of his income..... If he stays consistent and adds Bitcoin strategically, he could definitely reach or even surpass his income goals over time. Of course, it depends on how aggressive he wants to be and how patient he is with the process....

He is already in a position to be aggressive and has quite a few options beyond what we have discussed, yet if we were to give an example of a newbie to investing, newbie to bitcoin, he might not have as many options, yet he still can start with what he has, and usually the very beginning points involve getting started buying bitcoin through DCA and building up emergency funds.  I hardly see any reason that such beginner needs to get into buying dips and things like that, except maybe to the extent he might want to try to time the potential dips each week... but maybe he is starting out with $50 per week that he has to figure out want to do with and part goes to buying bitcoin and the other part goes to building up his emergency funds.  I see little advantage in further diluting the $50 per week and getting distracted by trying to figure out whether there is a dip or not.. just buy every week, and then may be by the time his emergency funds are in place and a bit of his reserves are in place, then maybe he might have more luxury to hold back some of the value for buying dips... so buying dips does not seems like a very good beginner approach to bitcoin, even though a lot of beginners (maybe even an overwhelming majority of beginners) get distracted into considering that there is some value (to them) to structure their approach in a way that includes trying to buy dips.

You seem to be saying that bitcoin is a great asymmetric bet to the upside, and I agree with that.
I do also recognize that a lot of folks consider volatility and risk as if they were the same thing, and surely anyone who greatly budgets into bitcoin could run some risks if he were to need to cash out during a period of great bitcoin downward price moves, yet each of us should be putting systems in place in which we are continuing to buy bitcoin whether it is up, down or sideways, so we would continue to buy when the price goes down, yet surely we could end up running ouf of money during such downward volatile time, and then get into a bad situation, so I will agree that sometimes unexpected things happen, and we do not sufficiently prepare for the unexpected things, such as loss of a job and sometimes it could be based on things somewhat out of our control, like health or an accident or genetics.

By the way, for sure, I gave you an example of a guy who was already in a pretty decent situation with a decent income and 10 years worth of investing, so he might be too perfect, and we might imagine that there are people with way worse finances, even if they might be trying hard to sort out their affairs.  I will concede that guys likely come to bitcoin with very messy finances, and so for sure they have to work with what they got, even though similar principles will still apply, yet some guys might be overwhelmed with debt so they have to deal with their debt or they might not haver any investment at all or any lump sum possibilities, and sure I understand that having lump sums from time to time is a bit of a luxury, and at the same time, guys who are more organized and systemic in their bitcoin investment and cashflow are going to be in a better position to take advantage of any lump sums that they might get as compared with guys who might have worse systems (or no cashflow management systems) in place.

Part of the reason that I gave the example the way that I did is in order to be able to show situations in which guys might need to figure out how to consider all three of their accumulation methods 1) buy right away (lump sum) 2) DCA and 3) buying on dips.
Yeah, I really like the way you broke that down ,especially how you emphasized the need for systems. A lot of people underestimate how important it is to have a plan for different scenarios, not just the ideal ones. You are absolutely right that not everyone is starting from a clean'
 position like the example you gave. Some folks are juggling debt, low income, or unstable cash flow and for them, even getting started with Bitcoin takes a lot of effort and discipline.....

Just adding bitcoin to one of their new activities (priorities) seems to be something that many folks need to get used to, since many people (maybe even an overwhelming majority) are already not even used to investing. so adding bitcoin to their lives results in their needing to learn some fundamentals about investing and cashflow management, even though I assume most people have the skills/knowledge level, even if they have not put such skills/knowledge level into practice. they are capable of learning the basic skills for bitcoin investing.
 
Having all three accumulation methods , lump sum, DCA, and dip buying  in the set of options makes sense, especially if you are  financially organized enough to use them effectively. But as you said, that level of control only comes with having some structure in place first. I think the big takeaway here is that long term success with Bitcoin isn’t just about how much you invest, but how consistent and adaptive your approach is especially during unpredictable times......

Knowing our own limits and working within our own limits remains important to both build a bitcoin investment and strengthen cashflow management and also to not end up screwing it up. No one wants to lose money, yet there still can be ways that they make sure that they are investing from money that they can afford to lose, so then they try to put systems in place that they are investing rather than gambling.

Buying aggressively is good when you have the money to do so, because it will help you increase your bitcoin portfolio in a fast pace but let it be within your discretionary income, if you invest buy aggressively with money that's beyond your discretionary income, you are gambling and will sell your bitcoin at loss, especially when the price of bitcoin is below your entry point.

I would suggest that with bitcoin there can be problems selling at a loss as you suggest, but there are also problems selling at a time that is not of your own choosing, even if you might be in profits.

Any of us who might have had come to bitcoin for an investment timeline of 4-10 years or longer, we might spend several years building up our bitcoin holdings, so we might ultimately be in profits on all of our bitcoin and maybe we have even accumulated a year of our expenses into bitcoin, so we are feeling pretty good about our bitcoin holdings, but if we manage our cashflow badly, we might get ourself into a situation where we have might need 3-4 months of expenses, and maybe our bitcoin is the only thing that we have left, and we end up having to dip into our bitcoin, even though we are in profits and maybe they are in considerable profits, yet if we end up having to sell 3-4 months of our expenses from our bitcoin then maybe that reduces our bitcoin stash to 1/2 or 2/3rds of its previous amount, and maybe once we spend those bitcoin (they are in profits - but we did not choose to do it), yet we might have to spend 6 months or more just building back the emergency funds that we should  have had in the first place and we have to spend another 6 months or more trying to build up our bitcoin holdings, and maybe even we end up having to spend more than a year trying to build our bitcoin holdings back up to where they were, and we cannot get them back up to where they were even after several years of trying to build them back.

So my point, is that it is not ONLY selling at a loss that could cause irreversible damages, and sometimes guys fuck themselves over quite greatly by selling too much BTC too soon, and they are even selling within "dollar profits." but they may well never be able to accumulate back the quantity of BTC that they had prior to their having had sold too much BTC too soon.

[edited out]
I know an investor who bought Bitcoin aggressively at a particular time. I asked him about the underlying reason but he just told me to wait. I understood the purpose of aggressive buying when the price of Bitcoin started increasing and crossed the ATH in a very short time. When the price of Bitcoin started rising, that investor started buying aggressively at a particular time. The strategy of that investor for aggressive buying was that he did not buy Bitcoin during the bearish period but during the bullish period and this method was effective. I was surprised by his strategy because most of the time people spend time finding the bearish period to invest and end up wasting time and money on the investment. You do not have to wait for Bitcoin to start when you have sufficient flow of floating cash funds.

Even though it worked out for your guy to start aggressively buying during the pump, it is still problematic to invest in that kind of way, and if he is telling you to wait as a no coiner or low coiner, then that also sounds problematic.

It seems better to invest for a while to build up a stack, and sure if you have at least build up a stack then you have at least some bitcoin so that you have some preparation for UP rather than if you don't have any bitcoin or if you are still wanting more bitcoin but instead of buying you are waiting. That seems like a problematic and even a whimpy approach to bitcoin investing..