So do I. I'm generally optimistic regarding Bitcoin's performance, and even the $30,000 mark is quite satisfying for the time being. I was honestly expecting us to be in the mid-$20,000 range with all these incidents occurring in the world (the ongoing war, inflation, the SEC lawsuit, and so on). It's generally advisable to have realistic expectations when it comes to investments, including Bitcoin. It's unrealistic for me to expect a new ATH within 2023, and I'd be happy even if we surpass $40,000 throughout the year. The halving doesn't guarantee us an ATH, and even if that's likely to happen during that time, it won't happen from one day to another. I'd expect Bitcoin to undergo a major recovery somewhere between early and mid-2024.

Personally, as my DCA is ranging somewhere between $27.000 and $28.000, I'd be satisfied even if Bitcoin ranges from $45,000 to $50,000 in the next two to three years, something that most of us are expecting to happen a lot sooner, but as I've said, I tend to keep my expectations as low as possible.

Even mixing services cannot always guarantee 100% anonymity, let alone bouncing your Bitcoin from one wallet to another. It might make it a little more complicated and time-consuming, but eventually your transaction will be tracked back to the original address. Mixers also depend on how much fee you're charged and the transaction amount, which is why mixers often recommend withdrawing fungible amounts, such as 0.01, 0.10 BTC, and so on, instead of 0.1523 BTC, because there won't be an abundance of transactions with such a specific amount.

Others suggested P2P exchanges or the decentralized exchange Bisq, but they aren't as convenient as centralized ones. Generally, Bitcoin isn't the ideal coin for anonymity; there are others, such as Dash or Monero.

This is the main reason I avoid megathreads, even those that I've created myself and have developed over 10 to 20 pages of replies, even though I can still contribute to the topic, without repeating myself. After some point, only spammers reply to meet their quota for their signature campaign, repeating what has been said numerous times in the previous replies. Even if we suppose that there are a few decent posts among the 20-page-long thread, they're lost in the spam of other users and go unnoticed. The most annoying of all is quoting what has been said in the starting post and posting their completely irrelevant reply, with zero attempt to create a proper discussion and interaction with other users.

I discovered this forum after reading an article about Bitcoin and deciding to investigate further. It was the first introduction to the world of cryptocurrencies, which, looking back, I didn't fully take advantage of. The forum is so full of information and knowledge that if someone spends enough time here, he'll acquire valuable knowledge that will guide him for the rest of his life. Personally, I signed up in 2014 but also spent some time without an account browsing and lurking around the forum. I didn't take full advantage of being so early in the market and never managed to acquire the Bitcoin I wanted back then. Long story short, I was underage, without the means to purchase, and gave up easily, while I could possibly find a solution here through the forum.

Since then, I've given up twice and returned after 1-2 years of inactivity. It has been an amazing journey so far and a great experience overall, especially with some exceptional users that I've interacted with. The only thing I regret is not taking advantage of the years I was here.

I understand where you're coming from, but it's quite unlikely that anything unfortunate would happen to you, even if the Bitcoin you sold or moved was involved in illegal activities. You can simply show the transaction ID that it is no longer in your possession, but generally, it's doubtful that you'd get in trouble. I also had a similar question regarding KYCed Bitcoin, which is tied to your identity if purchased through a centralized exchange, but it was mostly regarding the taxation of cryptocurrencies.

Unfortunately, if you have transactions on centralized exchanges, it'll always be shown that you have purchased crypto in the past. This is why P2P exchanges come into place—to avoid being screened, even though it's quite unlikely, unless we're talking about thousands of dollars worth of crypto.

That's true; the fees are also a parameter to take into account, something I had completely forgotten. Smaller transactions will be unaffordable to go through due to the excessive fees, especially during network congestion. Not only that, but it may be subject to delays. The only way I can see Bitcoin spending possible on a daily basis would be with a cryptocurrency card topped up with Bitcoin or even other currencies, such as Binance's or Crypto.com, both of which are fully centralized, and most of us, including myself, would avoid them by all means.
Why would I lie to myself and claim that I'd use Bitcoin as a currency? That was its initial purpose, but we have pivoted from the original plan. Personally, it's an asset, similar to stocks, gold, you name it, in that it's undercover and decentralized. It feels like having a mini-savings account without having to go through banks. I've used Bitcoin as a currency in the past, somewhere between 2014 and 2017, and now you could say that I regret doing it because I'd have a decent sum of money that would have put me out of a lot of hassles.

It's not that far off from the $1 peg; it was way worse a few weeks ago, after it stopped minting activities via Prime Trust, causing it to lose parity for a few days, going as low as $0.995. My main concern is that we resorted to stablecoins as a means to secure our funds without turning them into fiat, and we're constantly subject to similar incidents; even the giants USDT, USDC, and BUSD have suffered similar issues before, but fortunately were quick to recover their parity. Until one day they don't, which isn't as unlikely as we want to believe, especially those algorithmic stablecoins such as TUSD, USDD, and many others.

Personally, while I don't worry too much about losing my money on a possible depegging of a stablecoin, although I've already lost a decent sum when Terra crashed (UST), it's frustrating to see FUD and price fluctuations on something that's supposed to be stable.

I believe that the majority of us don't expect Bitcoin to become a future currency, nor are we planning to use it in our daily lives. Let's be honest here: it doesn't make too much sense to be used in that way; it's volatile and extremely valuable. Why would someone pay with Bitcoin and not a fiat currency that constantly depreciates in value? Nowadays, Bitcoin is considered an asset, similar to gold. Would you pay with gold in your daily life? Probably not. Thus, I don't see any practical reason to use it in our daily lives, unless it's for speculative purposes.

Certainly get rid of the 9-5 lifestyle if it's present or do everything to avoid it anytime in the future, supposing that financial freedom derives from another source of income, such as cryptocurrency investments or stocks. My next goal would be to continue investing. I wouldn't rest assured, but I would continue investing my money wherever possible and attempt to have multiple sources of income flowing, from passive sources if possible, such as dividends or staking, to remote working. In the meantime, I'd constantly travel the world. Material stuff doesn't matter; we won't be here forever, and our goal should be something more meaningful than buying a new car or fancy clothes.

I'm guessing the OP was quite young when he stumbled upon Bitcoin in 2016 and couldn't purchase it himself. This actually reminds me of myself in 2013 or 2014, when I requested my parents' permission to buy Bitcoin because, even though I had the money lying around, having always saved money from a young age, I didn't have the means to pay. I was underage, approximately 15 years old if I remember correctly, and thus didn't qualify for KYC, didn't have a debit or credit card, nor were PayPal purchases possible, supposing that I had an account; I created one later on.

Unfortunately, I missed the opportunity because I couldn't persuade my parents to let me use their card; they are completely oblivious to innovation, let alone cryptocurrencies, and in that way, they thought they were protecting me. Oh boy, were they wrong.

Both processes are quite similar, as other users have already suggested, with the main difference being that staking is focused on earning rewards for holding and validating transactions on a blockchain network, while yield farming and liquidity mining are focused on providing liquidity to decentralized exchanges and liquidity pools to earn rewards. Both sound way too similar, and to be honest, the result is practically the same for the end user. As someone who has been active in liquidity mining and staking and has participated in both investment types in the past few years, I never distinguished any differences and also believed that it's practically the exact same thing. Both options share the same risks regarding smart contracts, vulnerabilities, exploits, and impermanent loss.

It'd be best if the OP replied after reading an abundance of replies with what he actually proceeded to do or what he's considering, at least. I understand, however, that you're often lost in the replies after receiving a huge number of them and can't easily summarize them. Anyway, personally, I'd use my emergency fund instead of my assets, but that also depends on the occasion. If there was a market crash and I had the option to use fiat in an emergency, I certainly wouldn't use my bitcoin; I'd possibly consider it only if I was at a great gain, and even then, I'd do it in the event of an extreme need.

I signed up in 2014 and practically knew nothing about cryptocurrencies. I was a lurker, reading a variety of threads before actually posting something. Everything I learned was through this forum, and to be honest, I didn't bother trying to earn money before I could hold a proper discussion and create productive posts. The point isn't to earn money; it's a process that is probable to happen if you're creating decent content, but my goal wasn't to make money through the forum when I registered; it happened along the way. Even if I wasn't earning money through signature campaigns, I'd still be active in the forum because it has a ton to contribute that may lead you to earning money through the knowledge you acquire.

I understand your point, things aren't as bad as the social media and the public describes, and I also agree up to some extent. However, it would be best to avoid making bold statements, because we don't know what the future holds for us.
Aren't we already in a recession? Inflation is through the roof, daily goods such as groceries, petrol, electricity are way too expensive compared to the last few years and there is no light in the end of the tunnel that they'll ever drop sometime in the future.
I don't quite understand what you're trying to say.
It's still possible, but not probable. I understand your point, and I also believe that it's unlikely because it would have already happened. However, this is what I'm trying to say about making bold assumptions: we're talking about a war, so it's easy to say that things can easily take a sudden turn for the worse. Let me also point out that humanity was endangered by the possibility of a nuclear attack during the Cold War; it's extremely straightforward to escalate into something larger.
That's true, but they can make our lives more difficult with regulations that could potentially hurt the cryptocurrency market, as we already saw with the SEC incident, which caused a large variety of altcoins to plummet and also affected Bitcoin, but not as significantly.
I don't doubt that, it's quite possible after halving to see a major recovery.

Is there actually an ideal time? Probably not; we often keep overanalyzing and end up not taking advantage of the opportunities that are presented to us. There will always be a better price and moment than the one you've purchased; that's something we unfortunately cannot predict beforehand. The ideal strategy would be to create a budget to spend an X amount of money on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis to acquire Bitcoin, using the known Dollar cost average technique (DCA).

Bitcoin is still relatively affordable compared to November's ATH of $69,000; thus, any price significantly lower than that isn't dramatically awful. Certainly, those who took advantage of prices below $20,000 are already making a decent profit, but there's still time.

My guess is that it's for the same reason that BNB is on the same list. In my opinion, the SEC is after altcoins; they can't go after Bitcoin, which is the main reason that it didn't collapse during the whole ordeal. The list includes a large variety of Altcoins, many of which I haven't heard of before, but there are some quite well-known ones, such as Polygon or Cardano. On the one hand, I'm all in on going after scam coins such as LUNC and LUNA or coins that basically serve no purpose, such as Bittorrent, of which I'm not quite sure if its developers even bother with it anymore. Thus, I understand why some coins were included, but some others are certainly not securities.

I believe that he's meaning to sell 50% of the acquired profits, if there are any, every 4 years. By doing so, he would be decreasing the risk of ultimately losing his initial investment if things take a sudden turn for the worse because he'd be claiming profit throughout the 16 years of the investment. However, there isn't any guarantee that in those four periods of four years, there'd be a profit in between to claim; we could be suffering another bear market that could last years, similarly to the one we're going through now, or in 2018–2020.

I'm generally confident in myself regarding Bitcoin; I don't believe that it'll burst in the upcoming years, but 16 years isn't a short time period. Throughout all these years, the market would have had an abundance of ups and downs that could lead to a possible sale or the abandonment of the initial plan.

The main issue with larger cities is the poor public transport: no underground metro or a tram at least that doesn't also get stuck in traffic, or lanes specifically for buses to avoid congestion. Even when those means exist, they're usually extremely overcrowded and generally unsafe in terms of thefts, etc., and people tend to avoid them. A large number of urban centers in many European countries are also stuck with using buses for public transportation, which just isn't enough anymore. Cities are overcrowded and suffer from poor planning and building management.

As for the jetpack delivery from Domino's, it sounds way too unrealistic and futuristic—at least that's how I see it. How can something like this be sustainable in the long term? Perhaps the drone deliveries from Amazon look like a more down-to-earth approach.

At first, the merit system discouraged a lot of users, including myself. I thought I'd never rank up, while I was followed by a large period of inactivity, due to a major market crash. Ultimately, ranking up wasn't that hard after all. Some of those members are the exception to the rule of lower post quality. In general, those who have managed to accumulate enough merit to rank up are likely worthy enough to create quality and worthwhile posts. Thus, higher ranks are likely to create better content, but that isn't always guaranteed, because there's still a decent number of users who were already Sr members and above simply by being active and creating content of dubious quality.

It sounds like a budgeting issue; either the OP has a lot of money and doesn't care about proper management of funds, or the exact opposite. Cash is difficult to keep track of, which is the main reason I've stopped using it, along with safety reasons. Moreover, I find it inconvenient to use, as I don't like the idea of having to withdraw money every once in a while. Thus, I resort to paying with my debit or credit card every time, with which I can easily keep track of how much I spend and create a budget.

Some claim that cash is king, but I disagree; it's not convenient for our day and age anymore. While card payments also have disadvantages because governments have started tracking our expenses, something that I absolutely hate, they are a necessity.