Another by the way.... some of us longer time BTC HODLers went through a lot of this in our early years (and sure some of us did not learn and we end up going through it over and over).. but I spent more than 3 years between late 2013 and early 2017 in which some portions of my BTC purchases were in the negative.. and part fo that time, large proportions of my BTC portfolio was in the negative.. it all worked itself out, but 3 years is a pretty damned long time to be having some of the frustrations of having fewer options because what you are holding is not profitable.. and I do not believe in selling anything that is not profitable - especially bitcoin and even though the BTC price was down during that time, I had decent levels of confidence that continuing to accumulate BTC or at least HODL were better choices than to sell any of it.. so I figure out ways to get money that I needed (wanted) during that time from other sources.
Well, You guys are Legends.
My frequent descriptions of my own factual circumstances and my decisions around getting into bitcoin are not meant to be any kind of bragging - because I believe that in some senses, there tends to be some luck that is involved with any kind of timing, and surely for me, my profitability in terms of staying in bitcoin and having circumstance in which I could stay in bitcoin ended up playing out in ways that have been way greater than what I had expected.... and so frequently, I am attempting to preach from my experiences that involve my pre-bitcoin years too and some of the realities that I realize about how it seems that it takes a long time to both build wealth and preserve capital.. and merely having an asymmetrically skewed to the UPside asset like bitcoin is not necessarily going to put anyone into a better position if s/he ends up gambling too much with it or failing/refusing to account for a variety of scenarios including relatively extreme unknowns.
To be honest, the Internet was not available everywhere in my county before 2013 or so. I heard about BTC near in 2014 but I didn't know the potential of Bitcoin. I am living in a country where Bitcoin Transaction is not legal yet nor banned. I mentioned those points to give you an idea about my country. I made my first Bitcoin transaction in 2015. But, I didn't Buy it to HODL. I was gambling in a casino. In 2017, Somehow I found this forum. But, I was not interested to learn more about Bitcoin. I was a student so I never had extra money to buy BTC or any crypto.
Surely, you are describing some of the luck and timing aspects that can end up skewing how you both view the asset and the feasibility (risk/benefits) involved in taking some kind of a bitcoin position. Personal circumstances can skew people, and even if some folks have easy access to the internet in western countries, there are a whole hell-of-a-lot of them who have not appreciated the value of bitcoin and taken some initial steps to get some kind of a bitcoin stake.. even if it might well be a relatively whimpy stake in light of their overall personal financial circumstances.
In some sense, we can ONLY do so much in terms of our own circumstances in terms of finances or even exposure to knowledge about the topic and what we do with such information exposure.
You should not necessarily feel that you are late to bitcoin or anything like that, even if you are later than a lot of members in this forum because there are so many people who are way too inadequately exposed to bitcoin, and even a lot of dumb fucks who do not seem to know the difference between shitcoins and bitcoin, so in that sense, you may well be getting ahead of a lot of those folks in terms of your knowledge about bitcoin even if your finances might be way less substantial than theirs, currently.
By the way, I had heard Mr. Wonderful (Kevin O'Leary) in a recent interview (I believe on the Pomp podcast - or maybe it was some other interview) spouting off that 40 million Americans are already exposed to bitcoin, and even if he might be "technically" correct, many guys here likely realize that there is no where close to that level of Americans that are sufficiently and adequately exposed to bitcoin, and it may well be likely that a vast majority of those supposed "exposed" Americans don't even really know what bitcoin is including some kind of an ability to recognize/understand bitcoin's difference from shitcoins or NFTs or whatever other flavors of scams of the day. Even O'Leary who seems quite smart seems to be diluted in these kinds of regards (unless he is just pumping his agenda.. which is another possibility)
Last year, I have resigned from my job and gather up my Provident fund + Other savings, and invested in BTC. As I have already said, I should not do all in. I should wait more and follow the DCA method.
Hard not to get caught up in hype.. and, of course, the best you can do is to attempt to learn from your mistakes and attempt to mitigate to the best that you can... if there might be some reasonable means to accomplish such.... and sometimes there might be some need to just ride it out and scramble to work things out through other means while letting the bitcoin aspect ride.. and surely one aspect that you have going for you is your youth (as you had mentioned previously), which sometimes can allow for mistakes to get worked out with the passage of time.. even though there might be some painful period while it is all getting worked out.. remember bitcoin with a 4-10 year timeline as a minimum... and if you have even a longer timeline then sometimes you can just let it all work out including continuing to DCA... maybe DCAing with smaller amounts.. since you already have established a decent BTC holding that just might be more under water than you anticipated or at least not as profitable as you had anticipated.
So what I am doing now, Trying to HODL my Investment. Working on an Online Casino and I am getting an amount that is slightly okay to live in. Trying to accumulate more BTC from my Signature Campaign too. But, I am afraid of Emergency needs. I think, at least 30% of the Portfolio should be Fiat money.
The percentages are going to vary.. and of course, the actual quantity in comparison to your regular expenses (and potential emergencies) are good to account for.
Several times, I had mentioned that when I was first out of highschool and establishing my own finances, I had been projecting my finances out at least 6 months and being able to see if some of my cashflow (even a seemingly secure job) would dry up or get reduced, and then to have various kinds of ways to make sure that there was enough money for the 6 months to be covered.. and as I got older and some of my finances became more complicated with further obligations, business and family expenses and the use of debt, I realized that it was more advantageous for me to project further out... in the ballpark of 24 months, and of course, there was more value in having the first 3 months or so with a lot of specificity, and I could be a lot more vague with the projection the further that it went out...
I am not saying that I was not accounting for all anticipated cashflow and expenses, but there would be more flexibility in my whole accounting in order to anticipate that some of the expenses or cashflow could change along the way .. but just that there was way less wiggle room the closer it came to the expenses and cashflows having to perform.. .. which would also include a kind of anticipation that any expenses (or cashflow) that I engage in during present times needs to be accounted for way out there in the future and anticipating that I may well create stress upon myself if the cashflow/expenses is not working out even when projected way into the future so that I would know quite a bit in advance if there might be some ways that I can either increase my cashflow or to reduce my expenses to account for the future short-falls..
Another thing is that the more speculative the cashflow and expenses into the future, then I better be attempting to error on the side of conservatism in terms of the worse that might happen rather than projecting my cashflow/expenses based on better case scenarios.. and sure if the better case scenarios ended up playing out, then that would just end up meaning that i would have more cash available... but frequently, I had to wait until that money came in or that the expenses were actually reduced before I could really start to invest it or consume more or whatever I was going to do with the extra income that ended up playing out based on my own earlier conservative projections.