I think that even though there could be some overlap, the topic of whales is a bit of a different topic, even though someone who is really able to buy and hold in the real early days (such as in early 2013 or prior to 2013, or even prior to 2012 could have really become a whale with a fairly modest investment level of perhaps less than $10k investment in the real early days, but surely depends on what we might call a whale.. Do we need more than 1,000 BTC or would 500BTC be enough? I know that these numbers are changing, but even by 2013, there would have needed to have been maybe a bit more than $10k invested to get more than 10k coins.. perhaps in the ballpark of $13-$15k. . and sure maybe we could say more than 1,000 coins is a whale, but I am not sure about 500-1,000 coins.. perhaps currently bordering upon whale status.. but not quite there yet.
It could well be that in 10-15 years, then having more than 100 BTC might start to be getting to whale status.. so maybe it partly depends upon when you do the assessment of whale status and it seems to be a bit of a moving target, even though there are ways to attempt to get some kinds of bearing upon making such "whale status" assessments.
Today it costs around 40 million $ to buy 1000 BTC while back in 2015 when price of Bitcoin was around 200$ there wont be much investment needed to buy 1000 BTC. The real point is today there is majority running after Bitcoin because of its success but back in 2013 or before that there are not many who are giving importance to Bitcoin.
I cam to know about Bitcoin first in 2017, it took me 2 years to do first transaction in Bitcoin and further 2 more years to understand that there is immense benefit in HODLING the Bitcoin. You might be one of whales as you fullfil both criteria 1) you bought BTC when it was in its early days 2) You are still a HODLER
1) we are still early days today, but surely more and more institutions and rich people are starting to figure it out and a lot of the institutions and rich people are mostly getting into BTC because they likely want to front run a) other institutions and rich people and a) poor people (retail).
Sure some of the institutions and rich folks might understand bitcoin, but not likely in any kind of meaningful way in terms of making sure that they take some into self-custody... and I don't completely have anything against merely getting price exposure or holding bitcoin in tax advantaged accounts, and so maybe some of those kinds of investment vehicles will deflect some of those folks from really understanding what bitcoin is, which would also be a greater advantage for those of us who likely have more appreciation for the power of self-custody, self-sovereignty and keeping some of our value outside of the less self-sovereign channels.
2) regarding my own purported whale status, there can be difficulties making too many assumptions about some of us, even if we are proclaiming to disclosing some specific information, and at the same time, I like to make sure to suggest that I may well be making up a lot of my own situation... but at the same time, I do have some variations of stories and I also have some consistent forum presence that has mostly gravitated around the accumulation and the HODLing of coins.
But even given all of that, you cannot completely presume whale status including holding 1,000 coins or more, but then I had also discussed that whale status is coming down too, so there could be differences between current whale status or some possible ambitions to reach whale status at some time in the future.. and I personally have never claimed to want to reach whale status, and I probably had not even thought very much about how many BTC it takes to be at whale status in terms of my own chart projecting entry level fuck you status into the future...
I know previously (I am pretty sure it was before 2020) some of us had talked about filthy rich status, and I think that my own number had been $40 million, but then since 2020, I would probably feel that I would need to at least double that and perhaps even go a bit more in terms of labelling what might be filthy rich status, and so maybe I am considering filthy rich status and whale status to be similar kinds of things.. even though surely these definitions in terms of the wealth of a broad class of bitcoiners has considerably change through the years, too... meaning the amount of BTC it takes to reach some of these kinds of thresholds have dropped in exponential kinds of ways.
Of course one thing is accumulating, holding and even having good intentions in regards to both of those things, but neither one of them are easy, even if any of us might have the right kinds of good intentions. People have expenses and also people have a certain budget that can be quite difficult to ongoingly maintain.. and another thing is that people have some of their own technological limitations and other mistakes that I have even proclaimed to having had gone through some pretty decent-sized mistakes, and all of these kinds of things can either reduce the quantity of coins that are accumulated or cause the quantity of coins to shrink.
At least I don't have some of the bad habits of getting involved in shitcoins or trading, even though some people seem to think that what I do is a form of trading, which I deny it, but just the fact that any of us is keeping some of our coins on exchange can have some of its other problems.
By the way the exchange matters reminds me to hate to even say how I was rescued from a few of my mistakes, but I had some quirks that were kinds of dumb luck in terms of how and/or where I held some coins, and I had also some mistakes in which I engaged in transactions to buy/sell BTC person to person, and so I sent the BTC after receiving the cash, or I would give the cash after getting at least 1 confirmation that the BTC transaction had gone through. And I had a couple of mistakes in regards to those kinds of transactions that show some people to be less honest than others, and I also had some honest folks come through too, when I accidentally sent my BTC transaction two times... but did not realize it until the next day. I guess I am lucky too that I had never (so far) gotten physically robbed when engaging in person to person transactions with strangers... which did happen to some folks even though maybe it was not always for significant amounts of money.
The point that you make about my still being a HODLer is not a very strong one. Sure there are some guys who had either rugged themselves or they sold too many coins too soon and then became way too disgruntled about BTC, and I suppose that my not playing with my stash in those kinds of BIG ways could be part of the explanation of my sticking around and trying to maintain some semblance of consistency through the years..
For example, a guy could lose large amount of his stash and even learn from those kinds of experiences in such a way that he can still lecture other guys about being too whimpy in their approach to BTC or to suggest default entry-level fuck you status levels that don't even apply to their own situation. There are some folks who are quite frugal and may well be able to get by quite well on a entry-level fuck you status that is 1/10th the size of the default entry-level fuck you status.
So $2 million as the default entry-level fuck you status is a kind of western middle class standard of living for someone who is not really extravagant (and not living in a real high cost of living area, such as Manhattan). So $2 million produces $6,666 per month, but $200k would still produce $666 per month, and that is nothing to sneeze at, especially if it is understood to be pretty damned close to passive income, absent the mere management of it. So even though I frequently talk about $2 million as the default, that still does not mean that my own personal one would necessarily need to be greater than $200k... especially also when I am really only conceding to having more than 0.63 BTC, and that can end up being a not fixed amount too.. because even with what seems to be a fairly modest stash size, mistakes can still be made.. and having to go back down towards aiming for 0.21 BTC would not necessarily be unheard of and it may well be a decent size stash for a lot of folks, especially if we consider future appreciation and maybe even working towards ongoingly building it, too.
Of course, folks who are newer to BTC and who are likely either in their accumulation stage or in their early accumulation stage, should be pleased to accumulate during dips, accumulate when the BTC price fails to go up or seems to be static, and it can take a long time to accumulate enough BTC, and maybe you have to spend 10 years or more accumulating before you really start to feel comfortable that you have enough.
I have already made the claim several times in recent times that anyone investing $100 per week for the next 10 years is likely not going to be able to accumulate a whole BTC and maybe not even half of a BTC, but at least there are greater chances of accumulating half of a BTC than a whole BTC, but if you had already gotten started, and maybe you are no spring chicken anymore WatChe. .and congratulations, you are coming up upon your having been registered on the forum for a whole bitcoin cycle.. and if you have been investing into bitcoin for that whole time, then that would have had been helpful too.
Just think about it,
a $100 per week invested into bitcoin over the last 4 years would have had resulted in more than 1 BTC (at 1.0505), but if you had been wanting to double the quantity of your BTC holdings in a similar amount of time, you may well need to increase your investment rate by 4x to 6x or maybe even more.
It's not only that you know Bitcoin but also the realization that its not just buy on dips and sell when price goes up. If I talk about myself then it took my sometime to understand that act.
If you can increase your investment to extent that can give you 1 Bitcoin in the long run then its good but if you don't have that much money then invest as much as you can. It will also give you good result over your investment.
Hey, I am not trying to be a prude in regards to any of these kinds of quantities to invest into BTC topics, even though I frequently like to gravitate towards the $100 per week example, because prior to March 2020, I would frequently use $10 per week in order to proclaim that guys gotta get the fuck off of zero, and $10 per week seemed doable and it made more sense than the $1 per day example.. because I surely prefer the idea of trying to accumulate on a weekly basis rather than a daily basis, even though guys can do whatever they like and whatever might be practical to their own circumstances. Yet, many of us realize that after March 2020, maybe it started to seem that there may well be some needs to go up to $100 per week to even come close to some kind of appreciable level of accumulation that was even close to comparable to the kinds of results that the $10 per week guy would have gotten in the then years gone by.
I am also not trying to poo poo the guys who struggle to even get to $10 per week and sometimes are ONLY able to do $10 per month, yet it still is going to be quite difficult to make any kind of meaningful difference in life with those kinds of small levels.. yet at the same time there is a recognition that something is better than nothing and even $10 per week or $10 per month can add up if that is all that a guy is able to do.
Maybe that might be part of the reason that I also suggest that guys try to be as aggressive as they are able to be in their BTC accumulation without overdoing it. in terms of their own abilities to make sure that they are able to hang onto any coins that they accumulate... so each guy has to figure out some kind of assessment of his own financial cushions in order that he never has to sell any BTC except at a time that is of his own creation.
Oh and by the way, your own assertion that you are likely still in your earliest years of BTC accumulation likely signifies that you should not be considering selling on the way up, even though buying on the way down can be a good practice, buy still whether you even need to buy on the way down depends upon where you are at in your own bitcoin accumulation journey.. because sometimes just buying no matter what is the even better practice. I think selling on the way up would ONLY apply when you have started to reach a lot of BTC and it still might not make sense to sell on the way up if your idea is BTC accumulation, because selling to accumulate more is contradictory behavior and sometimes might put you in a bit of a pickle instead of just buy ongoingly in order to accumulate. Once you reach a bit of a later stage sell king might start to make sense.. but you would have to assess your own situation to figure when it might start to make sense to sell, even if you are still to consider yourself to be accumulating.