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Yeah. I wanted to talk about Cuban more than Bitcoin, because he seems to be SO INCREDIBLY wrong on the topic. And kind of embarrassing.
There are a lot of people who are wrong.. and have varying levels of wrong and also have large audiences.. but why should we get distracted? even admittedly distracted?
I don't know if you followed the Twitter space, or the dick measuring stuff that led up to it, but it was embarrassing in my opinion. Cuban was acting like a child. And of course the bitcoin maxis were swarming around him like piranhas being assholes. He is right there are plenty of assholes in bitcoin. But he's wrong about almost everything he says about Bitcoin. And the whole "How much Bitcoin do you own, Preston... let's compare with how much I own" thing just reeks of a big man with a little pecker.
I mostly only follow twitter to the extent that I come across links or topics that are mentioned in this thread, this forum or rarely in some other areas that I come across in my daily activities. I do not purposefully keep track of certain twitter accounts.. even though sometimes I will peruse through certain twitter accounts of some guys that I tend to find credible and/or worth seeing what they are up to. So, yeah I had not really heard about the Cuban/Preston Pysh battle... even though I have come across Pysh a lot in various podcasts, including his own
We Study Billionaires podcast (yes I am behind on that podcast in terms of listening to the historical ones (between 2015 and early 2020))
So I was avoiding THAT conversation with my friend who is an employee of his, as well as someone who probably agrees with Cuban's position on BTC both because hes a standard finance guy as well as someone who has done very well with a traditional sort of approach to money. My firned is also an iconoclast and would probably like Doge based on that alone, similarly to Musk.
I just think the conversation would go nowhere... Or perhaps even to somewhere bad. My buddy will have made a good deal of money the usual way... good job, right decisions, with a dash of skinflint thrown in.
And I will be well off because I made a retarded bet on magical internet money and got spectacularly lucky despite having no idea what I am doing and being in the right place at the right time in spite of my mistakes.
For sure, both you and I know that such phenomenon of
nouveau rich through bitcoin (such as us) versus status quo rich (well-off, well-connected) is not going away any time soon, yet I don't see any reason to really fight it or to try to convince any of them. Sure, if the conversation comes up, then not a problem to go down that path with them to the extent that they are receptive to the topic, and if they are not ready then talk about them about other topics/interests that you may have in common.. and of course, if we are having trouble relating then we just won't be hanging out with those folks.. You and I already appreciate that they will be coming around sooner or later, but it still may well take 20-50 years to really get some of these guys onboard.. and not really our problem after a certain amount of time, anyhow.. right? We just find our circles in which we want to hang, whether it is on islands, boats or just wanting to imitate some variation of a normies life - maybe just with larger holdings in property ourselves, too.. just might become inevitable.. even if we may well maintain decent amounts of wealth in bitcoin too.
What frustrates me is Cuban is most literally a beneficiary of the above luck equation (though I imagine to hold on to what he gained took some good decisions) whereas from MY perspective my decisions have been VERY WELL researched, and understood. I just don't see the argument of who was struck by blind luck to be productive.
In some sense, there remains a kind of who really cares aspect to this whole last paragraph, no? I mean people make money in all kinds of ways and they also have differing levels of popularity, influence and ways of explaining how they got to where they are and what formulas might work in the future for normies or otherwise. I just don't find it to be a very productive discussion point in terms of whether you are merely trying to rationalize your current choices or if you are trying to influence others in terms what might be good for them.. In the end, each of us are going to have to decide how to approach our various investments (whether we are talking about time or finances), and there are going to be ramifications for our choices.. .. and surely, view of any underlying asset in terms of fundamentals (and long term) versus pumpamentals (in terms of short term in and out) are going to be factors that normies are going to measure differently, and some normies are going to prosper more from their choices, methodologies and their putting plans to actions. And, sure some people will be disproportionately influenced by following someone who they should not be following.. but again, I am quite disinclined personally to get caught up in those kinds of battles in which there are all kinds of ways that you can go and there are all kinds of ways in which you might get lucky or not by following pump and dump strategies.
I also think there could be a time coming when OUR crop of "OG"s are going to be tempted to move out "at the top" and then be surprised to learn that the pullback we saw was shallower than we have figured and we lose our stake somewhat. I think a max pain scenario for Bitcoin OGs is still on the horizon.
I think we may be beyond this now. For most true Bitcoin OGs, an 80% draw down from some future ATH means they are still rich and will likely stay all in btc, essentially forever (BYOB). They won't care anymore about bear markets.
Maybe I am worried about the next wave as opposed to OGs.. I dunno. You have a point. I've been through every one, and 2017 hurt pretty bad, but i didn't sell then, and I am not going to this time either. I don't think. But what I mean is after living through X number of boom/bust scenarios some people will be MOST tempted to try to time the market and sell x amount at what they think the top is with the plans to buy back in a X % drop. The chorus of "Are you guys gonna take some profits this time instead of living through the crash again? have you learned your lesson?" seems louder than ever...
I am having some troubles relating cAPSLOCK.. I just have trouble understanding your seeming ongoing level of panic in regards to corrections....
Sure, I try to presume that in your situation you may well have had a lot of "mistakes" were made along the way, just like a lot of earlier adopters.. I mean like you are 2.5 years ahead of me (going by your forum date), so sure I could presume that you might well have made quite a few mistakes, and that is why you have a certain level of trepidation about large corrections, but still at some point, you should be getting a level of BTC accumulation that largely dwarfs the drops.. I mean.. even if you had something like $1k cost per BTC so in 2017 you ended up going down from 20x profits to 3x profits, you should be able to withstand these shaking outs more and more with the passage of time and even the corrections do not bring you down as much.. so lets say that BTC prices go to $500k (that's 500x profits), and then they come back down to 80k, then you are still 80x in profits, so why should you give too many shits about if you shave off some BTC at 500x or 80x, and if you are getting a wee bit worried, you can sell a very small amount of your total holdings at various price points on the way up in order to help you to get some of your assurances and comfort levels.
Even crazy Risto (RIP) had some decent ideas in regards to various times to be taking (raking) profits on the way up... we can look at
his SSS plan/thread for those kinds of ideas.
In other words, you should be able to shave off relatively small amounts of BTC on the way up.. in order that in theory you should not be giving any shits about if a correction happens thereafter... (80%, right? do you believe higher correction levels are possible or likely? Are you still thinking about that there are decently high odds that we go to zero? Then you better take out a wee bit more bitcoin to prepare yourself for the going to zero scenario, even if someone like me believes such scenario is quite highly unlikely that I feel that I am already sufficiently prepared for such scenario by what I have taken out already)...
If I were to fall in this trap it would be for a significant sum of value, but not a large percentage of my holdings. This is in line with what you are saying... but I could still take a pretty nice haircut if what I think could happen happens.
Being over invested remains a potential problem for a lot of guys, but they do not have to take 100% off the table in order to fix the issue.. .. and I can imagine all kinds of scenarios in which taking less than 10% off the top would actually fix such over-invested scenario (and you are getting all your principle back by taking 10% off the table if BTC is a mere 10x of your average cost per BTC - even assuming that you may well have made some mistakes along the way)..
We see what looks like a blow off top. Let's put it's peak at $320k (lol why not?). And we see it drop hard... like 20%. On the climb back up we sell X%. We were right!!! It drops again.. big one... these are dead cat bounces. We don't want to lose so we set a conservitive target of say a 40-50% drawdown. Bitcoin makes it back down to $180k, consolidates there ans begins to climb. We've not reached out target, but we will. We have seen this movie like 4 times now.
Another way, is don't fucking buy back.. just take whatever off the table and forget about any kind of need or pressure to buy back with that money.. and it does not even need to be high amounts.
If you are creating some kind of unrealistic goal that you need to become a billionaire or a multi-billionaire by a certain amount of time (next cycle or the one thereafter or thereafter) blah blah blah.. based on some crazy parameters that are in your head.. then maybe I am having some troubles relating why you need that much in order to be financially and psychologically comfortable...and not worried about future BTC price directions.
But we were wrong. The world is onto us this time. And EVERYONE is buying the dip. Not only did our 80% drawdown only do 40% this time, but we are headed to a new ATH it seems? And that's weird.. we are actually not quite to the next halving even!??!?
That is part of the outline of scenarios to show that you should not necessarily care about whether you buy back or not.
Well shit. I just gave up a *insert item of great value, lambo, house, whatever* for that attempt...
That's kind of what I see as possible. Or? We go to 320, and crash back down to 60k just like all the times before.. for one more time?
I am thinking that it is NOT that difficult to provide for a variety of scenarios, including taking some action that ends up preparing you for any of those versions of the scenarios that you outline and also prepare yourself for other possible scenarios too.. I just consider that you do not need to be very exact in terms of any kind of planning for what might happen or not.. just take some off the table.. and maybe save some for buying back and some other amounts you are not buying back with. You should be able to figure out what those numbers are... whether you do it on a white sheet of paper, or excel or otherwise.. I personally prefer excel in order that I am able to play around with various versions and various scenarios in order to really attempt to measure my various levels of possible satisfaction when projecting out into the future.. Of course, projections become much more concrete when they actually happen instead of being projections, but it still can be quite helpful to plot out a variety of scenarios, and maybe even once you plot out one or two Excel spreadsheets and you change the parameters, it starts to become quite clear without having to do a bunch of them.