Every investor must set a target timeline to which his/her investment journey would last actively before thinking of a possible sell, with this in mind, such an investor creates or build up funds such as emergency and reserve funds through his discretionary income to enable such investment plan been achieved. An investor who fails to plan, already plans to fail. A set plan of targeted goal towards such an investment will serve as guide and road map to a successful Bitcoin accumulation process..
It is good for every investor to set a target timeline to which his/her investment journey should last, but in my opinion, it's not necessary for investors to set a target timeline of when their Bitcoin investment journey should last because it's likely to make some investors become over aggressive in accumulating Bitcoin so that they can meet up with their investment time, and at the end they will end up selling their Bitcoin investment too early. We should just be accumulating Bitcoin without setting a timeline so that we won't be under pressure to meet up with our timeline and end up getting out of the game.
Every investors will choose a strategy that they want because it's their money but the thing is that it's not every strategy that is a well thought out one for Bitcoin investment. Having a target timeline to sell is a choice but if you want to be very profitable in Bitcoin you'd hold for the very long term like 8 to 10 years or much more. No need to worry about a timeline to sell because it can be a distraction, you'd be flipping your calendar and doing countdown to sell time.
Personally I believe that the best strategy on when to be selling should be during retirement, also leaving some for responsible inheritors. With this in mind you'd just be buying and hodling without worrying about the perfect target timeline to sell. So far you have active discretionary funds you'd keep buying and when you get that lump sum you'd buy aggressively.It seems that if anyone considers themselves a life-long investor into bitcoin, then they would need to spend 1 to 2 or maybe even 3 cycles accumulating bitcoin. They might develop some kind of a formula to figure out if they have enough bitcoin or more than enough bitcoin. It can take a while to get through the accumulation stage.
Then after a person reaches the amount of bitcoin that he considers to be enough or more than enough, then he may well engage in a kind of maintenance of the stash.. perhaps a whole cycle and largely the maintenance stage would be a stage that the guy neither buys nor sells, but just maintains his status of having enough bitcoin or more than enough bitcoin.
The sustainable withdrawal stage would be the next stage, which means that the guy can start to sell from his overaccumulated amount without ever falling below overaccumulation status, so he figures out how much he can sell without causing his bitcoin to go down in value more than it is gaining value. If a guy is selling way below his overaccumulated amount, then he retains room to splurge every once in a while too.
I personally think that if any of us are able to establish how much income we are going to need per year in order to maintain our lifestyle, then that is a good way of measuring if we have enough or more than enough BTC.... which will help us with our transition from accumulation stage to maintenance stage and then to sustainable withdrawal stage.
If you happen to look at a life long investor's journey, you'll see that it does really unfold in phases that actually build on one another. They start with the accumulation stage, which most likely may last through 1-3 full cycles. Within this period or phase, the investor's only job is stacking up as many sats as they can, building up a position with that mindset of not just speculating for a short term gain, but aiming for a point of security and sufficiency. The central idea here shifts from making some quick profits to "having enough" and the reason for this is because, if there's actually no sort of benchmark, a person could potentially fall into the trap of Accumulating endlessly without a purpose. And then the investor should realise that Accumulation shouldn't really be about building an endless stack of Bitcoin but more about reaching a kind of a sustainable threshold that'll support future stages.
And once an investor reaches this stage, their strategy naturally shifts into maintenance. Although this stage is often overlooked by a lot of investors, but it's in fact a very crucial and critical stage because it requires the investor to completely change their mentality. Rather constantly wanting to capitalise on DIPs and worrying about missing opportunities, they're comfortable with the mindset that they've reached an overaccumulation status and already have enough. This maintenance phase is more about protecting what you've spent your whole life building and no longer about adding or subtracting. The investor focuses more on tightening up their security, refining their self custody practices and make sure that they maintain their stash across the ups and downs of the market. Psychologically, this can be very liberating, because the investor can have the peace of mind and comfort in the fact that their position is strong enough.
Now if an investor is able to have accumulated more than enough or reached a fuck you status, then comes the final stage which is the sustainable withdrawal stage. In this phase, the investor begins to withdraw from their investment without undermining their long term position. The logic at this point is quite simple, withdraw less than the average growth of Bitcoin, so that even when you make those little withdrawals, the base stacks still continues to grow and replenish the withdrawals you've made. This is equally the final stage that gives/offers investors the enjoyment and flexibility, because once the core needs are covered, the investor is free to use the the excess for personal enjoyments or explore other opportunities without having that fear of their stash going below the threshold of enough or overaccumulation status. It's more of a balance between preserving the foundation of your investment for the future and still living off the benefits Bitcoin provides.
When you put all these together, you'll find out that the cycle makes a lot more sense. The main purpose of the accumulation stage is to build their investment to their goal, maintenance phase becomes about holding your ground when you've finally reached your goal and the last phase which is the sustainable withdrawal is about reaping the rewards of your labour responsibly.