"just the last few days have been struggling"

seems you had bad advice from someone who promised you to get millions in days of halving
THEY LIED TO YOU
you pinned your greed, your hopes, your wishes on bad advice from whomever told you that you will get rich quick at the halvening

first bit of advice calm your nerves and reset your greed aspirations.

the next ATH is usually 1 year+ after a halving and the chances of a 100x from last ATH is not a expectation any more
1st cycle was 100x ($0.30-$30)
2nd cycle was 40x ($30-$1.2k)
3rd cycle was 16x ($1.2k-$20k)
4th cycle was 3.5x ($20k-70k)

so dont expect 100x again expect 2-4x of last ATH

if you have been buying since 2022 then you have been buying during the cycles lows of $15k-$40k
so your amounts should be 1.5x-3x+ already
lets say we do just 2x from last ATH(140k) but you bought at the current cycles (2022 mid) of $35k you may get a 4x, but thats*
lets say we do 4x from last ATH(280k) but you bought at the current cycles 2022 low of $16k you may get a 17x, but thats*
*still just wishful hopes with no knowledge of what the end ATH will be for this cycle

as for when you wish to cash out. well no one can predict the ultimate ATH
it may be $100k/$140k/$200k/$280k

the next struggle you will have is again YOUR GREED
you may wait or hope for say $200k/$280k but wait and wait, where the ATH might only hit $140k so you end up not selling out due to the GREED of being told to expect/wait for $200k+ so end up not selling in 2025 and thus end up having to wait until the next cycle of 2028-2029's halving and ATH


next bit of advise you are already in profit. no one suggests you should cash out all of it but if money is a struggle which you cant survive the next year. take out SOME of your profit now to cope with the short term and that will calm your struggle as you wait for the ATH next year

they dont mark cold storage as a red flag.. you have just heard that from your cult brethren who have their own motives. rather than reading actual regulations

as for people not paying tax, many do have ways to pay less tax, if you learn how
did you know in america you get tax breaks and rebates for many things even at poverty levels of income.. the sooner you learn the better your tax filings will result in paying less tax. but first you should learn them

in regards to "intentional witholding of your funds"

its a matter of fact and regulatory compliance that a regulated money service business CANNOT "take your funds" for whimsical/made up reasons of a business policy.. instead they at most without a court order can stop offering services within its business and request you withdraw your funds and be banned from returning after your exit
you wont see regulated exchanges withhold funds just for fun nor 'jus coz we can'


regulated money services only "take funds" when the receive a court order allowing them to take and forward funds to the courts for holding,
whereby the user then has to be contacted by the authorities to prove innocence to claim funds back
to avoid this. simply dont do anything listed as reg-flag suspicious via regulators guidelines MSB follow(dont do illegal crap)

MSB's only get a court order if they have found your financial activity to be of suspicious nature to a threshold level of triggering the business to report to authorities and thus the authorities using their own authority level guidelines if it meets their own thresholds get triggered to then seek further actions
thus your activity needs to meet a threshold of a threshold of suspicion to warrant further actions


its the unregulated CEX that would create business policies/service agreements that allow them to take and keep funds under private business terms
where you would then need to try to sue the business in court to prove their actions are wrong and get your assets back
(kinda hard to sue some as they hide corporate address behind proxy/virtual mail addresses)

best advice
research services you want to use, ensure you can locate corporations legal address and read their T&C's

if you are just cashing out small amounts like $10-$500 per time, then you just use the other exemptions like 'gifts'
if you are moving large amounts then you set up structures or use financial services set up

imagine CEX services but not set up as markets facilitating bids. but instead 'loan services' matching 'borrowers'(sellers) to 'loaners'(buyers)
same end result, different wording
just be sure to do your research to learn the exemptions.. then use them. there are many. but first you need to learn them so go research

if you use the exemptions in the tax law.. via researching and learning the tax law. even if the taxman is always looking. he cant do anything if your using their laws against them

tax avoidance(legal) is using their law exemptions(such as loans are non taxible)
tax evasion(illegal) is trying to play dumb, ignore laws and hide which is where you will get caught and cant escape

learn/research the difference

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the method is about HOW you "cash out"
learn the exemptions

the masters/elites at tax avoidance(legal) dont just 'cash out'

take elon for instance he didnt cash out his shares to then buy twitter.. he loaned shares to a private bank. the bank loaned him cash. thus tax free to then use that cash to buy twitter. without getting hit by a huge % tax bill for cash

bitcoiners can set up services where by:
people hand over bitcoin and get cash
BUT structured:
they hand over bitcoin as collateral for a loan
the 'buyer' acts as a loan giver of cash. and then claims the collateral as settlement of the loan

in short its still the same end result as giving bitcoin to get cash. but on paper structured in a way that its treated as loans

speak to a tax accountant/specialist for better way to structure it in ways that meet the tax exemption rule. i just dumbed it down for basic understanding

the 'fed' only cares about protecting its position in the international markets. its sole job is about regulating to stay in power/international rank as a superpower and protect the federal reserve and treasury to fund its activities to defend its position in the international markets
the fed aligns more with the banking/corporate need. where as the states align with the citizen need(well it supposed to)

the states are suppose to represent and defend the people within the states.. so if people in america desire and want bitcoin then the state level will support such. even if it goes against fed level desires. however the fed can EO override state desires

the US constitution is not just about giving citizens rights, its actually to protect peoples birth given natural abilities from being abused if the fed over stepped

the fed is found to be at conflict with the united states in many area's (migration is just one of many others)
the fed cant even decide what it wants to be.. sometimes it supports migration by hiring coaches and setting up grants with hotels to traffic in migrants. then it uses ICE and gives grants to airlines to traffic migrants out. whether a state wants it or not

its not so much about the custody. regulators do treat 'services that facilitate the movement of funds on behalf of others for a fee' as a MSB. in short LN routing requires a MSB licence to perform LN routing

the method LN makes payments over a network via using partners liquidity in a pass-the-parcel IOU game in LN, is different to how bitcoin relays unconfirmed transactions on the bitcoin network.. this difference is and will cause headaches for LN users wanting to move funds(route) for a fee

its not just certain wallets but the whole method the LN system operates
the only way LN can succeed even as a niche sub service, is if people self custody lock their bitcoin value on the bitcoin network. and then set up a channel referencing such lock, where the channel is direct to intended destination for their payments.. to not need to utilise the 'gossip' routing table data(avoid middlemen(avoid routing) unless they want to pay higher admin fee)
in short: routing will add costs to LN fee making it expensive to route due to fee's needed to cover MSB regulated admin costs of a service offering routing.

this means people using LN will end up having to pre-plan months of potential spends to set up many channels direct with their favoured services using multiple channels...
in short they might aswell just set up multisigs with intended recipients on the bitcoin network and use a new private communication method to RBF unconfirmed transactions (emphasis privately) between each other(update states).. and just broadcast final settlements when one side of the multisigs funds are depleted thus need to settle to finalise the funds owed

many organisations dont use blockchain they prefer "distributed ledger technology"
but as for time chain
although blockchains provide an ordering system to prove a child transaction cant appear before a parent transaction.. thus ancestry ledger is more appropriate descriptor.. time is measured in seconds, minutes, hours. which bitcoin actually does not log a accurate "time"
blocks are not made specifically in 10minute intervals. the time stamp of a block is not actually used as a time stamp but a 2 hour 'nonce' sequence which can be used for other things like mining churn of attempts

so time chain is not a good descriptor

but you are free to think of a better term than blockchain/timechain and popularise it until its the common term majority prefer
over the years people have thought of 'transaction stream' 'blockstream' terms related to ancestry, etc

yep it would be great to escape it. but we as citizens cant exactly request those governing us to change. they own and control and set the limits of the monetary system we are slaves to and our 4-year vote doesnt really give us much voice over change.. just a 4 year vote on the management people that manage us

nooo
your getting your chickens and eggs in the wrong order..
look at the topic question
i gave an example of it being necessary(when its controlled)

the separate question of excessive inflation is when its not necessary(not helpful, not beneficial, not needed)

the printing of money does not happen at the same time as the population growth so there is always an over supply of money before it trickles out to the population need. and peoples needs expand as technology and products get invented. so the amount of money needed expands
(its cyclical)

in a controlled system these increases would be small. .. but still necessary

EG markets will compete for peoples money and markets then need to pay people for the work so they can then spend to consume those products
(everyone always want more in the fiat system)

(chicken)
EG a couple about to have a kid know their household income would need to increase so they need a pay rise. getting a pay rise incurs extra costs on their employer.. which means although parent is less productive than their younger selves(age slows people down) their income:productivity rate changes where they need more income for less production

 so their employer needs to raise price of goods before the families child grows up to become an independent productive member of society, earning their own income and consuming from that separate from the parent,
so for many years of adolescence. the parents will need more income for each parent. meaning each parents employer will need to pay each parent more which means the price of goods goes up but the productivity does not
and with more money needed in these child developing years(population growth) there is a need for more money in society until the child becomes a productive member of society to then circulate the money increase to stabilise the inflation..

but with that years later(egg)
EG the amount of money a young single adult needs to live on whilst living in parents house with no kids of their own is less for the young adults than the amount a middle-aged parents needs who has a family where parents income needs to be higher to cater to his growing family,

by which time the cycle starts again with the young adult then starting a family

do you now see the whole picture...

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yes in a different universe that was not FIAT based.. inflation is not needed and we would live in a deflationary system where each year our average savings/income would be worth more produce per unit, so would spend less units per product..

but the reality of the real world we actually live in, of the real world systems of fiat which does exist outside of our dreams/outside the crypto communities.. inflation is needed to keep the fiat system running.
we as individuals do not own the fiat system, we are the slaves to it. but its the system that is most active amongst populations so we have to admit its existence and relevance to the greater population utility

we may not like being slaves to the fiat system, hence things like bitcoin are an genius asset that was created for those who want something better. but bitcoin is not the system used by the legal systems and government of the lands we live on
and in the world of admitting fiat exists and is used by the majority, that fiat system needs inflation to operate. however the amount of inflation can change from good(necessary) to bad depending on the amount of inflation

the fiat system would crash if it was 0% inflation and humans would notice financial issues affecting their lives if it was 0%

you got things completely the wrong way round

populations grow first and naturally so
this then causes demand which needs a supply to meet demand (even before productivity)
good inflation would stay at 2% IF money printing matched population growth and its economic productivity rate

however when they aimlessly over print more than the rate of population+REAL productivity.. that then makes businesses see an influx of too much cash so they raise their price and thats when inflation turns bad

yes, proper well managed inflation is necessary for fiat currencies

2 reasons
a. population increase
if more currency didnt get printed, generation growth would happen but each person would have less cash each

b. world economics
when other countries grow economically a competing country needs to also economically to stay in the same ranks

so yes  inflation is needed..
.. BUT when inflation outpaces population growth, and printing occurs outside of real growth of production economics. thats when inflation turns bad

in short printing for the sake of printing where each new money lump print does not benefit the general populous but gets lost in the upper echelons of the elite, done just to fake boost the rankings without the funds being used to boost the utility/productivity of the population.. its bad

for centuries people used to hoard wealth
now people see hoarding as something poor people do with your waste

so now they say hodl
people do not have laws that assert they should always use a term.
people can invent a new word and if it makes people like using the new word people will use it

so go ahead make a new term
EG just stop using the word crypto and instead use digital currency.
or make a new word

learn the word FULL or become a FOOL
pretending something is FULL when it doesnt do FULL tasks. doesnt mean its FULL

crypto is more of a shortened word for all cryptocurrency

however some define individual coins differently
digital assets, digital commodities, tokens, coins, meme-stock, crap coins
deflationary currencies,

there is no law on how you define it, there is no law forcing everyone to call bitcoin a 'crypto'.
just use terms that describe them properly(good adjectives/nouns) and make the descriptor popular

moving any asset/commodity/security to fiat is a taxable event
but now CEX's have to report events, means the taxman has proof of events which you then hav to declare in your own filings

the only options are to know enough taxlaw to know the loopholes to avoid tax in such events(legal).. or find ways to swap to fiat outside of reporting services to evade tax(illegal)

main tricks are what the elites do
dont 'spend' value(buy/sell), personally lend value as loans are not taxable
its literally a process similar to fiat exchanging, but word it right and create your own paperwork to show it worded as such, it suddenly becomes a double sided personal loan to each other which cancels each other out the same day(paid in full)

speak to an accountant/tax specialist

being mainstream means more opportunity to get some sats(just not for free, you gotta work for it).. just dont be conned into being told the future is to lock your sats up, and then dive into some other network systems/subnetworks and play around with their IOU balances until your iou balance is depleted and you are made to settle up. losing it all again or staying locked until you have used it all

the $30 incentive thing bottlenecked and broke due to el salv being conned by a LN 'adviser' telling them to use LN instead of bitcoin as a backbone of chivo in 2021
LN had bottlenecks and caused alot of users to be unable to claim their $30 due to liquidity issues of LN. within 3 months el salv closed it and replaced the backbone with a CEX(alphapoint) as the accounting and withdrawal system(custodian) of chivo value/transfers. majority of people just gave up after the first phase and didnt use chivo again. even under alphapoint CEX custodian services.

not all el salv citizens even used chivo in initial LN phase and not everyone signed up to alphapoint in second phase. so the "over 5 million" is an exaggeration. the database the script kiddies ARE SELLING is a con in-of-itself.. (scammers selling to scammers)

as for the 'hackergroup'(script kiddies) giving ATM files for free.. thats because its public info, anyone can find the ATM masterdocs, the ATM manufacturer is not even el salvadorian.. the manufacturer sells ATM's and maintenance guides/access to files to franchises like its candy

you dont need to hack a government to get the files. and there was no government hack to get them..
these files are just a phase two promotion by skill-less script kiddies, hoping of proving they are hackers.. but they failed

there initial phase of the database of citizens is their hope of a money maker. hoping scammers would buy the database.. which the script kiddies didnt get much custom so doubled down pretending to be hackers of the ATM files as hope of proof of being legit hackers.. and as i said failed to prove anything

blackhat pretends to not care about taint... but he does care.. thats why he thinks mixers are needed

also you have things the wrong way
fiat is money (a common medium of exchange)
anything can be currency(even sexual favours from your wife in exchange for getting her a gucci purse)
currency is a broad term which has sub categories: money(legal tender(fiat)), asset, commodity
money WAS valued, pegged to a commodity when backed by gold. because gold is a commodity
but money does not need to be a commodity to be money.
the features of commodity of money were replaced by laws of value (tax, min wage, accountancy, fines, debts)
yep fiat is backed by something even now.. government laws which make it circulate commonly as a medium of exchange

also if you want to be informed learn the word fungible
commodity has closer features of fungible. such as all wheat on the commodity market is treated as the same quality/product even if grown slightly differently on different farms
however we know not all wheat is the same.. in reality.. outside the commodity stock market
some wheat can have disease, have less/more wheat germ, be GMO, organic, etc

thats why fungibility IN REALITY is not a yes or no. its a scale.. and yes majority can be treated similarly, but that does not mean all are equal. its a scale not a binary option

however money is not binary option fungible, people treat and value money differently based on geo politics, local values and labour differences, taxes, etc

take some real world experiments
if you had a $100 bank note. and some stranger came upto you and said "nice bank note, can i have it.. i have here a $100 you can have"
the initial REALISTIC response is not to just say yes. but instead in the real world you would question what that strangers motives are and you would presume his bank note is dodgy as he seems a little too eager to get your note but relinquish his own so easily

so people dont treat things equally, they do question the other persons holding

if btc was truly fungible (in your definition) there would be no reason for mixers
now ask yourself why do you and blackhat need mixers.. i dont need the answer but ask yourself and be honest to yourself

we all know the answer. but it time you start telling the truth to yourself

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the only reason blackhat is obsessed with promoting btc is fungible is to con innocent people into giving up their clean coin so he can off load his dirty coin..
if he really thought it was fungible he would not want/need/promote/be part of mixing. he would just hoard his coin as is and not look to recruit victims to offload his dirty coin to

let wait a few years for black hat to have a real revelation

money is not fungible
money does not have to be fungible

blackhat just thinks a narrow path that fits whatever he is promoting

2 people working the same job same hours same location.. one only needs to work 40 minutes for $10, the other works an hour for $10

walking between 2 shops on same major road. $2 can buy a whole loaf of bread, however a mile away that same $2 wont be enough to buy a whole loaf of same brand bread, same day within 20 minutes..

money does not mean the same value to different people

heck even someone receiving $100 from a relative on their birthday is treated differently by the tax man than someone receiving $100 from a days income from work. or $100 in investment gains from a investment sell

1btc to someone in a icelandic/slavic region is worth $25k of mining cost
1btc to someone in the pacific island regions is worth $110k of mining cost
1btc to the market traders is worth $67k

someone would prefer to mine a fresh mined coin for a premium than receive mixed coin even at discount