O.k. sure. None of us really know what is going to go on exactly; however, I consider myself similar to you in having had formed a tentative framework for what I believe is going to happen in terms of short term or long term, and surely I have difficulties attempting to predict on any kind of meaningful basis except having decent considerations that bitcoin is a good long term investment and it is good to accumulate bitcoin, and even if there is short term noise, the fundamentals of bitcoin continue to get stronger and stronger.
Speaking about accumulation - I would certainly like to acquire more coins, but I am reluctant to buy now, when the market is almost uninterruptedly falling. At the same time, shorting bitcoin seems to be a dangerous pursuit. I am not a trader, although I played with some very small amounts about a year ago, before realizing that simply buying and holding can give better results. But at present I am thinking about hedging in the following way: buy bitcoin and simultaneously open a short position for the same amount (probably with 1:1 leverage). If the bear market continues, I would be able to increase both amounts, BTC and fiat. If the trend changes immediately, I would close the shorts. Of course, there is a possibility of another bull trap...
Seems dangerous to play around with margin... and there are a lot of ways that you could get locked out.. especially when bitcoin can be very unforgiving to shorters.
I personally think that the best way to attempt to accumulate more bitcoins when the price is going down is to sell small amounts of BTC as the price goes up and to used that generated money to buy back as the price goes down. If you did not already sell some bitcoin when the price was higher a while back then it seems too late to sell at this point. Therefore, your decision at this point would be to buy more bitcoin at various points on the way down, and then be prepared to sell small amounts at various points the next time the BTC price goes up (presuming that the price is going to go up sooner or later).
Accordingly, it is o.k. to over-leverage a little bit on the buying of bitcoin on the way down in order that you will not feel so bad to sell some of that accumulated amounts off on the way up. The tricky question is that the price points and the amounts for buying on the way down and selling on the way up are going to be different for each person and takes some practice to find comfortable price points and amounts that are customized to your own situation (your view points, risk tolerance, financial situation and timeline).
Yes, you seem to have been through quite a few volatile periods, and you seem more pessimistic than me about long term bitcoin fundamentals - even though you seem to have a decently long term following the space. I gave you a merit for your explanation anyhow, in spite of your "lackings."... hahahahaha
Thanks! I am not pessimistic about fundamentals, I am pessimistic about the economic system in general. The financial capital survived a lot of transitions, from telegraph and telephones to computers and Internet, from precious metals to fiat. It will embrace bitcoin and blockchain if it is profitable, but it will not change the system.
It is very likely that bitcoin is a paradigm changer, so it is not easy for us to envision the extent to which system are going to be changed by it or not.. .... so even though we might say that it is kind of like one thing or another - the telephone, internet.. blah blah blah.. there could also be a war over this bitcoin changing kind of influence, and I don't know how any of us could reasonably assert that a war is not changing any current systems that we have in place... so perhaps our views of the fundamental possibilities of bitcoin are quite different, and I don't claim to know exactly where bitcoin is going to take banking and government... and perhaps it will be a BIG NOTHING, as you seem to imply.
Of course, this concept is fundamental to any volatile investment, but people still use it in differing ways. I use it to consider that I am not leveraging or betting and that I have my living expenses covered for 6 months into the future with my cash flow, then any extra I can invest into bitcoin. Over time, that can add up to a lot of money, especially once the bitcoin ends up appreciating 30x... So maybe starting off with a modest $10k ends up in the $300k territory... so motivations can change, even though the initial $10k did not seem to be very much the $300k gets into Lambo territory.. and some folks start to think,.... " I could have had a lambo for $10k?" when the price starts to go down, we can see where there can be emotions... and how much was initially invested can get lost in the shuffle.
At present I have a job that pays well (by local standards) and I am completely independent of any bitcoin fluctuations. It is a stockpile for the future. But cautious investing of my spare money looks appealing now, as it was in the summer of 2017. I am a man of simple tastes, I do not need a Lambo
Even 10x from the current level (or 3x from the ATH) would make me quite happy. Of course, 30x is better.
Well, maybe a lot of us have become spoiled from the returns of crypto, but I still think that if you are getting, on average, more than 6% per year appreciation on a long term investment, you are doing good... in that regard, bitcoin has been performing way beyond normal average investments.. and seems likely to continue to perform quite well, on average, if you have a 5-10 years timeline.