JJG’s Outline of Bitcoin Investment Ideas

[Odohu]

Bitcoin investment is all about risky, and it needs an adequate precaution that requires the following before you invest..

1. Research analysis

2. Observations

3. Market determinants

This three thing's are very necessary something that we need to understand, when investing in Bitcoin, because if you dont know about and invest in bitcoin, you can be depressed if the price crashes, and that's why i prefer using a spare capital to invest when I have not known bitcoin too well...

Basically, if you make a research about bitcoin, you will know when to invest without having remorse...Even if you observe the current situation of bitcoin before investing, you most found out what will benefit you during the investment and after the investment....Market determinants can be observed during research, so all this worked together if you want to execute a good investment...

First, Bitcoin investment is not all about risk and it will be wrong to make such assumption which is the same as those made by MSM to discourage people from investing in Bitcoin. Bitcoin is just as risky as every other asset in that is traded and as you will agree, there is nothing without risk in life, even life itself. Hence it is not proper to attribute mostly risk to Bitcoin investment, forgetting how rewarding it can be.

Furthermore, you do not need too much research, observation and knowledge of market determinant to be successful in long term investment, the people who need those stuffs are traders that are looking for the opportunity to profit from the market within a short time. You simply need the basic knowledge and the availability of discretionary income to get started provided you have a long term view of the investment.

Before I forget, I'm not saying that Bitcoin investment does not have any associated risk whatsoever, but the risk is greatly minimized when we thing long term and not approach it with the mindset of quick profits. 

[avp2306]

Bitcoin investment is all about risky, and it needs an adequate precaution that requires the following before you invest..

1. Research analysis

2. Observations

3. Market determinants

This three thing's are very necessary something that we need to understand, when investing in Bitcoin, because if you dont know about and invest in bitcoin, you can be depressed if the price crashes, and that's why i prefer using a spare capital to invest when I have not known bitcoin too well...

Basically, if you make a research about bitcoin, you will know when to invest without having remorse...Even if you observe the current situation of bitcoin before investing, you most found out what will benefit you during the investment and after the investment....Market determinants can be observed during research, so all this worked together if you want to execute a good investment...

First, Bitcoin investment is not all about risk and it will be wrong to make such assumption which is the same as those made by MSM to discourage people from investing in Bitcoin. Bitcoin is just as risky as every other asset in that is traded and as you will agree, there is nothing without risk in life, even life itself. Hence it is not proper to attribute mostly risk to Bitcoin investment, forgetting how rewarding it can be.

Furthermore, you do not need too much research, observation and knowledge of market determinant to be successful in long term investment, the people who need those stuffs are traders that are looking for the opportunity to profit from the market within a short time. You simply need the basic knowledge and the availability of discretionary income to get started provided you have a long term view of the investment.

Before I forget, I'm not saying that Bitcoin investment does not have any associated risk whatsoever, but the risk is greatly minimized when we thing long term and not approach it with the mindset of quick profits. 

Maybe this is not to discourage people, but rather to make people aware about the risk they are possibly facing. There are so many hype around with Bitcoin and we want people to be aware on the risk, so they can do proper approach when they start accumulating their very first Bitcoin.

If they are not aware on the risk then maybe those people will either wait for the dip or think that its easy to get rich on Bitcoin. Everything must be placed according to best action to do. So they can last long and avoid taking wrong short term decisions.

[Mame89]

Bitcoin investment is all about risky, and it needs an adequate precaution that requires the following before you invest..

1. Research analysis

2. Observations

3. Market determinants

This three thing's are very necessary something that we need to understand, when investing in Bitcoin, because if you dont know about and invest in bitcoin, you can be depressed if the price crashes, and that's why i prefer using a spare capital to invest when I have not known bitcoin too well...

Basically, if you make a research about bitcoin, you will know when to invest without having remorse...Even if you observe the current situation of bitcoin before investing, you most found out what will benefit you during the investment and after the investment....Market determinants can be observed during research, so all this worked together if you want to execute a good investment...

It will take a lot of time for a beginner to learn all of this, and it will actually cause them to miss out on many opportunities to accumulate Bitcoin. It's best for beginners to first change their investment goals or set goals. If your goal is long-term the first thing to learn is how to properly secure your wallet then continue buying Bitcoin via DCA.

Over time, knowledge of research analysis, observation and market factors will become easier to understand and you'll even learn them naturally. The third thing you mentioned applies to investing in altcoins. But if you're investing in Bitcoin especially with long-term goals, the first thing to learn is how to properly secure your wallet while continuing to buy Bitcoin via DCA. After that, all three will become easier to learn. This is all done to prevent you from focusing on the things that are delaying your Bitcoin purchase.

[Nheer]

It is not as if the research of thing is not important but not for a newbie at a start, we keep emphasizing on the need for any investor to have basic knowledge and discreationary income for them to start their Bitcoin acumulation, advicing a newbie to have all this things you mentioned here can cause delay and change of mind, why will a newbie be observing when there is DCA method to go in with, as we all know learning is a process, whether we like it or not, we must start from a particular point, so what is the need for such excessive knowledge from the beginning when such energy can be put into the investment, more learning and other things can follow, there are more things to learn in Bitcoin but it does not have to be at once thats what I mean.

Knowledge is important to have but it shouldn’t hold you back from investing. Before your discretionary income is ready you can actually spend time learning and building your common sense around investing that not a bad idea but once your discretionary income becomes available you should invest without any further delay. After investing, you can continue improving your knowledge from where you were at before investing so you can understand how to manage your investments properly and grow your portfolio. And also maintaining a good cash flow to make sure that money is not only invested but is also being managed rightly in a way that supports your investment and long-term goals... I quoted a better explanation by Jayjuangee below few pages back.

Even my claim that guys only need common sense does not mean that they don't need to know anything, yet if they have discretionary funds, then they are starting from wherever they are at, and they have to figure out what they know and what they don't know so that they can adjust their beginning position size in accordance with their common sense, and if, for example, they identify that they suck at math, and they are not sure if they have discretionary funds or not, then they are going to have to spend some time figuring that out, so that they are not using non-discretionary funds to buy bitcoin.

[sotelorene]

This is true what you say but if there is a question then what does everyone expect in accumulating Bitcoin if the guarantee of profit cannot be guaranteed?

There is no guarantee of profit when investing in Bitcon since the market is unpredictable. The market is all about up and down, so there is chance of losing everything you own, if you invest without the proper knowledge.

Bitcoin investment is all about risky, and it needs an adequate precaution that requires the following before you invest..

1. Research analysis

2. Observations

3. Market determinants

This three thing's are very necessary something that we need to understand, when investing in Bitcoin, because if you dont know about and invest in bitcoin, you can be depressed if the price crashes, and that's why i prefer using a spare capital to invest when I have not known bitcoin too well...

Basically, if you make a research about bitcoin, you will know when to invest without having remorse...Even if you observe the current situation of bitcoin before investing, you most found out what will benefit you during the investment and after the investment....Market determinants can be observed during research, so all this worked together if you want to execute a good investment...

You are going to far sir, because I believe that a newbie doesn't need all that to get started, if not, it might delay his accumulation.
What a bitcoin investor needs in other to start investing in Bitcoin is the basic knowledge on Bitcoin, and the discretionary income needed to buy and accumulate consistently, then along the line he can start looking for further knowledge on what he needs to put in place, in other to be able to hold strong, which are emergency and reserve funds, but for a start, what he just need is the basic knowledge on Bitcoin and a discretionary income to start with, the rest are secondary.

You are absolutely correct but it is surprising how newbie like you get to know about these things perhaps you have already gained a lot of knowledge about Bitcoin investment before joining the forum and it is actually amazing because with these knowledge it I will be very hard for you to make mistakes in your accumulation or hard for someone to misinform you on how to go about Bitcoin investment and with these been said,  holding for long is very important infact it is the key to achieve something great in Bitcoin investment that is if the investor is consistent in his accumulation.

[justinlamode]

Bitcoin investment is all about risky, and it needs an adequate precaution that requires the following before you invest..

1. Research analysis

2. Observations

3. Market determinants

This three thing's are very necessary something that we need to understand, when investing in Bitcoin, because if you dont know about and invest in bitcoin, you can be depressed if the price crashes, and that's why i prefer using a spare capital to invest when I have not known bitcoin too well...

Basically, if you make a research about bitcoin, you will know when to invest without having remorse...Even if you observe the current situation of bitcoin before investing, you most found out what will benefit you during the investment and after the investment....Market determinants can be observed during research, so all this worked together if you want to execute a good investment...

It will take a lot of time for a beginner to learn all of this, and it will actually cause them to miss out on many opportunities to accumulate Bitcoin. It's best for beginners to first change their investment goals or set goals. If your goal is long-term the first thing to learn is how to properly secure your wallet then continue buying Bitcoin via DCA.

Over time, knowledge of research analysis, observation and market factors will become easier to understand and you'll even learn them naturally. The third thing you mentioned applies to investing in altcoins. But if you're investing in Bitcoin especially with long-term goals, the first thing to learn is how to properly secure your wallet while continuing to buy Bitcoin via DCA. After that, all three will become easier to learn. This is all done to prevent you from focusing on the things that are delaying your Bitcoin purchase.

As  beginner, I never learnt to do those items listed, some were even the wrongs things I did as a beginner that made me not make much progress in my early days in Bitcoin. I had to make effort to unlearn some of them so that I can make the investment easier and not much subjective. I think any newbie that goes about learning about some unnecessary things will turn into a trader very fast because of the urge to master how to completely predict the movement of Bitcoin.  They will see holding as a waste of time when they could be buying and selling to build their capital upon regular profits.

I think a new investor need to focus on the recommendations of JJG in the first posts of this thread, where he gave a detailed procedure that can most likely make any investor succeed in Bitcoin investmemt.

[Gentle_Soul]

Just looking at bitcoins history over the past couple of years will provide anyone with all the data the need on how bitcoin has performed, understanding that bitcoin is volatile is also very important but there isn't much to learn on how volatility works, or at least an investor doesn't need to dig too DIP before they can start investing,  especially when it comes to analyzing the bitcoin market cycle to see when it's the best time to buy and when it's t r best time to take profit from their investment, this behaviour is definitely not what you will see in an investor but instead in a trader, bitcoin investment is long term, the moment you decide to do it short term you have already declared yourself to be a trader and if you are investor doing it long term then you have no practical reason to try to learn about the market cycles, how the move and how long they last in an attempt to figure out the best time to buy, everytime is best to buy for an investor especially when that investor is investing using the DCA.

Anyone who is digging much to have a knowledge about bitcoin is really wasting time because in bitcoin investment those knowledge they are seeking or looking for are not really necessary. people that always dig so much to know or understand everything about bitcoin are folks that want to mess around with bitcoin but most times bitcoin always prove them wrong that they can not mess around with it and go free and that is the reason why we should not think of trading or gamble with bitcoin because the possibility of us losing our money is very high and the trauma that do comes after loss can be unbearable sometimes.

You are wrong Sir, having good knowledge is not a waste please, don't make people believe that there is a knowledge that is a waste in Bitcoin. We know that a new investor simply need the basic knowledge of Bitcoin to get started but with time, he will need to further his understanding of Bitcoin so he will be able to know how to protect himself from the security threats we are seeing everyday. For instance, using a hardware wallet and adding other security measures that has to do with it is not a straightforward something. Similarly, running a node or setting up LN is something not also straightforward but important for Bitcoin users. Furthermore, you need to keep yourself updated on the aspect of security threats that are always increasing.

Complete knowledge of Bitcoin is not needed to get started but gaining more knowledge in Bitcoin is not a waste. Don't allow yourself to get stuck in one place so you will be able to buy Bitcoin, HODL and be able to protect the investment.

Definitely you might not need too much of knowledge for you to be able to invest in Bitcoin  especially with your discretionary income as a newbie but then knowledge can be gained over time while you continue to read and sought for it.
How can one possibly think that if you know too much about Bitcoin it's of no use I also totally disagree with him and I want to bring your notice to some useful benefits of too much knowledge of Bitcoin in the long run.
Knowledge of Bitcoin changes entirely how you see money. You hardly not be able to fish out scam tokens and ponzi schemes when you have more than enough knowledge that you need, I can say for a fact that almost all the people who have been scammed one time or the other is because they had little or no knowledge of Bitcoin.

[Sim_card]

I was wondering from what standpoint he is coming from because there is a saying that goes, " no knowledge is a waste" so for someone to come out and tell me that those digging for too much of knowledge about Bitcoin is wasting there time it's really sounding crazy to me. How can one possibly think that if you know too much about Bitcoin it's of no use I also totally disagree with him and I want to bring your notice to some useful benefits of too much knowledge of Bitcoin.
Knowledge of Bitcoin changes entirely how you see money. You hardly not be able to fish out scam tokens and ponzi schemes when you have more than enough knowledge that you need, I can say for a fact that almost all the people who have been scammed one time or the other is because they had little or no knowledge of Bitcoin.

No one is saying that you shouldn't increase your knowledge in bitcoin and be grounded on it but do that as you are investing so that as your knowledge is increasing, so also your bitcoin portfolio because having a concrete knowledge of bitcoin without having any bitcoin is a sign of unserious because it doesn't prove that you love bitcoin.

Bitcoin investment is best understood when you are putting it into practical because that's when you will get the real life experience of the market and how to control your emotions during the price swings. The best way to show that you're a bitcoin enthusiast is having a bitcoin investment so that when you are trying to teach people about bitcoin and how to invest, you know what you are saying and how to direct them incase, they want to start their so that you don't mislead them.

You will end up missing out a lot of opportunities of growing your bitcoin portfolio by waiting to learn everything. You might end up having fun staying poor because you didn't do the right thing at the right time.

[Finebone]

I was wondering from what standpoint he is coming from because there is a saying that goes, " no knowledge is a waste" so for someone to come out and tell me that those digging for too much of knowledge about Bitcoin is wasting there time it's really sounding crazy to me. How can one possibly think that if you know too much about Bitcoin it's of no use I also totally disagree with him and I want to bring your notice to some useful benefits of too much knowledge of Bitcoin.
Knowledge of Bitcoin changes entirely how you see money. You hardly not be able to fish out scam tokens and ponzi schemes when you have more than enough knowledge that you need, I can say for a fact that almost all the people who have been scammed one time or the other is because they had little or no knowledge of Bitcoin.

Having good knowledge on Bitcoin is not a waste as he claims, but it would be bad or unwise to let your quest for more knowledge on Bitcoin delays you, in starting your Bitcoin accumulation, that is why all Bitcoin investors are adviced to start their accumulation the moment their discretionary income is available, because basic knowledge on it is enough to start, not by trying to assemble all the knowledge on Bitcoin investment before thinking of starting. You can be doing that and be learning on it while accumulating, because seeking more knowledge on it  will definitely delay you in starting your accumulation.

[Derekfunds]

I was wondering from what standpoint he is coming from because there is a saying that goes, " no knowledge is a waste" so for someone to come out and tell me that those digging for too much of knowledge about Bitcoin is wasting there time it's really sounding crazy to me. How can one possibly think that if you know too much about Bitcoin it's of no use I also totally disagree with him and I want to bring your notice to some useful benefits of too much knowledge of Bitcoin.
Knowledge of Bitcoin changes entirely how you see money. You hardly not be able to fish out scam tokens and ponzi schemes when you have more than enough knowledge that you need, I can say for a fact that almost all the people who have been scammed one time or the other is because they had little or no knowledge of Bitcoin.

Having good knowledge on Bitcoin is not a waste as he claims, but it would be bad or unwise to let your quest for more knowledge on Bitcoin delays you, in starting your Bitcoin accumulation, that is why all Bitcoin investors are adviced to start their accumulation the moment their discretionary income is available, because basic knowledge on it is enough to start, not by trying to assemble all the knowledge on Bitcoin investment before thinking of starting. You can be doing that and be learning on it while accumulating, because seeking more knowledge on it  will definitely delay you in starting your accumulation.

If fact the biggest mistake someone will ever make is thinking they can totally or completely know and understand everything about Bitcoin because it is impossible and that is the reason why traders are even making loss till tomorrow because they have been studying Bitcoin for years yet they have not gotten concrete prove or knowledge to say that they now understands everything about Bitcoin. So, trying to do that is a total waste of time and energy and those who are still thinking they can..., will learn the hard way.

[Gost ms]

I was wondering from what standpoint he is coming from because there is a saying that goes, " no knowledge is a waste" so for someone to come out and tell me that those digging for too much of knowledge about Bitcoin is wasting there time it's really sounding crazy to me. How can one possibly think that if you know too much about Bitcoin it's of no use I also totally disagree with him and I want to bring your notice to some useful benefits of too much knowledge of Bitcoin.
Knowledge of Bitcoin changes entirely how you see money. You hardly not be able to fish out scam tokens and ponzi schemes when you have more than enough knowledge that you need, I can say for a fact that almost all the people who have been scammed one time or the other is because they had little or no knowledge of Bitcoin.

Gaining additional knowledge about Bitcoin is never a waste of time, but a good thing. But a person who is delaying investing to gain additional knowledge without starting investment is wasting time. Because starting investment is the most important thing for us, after starting investment, a person can carry out investment and knowledge or all other activities in parallel. To start investing, we need basic knowledge related to Bitcoin. So if we have basic knowledge, then we can start investing, but if after having basic knowledge, if we wait to gain additional knowledge to invest, then it will not be the right decision at all and this decision will lead you to loss.

[JayJuanGee]

Anyone that Is considering the price decline like you said as a great opportunity to increase their Bitcoin accumulation is not a Real and serious investor because who will be considering something that is not certain or guarantee as a great opportunity in fact that is lack of Bitcoin knowledge because someone who knows better should be able to understand that Bitcoin doesn't work like that and that is not the right or best way to approach Bitcoin because you will be left behind as the decline may not even come or get to where you expect it to...

As you said, I completely agree that those who consider this price drop as just a great opportunity to increase their Bitcoin savings are not real or prudent investors, but another thing is that if an investor faces this price drop while buying Bitcoin regularly, then maybe he can easily increase his Bitcoin savings by aggressive buying. In fact, only those who are looking forward to the price drop should understand that BTC investment does not work like this and it is not the right or best way to increase Bitcoin investment.

According to my knowledge, I would like to mention that to increase Bitcoin savings, one has to make a timely decision and adopt patience and the right mindset and also ensure that there is regular involvement with Bitcoin investment i.e. there is an attempt to buy regularly.

You are going to far sir, because I believe that a newbie doesn't need all that to get started, if not, it might delay his accumulation.
What a bitcoin investor needs in other to start investing in Bitcoin is the basic knowledge on Bitcoin, and the discretionary income needed to buy and accumulate consistently, then along the line he can start looking for further knowledge on what he needs to put in place, in other to be able to hold strong, which are emergency and reserve funds, but for a start, what he just need is the basic knowledge on Bitcoin and a discretionary income to start with, the rest are secondary.

OP needs something basics and simple to start, so I recommend them the Dollar Cost Averaging strategy that is described in my thread with a tool for DCA investment estimation.
Dollar Cost Averaging with costavg.com include exchange fee.
https://costavg.com/
There are more DCA websites but generally they can give DCA investment estimation so that newbies can see how good and profitable DCA strategy works for their investment. It's enough for newbies to feel interested in Bitcoin investment, with DCA strategy, for their beginnings.

 Look, maybe I do not see any need for new investors to follow different websites to start, because it is better to start investing, so we can easily learn the basic knowledge about this investment by looking at some posts on this forum, which is easier than following the website.  In fact, the basic principles of Bitcoin investing are to have a source of income, discretionary income, and an emergency fund that will allow you to invest regularly and become self-reliant.

Of course, you are fairly new to this forum @Black Panda, and you do not even have very many forum posts, though I did glance through your other 9 forum posts, and I saw that in your first post, you describe yourself as a "crypto trader," which surely is a problematic approach to bitcoin and/or crypto - especially since this particular thread is an investment thread and particularly an investment thread that is meant to be around my ideas about bitcoin investing.

Surely, I do not expect newbies to know everything about bitcoin and/or about investing when they come to bitcoin, and surely newbies come to bitcoin with all kinds of variations of experiences, knowledge, skills and/or even capital/income levels, so any newbie would be building off of his already existing situation to both establish goals and to perhaps refine his strategies and approach to bitcoin from time to time as he gets used to bitcoin and figures out how he might be able to incorporate bitcoin into his life in ways that are likely to be advantageous to his own financial and/or psychological circumstances.

Guys might start out with bitcoin and not necessarily know the difference between trading and investing or even know the difference between bitcoin and shitcoins, and I find it quite problematic for guys to be trying to earn a living from their involvement in bitcoin and/or shitcoins, even though there could be ways to get employment that is related to bitcoin and/or shitcoins, so i cannot really look down upon ways that guys might be able to figure out ways to get paid in bitcoin for doing bitcoin work or bitcoin related work.

I frequently think about investment as a way of putting time, energy and value aside that is surplus, so surely we have to make sure that our expenses are getting paid in one way or another, whether we earn money through bitcoin (or crypto) related work (or online work) versus if we might have some work in the regular world that is enough to pay for all of our expenses and even to provide discretionary income (that is more money than we need to cover all of our monthly expenses), so when we are in our bitcoin accumulating and building years, we still likely have regular expenses that we have to pay and we likely need to figure out ways that we build our bitcoin investment while at the same time, protecting ourselves from tapping into our bitcoin investment at times that are not of our own choosing.. and if we really think about how bitcoin works, then we will likely realize that bitcoin is an investment and not a trade and likely has an investment timeline that is 4-10 years or longer, and more likely 10 years or longer, except for guys who might have age and/or health considerations that don't allow them to invest for 10 years or more.

When we come to bitcoin (or get started in bitcoin) our ideas about bitcoin may well be all over the place, yet as we continue to buy bitcoin and to build up our bitcoin stack and to protect our bitcoin, we likely would be incentivized to continue to learn about bitcoin and cashflow management so that we are more likely to be advantaged with our having had gotten involved in bitcoin as compared with if we had not, especially if we  likely realize that almost no matter our financial circumstances, it tends to take time to build up a bitcoin stack sufficiently enough so that we may well be able to ongoingly live off of our bitcoin in the future after we had built it up to a sufficient size that it either supplements other income sources that we have or perhaps it ends up serving as our only income source (in the event that we do not diversify beyond bitcoin and cash - which seems a less likely scenario if we get to such stage of completely living off of our bitcoin).

As we build our bitcoin and incorporate bitcoin into our lives (like what an investment likely serves), we are also likely ongoingly considering and tweaking our 9 individual factors, since we do not have to have all of those 9 factors figured out when we start in bitcoin, yet they are likely ongoingly changing, including that one of the factors is that our bitcoin stack is likely changing in size and in value as compared with other investments, assets, income sources, expenses and/or cash that we have going on at any point in our lives.  

In our early years of investing into bitcoin, we likely will be building our bitcoin investment size and also strengthening our cashflow management systems/practices that involves balancing our back up fund levels, and surely it can take time to build up each of these areas, to the extent that they might not be in place prior to our having had gotten into bitcoin.  Hopefully we are not getting distracted by trading and/or shitcoins, yet if we have a personality in which we cannot resist such distractions, then hopefully we are able to figure out ways to limit such likely distractions to less than 10% the time, energy and value that we are putting into bitcoin.

In fact, the basic principles of Bitcoin investing are to have a source of income, discretionary income, and an emergency fund that will allow you to invest regularly and become self-reliant.

When all three are in place, it becomes much easier to invest regularly and stay consistent but to start investing you don't necessarily have to put all in place. Discretionary income is the most important that's required before you start investing, all others can be arranged with your investment on the way.

Source of income helps to maintain a consistent accumulation while emergency funds protect your investment and keep them running for a long period of time but they don't stop you from getting started, with discretionary income available you should invest right away and worry about the others later build up the others as you go without letting them hamper you from getting started investing in bitcoin.

Fixed that for you.

For example if a person comes to bitcoin  and they have absolutely no source income.. but they have some money that they consider to be sufficiently enough to get started investing in bitcoin, and so yeah they can get started, and hopefully they are not using all of their money, since they likely have to consider their expenses and how long they are able to continue to pay for their expenses without having any source income.. so they have to make sure that they have funds to ongoingly pay their expenses, at least until the next point that they are likely to receive some additional income.

Circumstances are going to vary, and surely a persons age, living situation, life experiences, skills are all going to affect their expectations regarding future income and/or their abilities to increase income and/or cut expenses... so that they might either be able to continue to buy bitcoin or at least not have to sell any of the bitcoin that they had already bought at a time that is not completely at their own choosing.  So then each week, or whatever time interval they are considering to buy bitcoin, they have to figure out the extent to which they continue to have discretionary funds and/or if their future income/expenses situation had changed from the previous week that might change the extent of their confidence of their having sufficient discretionary funds.

[edited out]

Before I forget, I'm not saying that Bitcoin investment does not have any associated risk whatsoever, but the risk is greatly minimized when we thing long term and not approach it with the mindset of quick profits.  

I like to consider risk in terms of accepting that the amount of value that had been put into bitcoin has chances of being mostly lost or even completely lost, so we figure out how much money that we are ready, willing and/or able to put into bitcoin based on an acceptance that as long as we do not employ leverage, then the most that we could lose from the amount that we put in is 100%... so in that regard, we come to bitcoin and already know that the amount we put in could be completely lost and we are putting that money into bitcoin with our knowledge and acceptance of 100% loss as a possibility to our investment in bitcoin.

At the same time, none of us are investing in bitcoin expecting to lose money, but instead we invest in bitcoin because we consider bitcoin to have ongoing attributes of being an asymmetric bet to the upside, so there are decently good odds, especially in a longer timeline such as 4-10 years or longer, that we are going to end up being way better off for having had built up a bitcoin portfolio as compared with scenarios in which we had not build up a bitcoin portfolio... and so we consider our future self in 4-10 years or longer (and even consider if we are still going to be alive), and we come to the conclusion that it is likely better to invest into bitcoin rather than not invest into bitcoin and to continue to build up our bitcoin holdings within those considerations, while also understanding the possibility that bitcoin could go to zero and our investment into bitcoin is not guaranteed.. so we likely take into account how much we are ongoingly putting time, energy and value into bitcoin based on our simultaneous considerations of both the upside and downside scenarios.

Many folks also understand risk in terms of up and down movements in the bitcoin price, and when we get into bitcoin, we already know that it is quite likely, and perhaps even recognizing it to be inevitable that bitcoin's price is going to go up, down and sideways in ways that we cannot really know in the short-term, even though we may well anticipate that bitcoins attributes are likely going to continue to cause its price trajectory to generally trending upwards, especially in 4-10 year or longer scenarios.

[edited out]

Maybe this is not to discourage people, but rather to make people aware about the risk they are possibly facing. There are so many hype around with Bitcoin and we want people to be aware on the risk, so they can do proper approach when they start accumulating their very first Bitcoin.

What do you mean by "risk" avp2306?  price volatility? execution factors? or something else?

If they are not aware on the risk then maybe those people will either wait for the dip or think that its easy to get rich on Bitcoin. Everything must be placed according to best action to do. So they can last long and avoid taking wrong short term decisions.

Why do you feel some need to proclaim that guys might engage in the "wrong" short term action?  Presumptively you are suggesting that guys might not buy bitcoin and/or they might sell the bitcoin that they have, which you would consider to be the "wrong short term decisions?"  All kinds of guys do dumb shit, so I don't find it very helpful to be proclaiming that guys (especially bitcoin newbies) might do dumb shit.. since we already know that.

[edited out]

It will take a lot of time for a beginner to learn all of this, and it will actually cause them to miss out on many opportunities to accumulate Bitcoin. It's best for beginners to first change their investment goals or set goals. If your goal is long-term the first thing to learn is how to properly secure your wallet then continue buying Bitcoin via DCA.

There is no reason for guys to learn how to properly secure their bitcoin before getting started investing in bitcoin, even if they might already have had established that their bitcoin investment timeline is long term (such as 4-10 years or longer), and even if a person might have had bought his first bitcoin in a way that he has to store the bitcoin himself, he might not even end up choosing the best wallet in which to hold his bitcoin, and depending on the size of his first transaction, he might not need to figure out the wallet matter in the very beginning, yet surely the more bitcoin he buys and the larger his bitcoin holdings become, he likely is going to need to make sure that he has security and/or privacy levels that are sufficiently proportional to the size of his bitcoin holdings.... and yeah, if the guy has $100, or $10 or even $1k, there may be less concerns about the extent to which those bitcoin are private and/or secure as compared with if the amounts are larger.   Of course, if a guy has an income that is ONLY in the neighborhood of $500 per month, then surely $1k would be a lot of money for a guy in that kind of a situation as compared with guys who might have larger incomes (and perhaps other investments and/or assets contributing to their overall networth).

Over time, knowledge of research analysis, observation and market factors will become easier to understand and you'll even learn them naturally.

I will agree that accumulating bitcoin and holding it will likely contribute towards guys wanting to learn more and to bolster their ways of accumulating bitcoin, securing it and otherwise strengthening their cashflow management practices/systems..  So, there is a bit of a natural element for guys who are striving to learn and improve and who are sufficiently dedicating time, energy and value towards their bitcoin investment, such as weekly or however frequently that they are able to spend time, energy and value with bitcoin (and cashflow management).

The third thing you mentioned applies to investing in altcoins. But if you're investing in Bitcoin especially with long-term goals, the first thing to learn is how to properly secure your wallet while continuing to buy Bitcoin via DCA. After that, all three will become easier to learn. This is all done to prevent you from focusing on the things that are delaying your Bitcoin purchase.

You likely need to be careful Mame89 when you are continuing to suggest that private wallets need to come in the beginning of investing into bitcoin, and even though I surely agree that holding decent amounts of the bitcoin holdings in private ways is important, at the same time, we already know that a lot of people get into bitcoin (and get price exposure to bitcoin) without learning about private wallets, so they do not necessarily need to learn about private wallets in the beginning (or the "first thing"), even though surely knowing the difference between paper bitcoin and actual bitcoin remains important, and there is also quite a bit of importance in figuring out the difference with open sourced wallets and closed sourced wallets and perhaps even learning about various lightning network services and values in running a node, yet there can also be difficulties when some folks start to learn about some of these technical matters and then they don't sufficiently understand the various technical trade-offs, and they end up screwing things up because they either deployed inadequate security or maybe they made their security too complicated and caused themselves to lock themselves out of their own coins.

I will continue to suggest that there is much more value in getting started in bitcoin and getting used to managing our cashflows and learning how to make choices regarding our discretionary funds than to learn about the various trade-offs of private wallets, even though surely there are some guys who might gravitate towards learning about various technical aspects of bitcoin, not everyone is going to be able to do those things, especially in the beginning times of their starting to get involved in bitcoin.

[NewRevelation]

Anyone that Is considering the price decline like you said as a great opportunity to increase their Bitcoin accumulation is not a Real and serious investor because who will be considering something that is not certain or guarantee as a great opportunity in fact that is lack of Bitcoin knowledge because someone who knows better should be able to understand that Bitcoin doesn't work like that and that is not the right or best way to approach Bitcoin because you will be left behind as the decline may not even come or get to where you expect it to...

As you said, I completely agree that those who consider this price drop as just a great opportunity to increase their Bitcoin savings are not real or prudent investors, but another thing is that if an investor faces this price drop while buying Bitcoin regularly, then maybe he can easily increase his Bitcoin savings by aggressive buying. In fact, only those who are looking forward to the price drop should understand that BTC investment does not work like this and it is not the right or best way to increase Bitcoin investment.

According to my knowledge, I would like to mention that to increase Bitcoin savings, one has to make a timely decision and adopt patience and the right mindset and also ensure that there is regular involvement with Bitcoin investment i.e. there is an attempt to buy regularly.

You are going to far sir, because I believe that a newbie doesn't need all that to get started, if not, it might delay his accumulation.
What a bitcoin investor needs in other to start investing in Bitcoin is the basic knowledge on Bitcoin, and the discretionary income needed to buy and accumulate consistently, then along the line he can start looking for further knowledge on what he needs to put in place, in other to be able to hold strong, which are emergency and reserve funds, but for a start, what he just need is the basic knowledge on Bitcoin and a discretionary income to start with, the rest are secondary.

OP needs something basics and simple to start, so I recommend them the Dollar Cost Averaging strategy that is described in my thread with a tool for DCA investment estimation.

Dollar Cost Averaging with costavg.com include exchange fee.
https://costavg.com/

There are more DCA websites but generally they can give DCA investment estimation so that newbies can see how good and profitable DCA strategy works for their investment. It's enough for newbies to feel interested in Bitcoin investment, with DCA strategy, for their beginnings.

 Look, maybe I do not see any need for new investors to follow different websites to start, because it is better to start investing, so we can easily learn the basic knowledge about this investment by looking at some posts on this forum, which is easier than following the website.  In fact, the basic principles of Bitcoin investing are to have a source of income, discretionary income, and an emergency fund that will allow you to invest regularly and become self-reliant.

All you mentioned as basic principles of Bitcoin investment is okay and is very important for an investor to hold inorder to continually invest in Bitcoin and HODL. But I want to point out that for a starter, who want to invest in Bitcoin newly, while all these are important, he can actually start or begin his investment if he is able to figure out his discretionary income. This means that he may not have well built his emergency funds, or have any back up funds, but as long as he is able to get his discretionary income ready, meaning he has settled his basic needs when his income came in, and the left over is the discretionary income, then he can invest.

Even though his income is not steady, he can invest whenever he has a Discretionary from any income that comes in, and for the emergency funds, while investing, he can gradually build up his emergency funds from the same discretionary. Since it takes some time to build up a strong and reliable emergency funds, it's okay to start investing and slowly build it up.

[red4slash]

This three thing's are very necessary something that we need to understand, when investing in Bitcoin, because if you dont know about and invest in bitcoin, you can be depressed if the price crashes, and that's why i prefer using a spare capital to invest when I have not known bitcoin too well...

Basically, if you make a research about bitcoin, you will know when to invest without having remorse...Even if you observe the current situation of bitcoin before investing, you most found out what will benefit you during the investment and after the investment....Market determinants can be observed during research, so all this worked together if you want to execute a good investment...

That might be important for some cases (some investors) but I think when it comes to those who are just entering (just starting their investment) actually something like this is not a benchmark for me because in this case we only have to focus on our confidence first and manage our cash flow to start.

When these two things cannot be fulfilled then certainly their investment will fall apart, beginners will not look at the market when they start investing as for observation it can be done by us buying first and so on which makes experience for them.
Indeed, sometimes some people always look at the market a little higher but if our focus is only for the long term then I think managing our financial cash flow well and not too bothered to pay attention to temporary increases or decreases is something that must be strengthened so that we have greater confidence about what is done (in the investment we are trying to build).

[GeorgeJohn]

<...>

That might be important for some cases (some investors) but I think when it comes to those who are just entering (just starting their investment) actually something like this is not a benchmark for me because in this case we only have to focus on our confidence first and manage our cash flow to start.

Will you focus on confidence for what you know or what you dont know about...I know quite well that every investment is all about risk, so whosoever that want's to venture into investment of any kind, needs to make a research before investing, because it will not be nice to take a risky for something you dont know the preamble...

If someone who has the experience of bitcoin investment want's to invest in bitcoin, i will advice the person to invest, because the investor has known the methods of bitcoin investment

But if a newbie in bitcoin investment, want's to invest in bitcoin, i will advice the person to make a research first and know the kind of investment is going to embark on.....encouraging someone who doesn't know about Bitcoin to use a speed of light and invest in bitcoin because others are investing in bitcoin, is good from my perspective...

[Brizi5000]

<...>

That might be important for some cases (some investors) but I think when it comes to those who are just entering (just starting their investment) actually something like this is not a benchmark for me because in this case we only have to focus on our confidence first and manage our cash flow to start.

Will you focus on confidence for what you know or what you dont know about...I know quite well that every investment is all about risk, so whosoever that want's to venture into investment of any kind, needs to make a research before investing, because it will not be nice to take a risky for something you dont know the preamble...

If someone who has the experience of bitcoin investment want's to invest in bitcoin, i will advice the person to invest, because the investor has known the methods of bitcoin investment

But if a newbie in bitcoin investment, want's to invest in bitcoin, i will advice the person to make a research first and know the kind of investment is going to embark on.....encouraging someone who doesn't know about Bitcoin to use a speed of light and invest in bitcoin because others are investing in bitcoin, is good from my perspective...

for me i'd like to suggest that it is better for newbies to just start buying bitcoin if their discretionary income is available because i feel that is where they will be able to get the real experience.  having experience in bitcoin investment and knowing the methods of investment is quite different thing all together because for the fact that a person knows about the methods of bitcoin investment doesnt mean that the person is experienced in bitcoin investment and for me i think that experience here is best taught when an individual is already doing or practicing it especially in bitcoin investment.

still trying to draw your attention towards the fact that you said you will only prefer telling individuals who have experience in bitcoin investment to start investing. now, the question is how can they gain this true experience in bitcoin investment when they are not already actively in the business of buying bitcoin for themselves or are they going to gain the experience from other peoples ordeal about bitcoin or they will just be studying and reading about bitcoin without trying to get involved in buying the bitcoin.

the reason i am saying this is that what will work for me may not work for you because we all have our different approach towards how we want our investment to be and so you cant depend solely on what another person is doing, one needs to get involved to really gain this experience so we can also make adjustments and some really vital decisions going forward with our bitcoin investment. there's no need trying to delay buying bitcoin and hold if the discretionary income is ready because thats what is needed to just buy the bitcoin as  we will surely be learning and experiencing new things along the line while ongoingly buying bitcoin.

[Dogedegen]

Holy shit you are confusing SilverCryptoBullet. You are spreading incorrect information.

Sure, you don't need to have a steady income or regular funds to get started investing in bitcoin, but you do need to have discretionary funds... otherwise you are not investing.. you are gambling.

Yeah what he wrong was actually dangerously incorrect, and this is why many people got burned with Bitcoin during some parts of the cycles where it was hyped up in the media. They came not knowing much about it, they did not really invest in it they were gambling. Some even took out large loans to buy Bitcoin, and when it didn't work out as planned they burned out and sold at a loss to save whatever they could save. If you invest right you are using discretionary funds, and then it is a completely different position than if you are doing it in a gambling way.

it seems that we disagree about the underlying premise, and I think that it is important to point out that a lot of people do not know what bitcoin is, and perhaps many of them misconceive bitcoin as being mature merely because a lot of people talk about bitcoin and/or have used the term bitcoin, which therefore causes them to misunderstand bitcoin's possible price dynamics too.

It is fair to bring that up because it is very accurate, I don't think that many people who are in Bitcoin or the wider shitcoin space even know what Bitcoin really does. So the numbers with the people outside of these spaces are probably going to be even worse?

If normies have trouble figuring out what bitcoin is, then they are also not going to understand its possible price dynamics, so then they will be mislead into thinking that bitcoin is a mature asset when it is not, and so the price dynamics of a mature asset is different from the price dynamics of an asset that is not mature.  

Well that kind of assumes that they have some market knowledge overall not related to Bitcoin? If they don't, they can't really understand price dynamics anyways I would say but yes that does make sense otherwise. Such people often bring up Bitcoin's volatility as a downside or issue, but that is exactly because of that difference between a mature asset and a young one among other things.

If normies have a different perception from my own, then they are going to ongoingly consider that bitcoin is "toppy" and then  be discouraged in either getting started and discouraged in allocating some reasonable portion of their income (or their already existing investment portfolio, to the extent that they have an investment portfolio)

No one wants to invest "at the top" or to be exit liquidity for longer term holders, which likely is the initial impression of many normies, especially ones who have not spent more than a few hours "looking into" figuring out what bitcoin is (or might be).

The people who are obsessed with Bitcoin cycles and those that love to post price predictions all the time are not really helping with this issue. If you have enough influence online and reach you can convince many normies to make mistakes relating to investing and price movements. It is sometimes funny to see how people who claim that they should have bought Bitcoin at a lower price write these things when it is at ATH, but then they do not buy it after it reaches some similar lows afterwards. Sentiment controls too many people unfortunately.

We used to be in times where the word Bitcoin gave you blank stares, almost nobody has even heard about it. Now we are in the second step we could say where many have heard of it but they do not know what it does or do not understand it correctly. One day we will reach a stage where many people have heard it, understand it and know it. If you are young enough and live healthy that may happen in your lifetime.

I even doubt if our current status of progression is as great as you are making it out to be... which was part of the point that I was attempting to make in my earlier response.

Great? I did not mean to imply it is quite great, it may be my mistake but you can't say that it is not a positive progression. You could only say that if you wanted to say that even fewer people know and even fewer people understand Bitcoin than before, but that is not correct? The number of users has grown considerably, but the number of those that understand Bitcoin and do self custody has grown very little in comparison even if it is growing.

Just imagine how sour a person has to be about something, to be so against a specific thing? Whether it is Bitcoin or something else, that hatred and bitterness is strong.

Sometimes we might attribute them to merely trolls or shills who have been put into place by some entity, and surely in some cases they are actually real people.. so yeah, it can sometimes be difficult to believe that some of them would be real people who are acting within their genuine interests... and it tends to be difficult to verify exactly, even though sometimes there can still be value to interact with them - even though they seem to be disingenuine.

Yes there is also that possibility and it probably always applies to some portion of the users, but I would expect such voices to subside after some time even more when it shows that after a fair investment they are not shown to be effective. In the case that I am talking about here you have users who have been persistently at it for over a decade, that takes some hard hatred and craziness. I mean we can declare that Bitcoin has won for most people regardless of what happens from now on.

Guys who have more income and/or more funds have more options, so their regular struggle and frustration might not be as great as are the struggles and frustrations of the overwhelming majority of newbie normies who are needing to ongoingly figure out how much to invest into bitcoin from their regular discretionary income from work that also includes their needs to consider how much to put into savings (back up funds) and discretionary consumption, too... so the less funds that are available to work with, then potentially the greater frustrations to allocate into bitcoin rather than using it for discretionary consumption and/or just keeping it in cash... yet surely guys like me who are investing in bitcoin and attempting to help other guys out with their bitcoin investment, we are likely frequently and ongoinly suggesting that there tends to be some value to figure out how much time, energy and value to put into bitcoin and to invest into bitcoin as aggressively that is reasonable without overdoing it.  

And, of course, there are no guarantees, yet guys do have to figure out their balance and when they are struggling with their income and/or expenses, then thy may well have greater challenges as compared with guys who are not struggling with their income/expenses... yet even many of us recognize and appreciate that the mere fact that a guy is comfortable with his income situation (in fiat), that does not necessarily mean that he is going to recognize bitcoin as a prudent place to figure out ways to put some of his extra time, energy and value.

I wish that we had better data on Bitcoin investors so that we can look at what is happening here, like how many people find themselves in the group of people that have more income or funds and how many find themselves in the other group. We might be surprised with what that tells us. What I don't think is that there are many people that would really fight hard to accumulate Bitcoin consistently in those positions even if there are a few for sure. I just think that such normies usually do not care so much about Bitcoin that they would let themselves struggle each time this issue comes up. I see them more often investing small lump sumps and then seeing what happens, but I could be wrong and that is why we need data to confirm which is the case.

I agree, even if sometimes a move like that may work out because of sheer luck and that is a big cause of this problem. People use examples of luck to validate their ideas and beliefs, when lucky outcomes prove the opposite so that it was not a good idea.

They often do that and it is not a good thing, it leads us down a road of false expertise or being able to predict the future. From one part I understand because it is tricky if you want to be honest about it. How do I make a difference between knowing something and being lucky that my ideas were confirmed? It is not always as simple as it seems.

I am not sure if we need to know for sure, and there is likely some value in attempting to be humble since for sure many guys likely have various aspects of their life that involve good luck and bad luck, and several choices are made along the way.  I recall several times preparing to be ready for certain opportunties if such opportunities were to come up, so in that regard, there may be ongoing  preparation that involves preparing for various opportunities that might come about, so that if several years are spent preparing, there may be a lot of relief if such preparations end up in opportunities at a point later down the road.

So if we are tracing back our histories and/or our trajectories in life, there are likely a variety of ways in which both good luck and bad luck had played out, and there were also plenty of instances in which some of the preparations that we had made in life had set us up to be in a position to take advantage of certain opportunities when they ended up presenting themselves to us.

I am saying that we can't really know for sure in many cases so even if we needed to know it would not change much. It is quite difficult and it is easy to let the ego get the best of you, that is why the better approach is to stay humble no matter what. I love the people that became very successful, stayed humble and attribute most of their success to luck. They tend to be nice.

[Dreadboost]

It is not as if the research of thing is not important but not for a newbie at a start, we keep emphasizing on the need for any investor to have basic knowledge and discreationary income for them to start their Bitcoin acumulation, advicing a newbie to have all this things you mentioned here can cause delay and change of mind, why will a newbie be observing when there is DCA method to go in with, as we all know learning is a process, whether we like it or not, we must start from a particular point, so what is the need for such excessive knowledge from the beginning when such energy can be put into the investment, more learning and other things can follow, there are more things to learn in Bitcoin but it does not have to be at once thats what I mean.

Waiting to have "perfect knowledge" is a mistake; it will slow you down. A beginner who starts investing small using the DCA method and learns along the way is far ahead of the newbie who stays on one side, trying to have perfect knowledge first before starting their investment. But that does not mean basic knowledge isn't important. The DCA method might look simple and easy, but it is a strategy they need to know. An investor who uses DCA means he knows these three things; He knows that the strategy requires consistency, Bitcoin has long-term value, and that volatility is a normal feature of Bitcoin, so no panic and no emotions when using DCA. Without having the basic knowledge of DCA, a beginner will not be consistent with the strategy. 

My advice to every beginner would be, don't limit yourself to trying to have excessive knowledge before starting, the goal is having the basics to survive long-term investment. If not, you will end up tapping your portfolio.

[Bitcoin.com97]

Anyone who is digging much to have a knowledge about bitcoin is really wasting time because in bitcoin investment those knowledge they are seeking or looking for are not really necessary. people that always dig so much to know or understand everything about bitcoin are folks that want to mess around with bitcoin but most times bitcoin always prove them wrong that they can not mess around with it and go free and that is the reason why we should not think of trading or gamble with bitcoin because the possibility of us losing our money is very high and the trauma that do comes after loss can be unbearable sometimes.

I don’t think digging deeper is a problem here, some persons want adequate knowledge before starting there investment journey and is also good , but it’s also good to start investing with the little knowledge acquired before going for deeper understanding, carrying out some research is important especially for newbies, trading because of  the possibility of losing your money has lead so many persons to regret , as far as bitcoins investment is concerned, it’s just best accumulate and Hodl , that is why digging deeper can actually help, it will make one to understand better on how it works .

[JayJuanGee]

Holy shit you are confusing SilverCryptoBullet. You are spreading incorrect information.

Sure, you don't need to have a steady income or regular funds to get started investing in bitcoin, but you do need to have discretionary funds... otherwise you are not investing.. you are gambling.

Yeah what he wrong was actually dangerously incorrect, and this is why many people got burned with Bitcoin during some parts of the cycles where it was hyped up in the media. They came not knowing much about it, they did not really invest in it they were gambling. Some even took out large loans to buy Bitcoin, and when it didn't work out as planned they burned out and sold at a loss to save whatever they could save. If you invest right you are using discretionary funds, and then it is a completely different position than if you are doing it in a gambling way.

Surely position size is important, and one thing is going beyond our discretionary income, yet another thing is becoming so uncomfortable with the size of our bitcoin investment, so in those cases, it would have had been better to invest smaller amounts into bitcoin rather than investing so much that a person is overly nervous about bitcoin's future price performance.

Guys will error in ways in which they are not sufficiently comfortable in largely ignoring their investment (and/or continuing to add to it), so they neither want to continue to add to it, but they start to consider doing the opposite.. .which would be to sell rather than either continuing to buy or at least at minimum HODLing through the rough period.. which yeah, in bitcoin  rough periods can sometimes take many months or even years to really pass through them.. even right now, there are so many folks who had thought that sub $100ks prices were behind, so then it became traumatic to not only have sub $100k, but then sub $90k, sub $80k, sub $70k, and even having a so far brief bounce below $60k.. and the length of time seems outrageous and even causes some guys to conside that the BTC price is not going to return to previous ATHs, so they get depressed by such ongoing and frustrating negative BTC price performance instead of continuing to buy and/or at least hold through these periods if there is not enough money to continue to buy bitcoin.

Sure some of these guys might have had ben buying too much in the supra $100k ranges, so they become a wee bit depressed by their average cost per BTC being high (such as over $100k), and they might consider a bit of futility to continue to buy bitcoin, even though it might be better for them both financially and psychologically to figure out a way to continue to buy in order to make it through this periodl, even if the buy amounts might be relatively small in comparison to the total amount that they had already invested into bitcoin.

But, yeah, guys have to figure out these matters.. and hopefully not regret their earlier BTC buys...and in the end, each guy is responsible for what he does, whether he is ongoingly buying bitcoin, stops buying and/or other decisions that he might make in regards to his bitcoin holdings.

it seems that we disagree about the underlying premise, and I think that it is important to point out that a lot of people do not know what bitcoin is, and perhaps many of them misconceive bitcoin as being mature merely because a lot of people talk about bitcoin and/or have used the term bitcoin, which therefore causes them to misunderstand bitcoin's possible price dynamics too.

It is fair to bring that up because it is very accurate, I don't think that many people who are in Bitcoin or the wider shitcoin space even know what Bitcoin really does. So the numbers with the people outside of these spaces are probably going to be even worse?

It can be quite surprising how much normies do not know about bitcoin, and even how much they seem to be assuming that they know about bitcoin, when they probably have not spent enough time with bitcoin.

Today, I ran into a friend from my youth, and it seems to me that I had been telling him about bitcoin for 10 years or more, and so it seems that every time that I run into him in recent times, perhaps once or twice a year, he wants to get caught up in all kinds of talk about politics.. and today, as I was talking to him about politics or whatever, I mentioned something about bitcoin being a good place for us to help ourselves and to empower ourselves, and he laughed so much, and had this know it all tone asking me if I was still into that, and acting as if bitcoin was clearly losing in recent times, and I probably should have had argued with him more, yet he was so closed minded and amazingly might have had been able to be rich as fuck if he had taken some modest bitcoin position rather than his ongoingly failing/refusing to take bitcoin seriously and even acting like he knows about bitcoin... when he clearly had a lot of misconceptions about bitcoin and even too much arrogance in the ways that he was laughing it off..

If normies have trouble figuring out what bitcoin is, then they are also not going to understand its possible price dynamics, so then they will be mislead into thinking that bitcoin is a mature asset when it is not, and so the price dynamics of a mature asset is different from the price dynamics of an asset that is not mature.  

Well that kind of assumes that they have some market knowledge overall not related to Bitcoin? If they don't, they can't really understand price dynamics anyways I would say but yes that does make sense otherwise. Such people often bring up Bitcoin's volatility as a downside or issue, but that is exactly because of that difference between a mature asset and a young one among other things.

Wrong comparisons are common, even amongst folks who might be studying bitcoin for a long period of time.

If normies have a different perception from my own, then they are going to ongoingly consider that bitcoin is "toppy" and then  be discouraged in either getting started and discouraged in allocating some reasonable portion of their income (or their already existing investment portfolio, to the extent that they have an investment portfolio)

No one wants to invest "at the top" or to be exit liquidity for longer term holders, which likely is the initial impression of many normies, especially ones who have not spent more than a few hours "looking into" figuring out what bitcoin is (or might be).

The people who are obsessed with Bitcoin cycles and those that love to post price predictions all the time are not really helping with this issue. If you have enough influence online and reach you can convince many normies to make mistakes relating to investing and price movements. It is sometimes funny to see how people who claim that they should have bought Bitcoin at a lower price write these things when it is at ATH, but then they do not buy it after it reaches some similar lows afterwards. Sentiment controls too many people unfortunately.

Even though historically blind buying of bitcoin has tended to work itself out, and to allow newbies to stack bitcoin, even though it could take them a cycle or two to get into a bitcoin stack position that starts to feel really comfortable, it can be difficult to ongoingly buy bitcoin for 1 or 2 cycles and to not get worked up about price. Of course, past performance does not always assure future results, so there is no guarantee that ongoing buying of bitcoin is going to end up paying off.

Another thing is that a guy who invests 5% or 10% or 20% of his income into bitcoin is going to put himself into differing situations, so the level fo seriousness makes a difference too, and surely there are some guys who are not even able to invest 5% to 10% of their income into bitcoin. so there surely can be a lot of stress for guys with lower quantities to discretionary funds to figure out ways to balance their investment into bitcoin, yet those guys with lower quantities of discretionary income, they are likely going to need to have longer timelines for their investment, and they may well need 15 to 20 years or more before they might start to feel that they are making meaningful progress in their bitcoin  investment, and surely there can be risks too, to attempt to plan that far into the future, since we also know that bitcoin has only been in existence for a bit more than 17 years, yet sometimes an investment timeline still might end up extending out many years, since historically there have been people who worked and invested 30-40 years of their life with expectations to get to fuck you status, and sometimes, they might not end up getting to fuck you status, and so it seems to me that bitcoin offers a good place to put time, money and energies.. even though we are also back to the reality that there are no guarantees that the investment of time, money and energies into bitcoin is going to end up puttin guys into better positions for having had invested into bitcoin as compared to if they had not invested into bitcoin.

We used to be in times where the word Bitcoin gave you blank stares, almost nobody has even heard about it. Now we are in the second step we could say where many have heard of it but they do not know what it does or do not understand it correctly. One day we will reach a stage where many people have heard it, understand it and know it. If you are young enough and live healthy that may happen in your lifetime.

I even doubt if our current status of progression is as great as you are making it out to be... which was part of the point that I was attempting to make in my earlier response.

Great? I did not mean to imply it is quite great, it may be my mistake but you can't say that it is not a positive progression. You could only say that if you wanted to say that even fewer people know and even fewer people understand Bitcoin than before, but that is not correct?

I frequently argue that the level of maturity and awareness of bitcoin is not even close as large as what many folks presume it to be, even though surely awareness of bitcoin is growing amongst some cohorts.

The number of users has grown considerably, but the number of those that understand Bitcoin and do self custody has grown very little in comparison even if it is growing.

Sure overall it is likely growing... gradually and then suddenly... yet I still am going to assert that we have to be careful in our presumptions that everyone knows what bitcoin is, even if they know the word bitcoin.  There are numerous folks who are know it alls about bitcoin, yet they have little to no clue about bitcoin, even though they have ideas about bitcoin in their head.

Just imagine how sour a person has to be about something, to be so against a specific thing? Whether it is Bitcoin or something else, that hatred and bitterness is strong.

Sometimes we might attribute them to merely trolls or shills who have been put into place by some entity, and surely in some cases they are actually real people.. so yeah, it can sometimes be difficult to believe that some of them would be real people who are acting within their genuine interests... and it tends to be difficult to verify exactly, even though sometimes there can still be value to interact with them - even though they seem to be disingenuine.

Yes there is also that possibility and it probably always applies to some portion of the users, but I would expect such voices to subside after some time even more when it shows that after a fair investment they are not shown to be effective. In the case that I am talking about here you have users who have been persistently at it for over a decade, that takes some hard hatred and craziness. I mean we can declare that Bitcoin has won for most people regardless of what happens from now on.

People get stubborn in their ideas, and sure sometimes they will come around at some later date, and sometimes they will remain stubborn and bitcoin haters.

Guys who have more income and/or more funds have more options, so their regular struggle and frustration might not be as great as are the struggles and frustrations of the overwhelming majority of newbie normies who are needing to ongoingly figure out how much to invest into bitcoin from their regular discretionary income from work that also includes their needs to consider how much to put into savings (back up funds) and discretionary consumption, too... so the less funds that are available to work with, then potentially the greater frustrations to allocate into bitcoin rather than using it for discretionary consumption and/or just keeping it in cash... yet surely guys like me who are investing in bitcoin and attempting to help other guys out with their bitcoin investment, we are likely frequently and ongoinly suggesting that there tends to be some value to figure out how much time, energy and value to put into bitcoin and to invest into bitcoin as aggressively that is reasonable without overdoing it.  

And, of course, there are no guarantees, yet guys do have to figure out their balance and when they are struggling with their income and/or expenses, then thy may well have greater challenges as compared with guys who are not struggling with their income/expenses... yet even many of us recognize and appreciate that the mere fact that a guy is comfortable with his income situation (in fiat), that does not necessarily mean that he is going to recognize bitcoin as a prudent place to figure out ways to put some of his extra time, energy and value.

I wish that we had better data on Bitcoin investors so that we can look at what is happening here, like how many people find themselves in the group of people that have more income or funds and how many find themselves in the other group. We might be surprised with what that tells us. What I don't think is that there are many people that would really fight hard to accumulate Bitcoin consistently in those positions even if there are a few for sure. I just think that such normies usually do not care so much about Bitcoin that they would let themselves struggle each time this issue comes up. I see them more often investing small lump sumps and then seeing what happens, but I could be wrong and that is why we need data to confirm which is the case.

It is easy to get sucked into the wrong perception  that "I am too late," and even though they would likely be better off to just suck it up and start buying bitcoin for 4-8 years or longer, instead they continue to just stick with the "I'm too late" perception.

I agree, even if sometimes a move like that may work out because of sheer luck and that is a big cause of this problem. People use examples of luck to validate their ideas and beliefs, when lucky outcomes prove the opposite so that it was not a good idea.

They often do that and it is not a good thing, it leads us down a road of false expertise or being able to predict the future. From one part I understand because it is tricky if you want to be honest about it. How do I make a difference between knowing something and being lucky that my ideas were confirmed? It is not always as simple as it seems.

I am not sure if we need to know for sure, and there is likely some value in attempting to be humble since for sure many guys likely have various aspects of their life that involve good luck and bad luck, and several choices are made along the way.  I recall several times preparing to be ready for certain opportunties if such opportunities were to come up, so in that regard, there may be ongoing  preparation that involves preparing for various opportunities that might come about, so that if several years are spent preparing, there may be a lot of relief if such preparations end up in opportunities at a point later down the road.

So if we are tracing back our histories and/or our trajectories in life, there are likely a variety of ways in which both good luck and bad luck had played out, and there were also plenty of instances in which some of the preparations that we had made in life had set us up to be in a position to take advantage of certain opportunities when they ended up presenting themselves to us.

I am saying that we can't really know for sure in many cases so even if we needed to know it would not change much. It is quite difficult and it is easy to let the ego get the best of you, that is why the better approach is to stay humble no matter what. I love the people that became very successful, stayed humble and attribute most of their success to luck. They tend to be nice.

Sure, there are folks who try to figure out the differing categories of bitcoin holders, and surely there is a lot of variance, and even some guys selling their coins and also guys losing their coins through death and/or inadequate means of passing them down.. and also maybe a certain quantity of guys who think that they have coins, but do not necessarily realize that they already lost access to them.  It could be quite a bit of work to ongoingly check the integrity of a variety of wallets, especially if coins might be spread in a large variety of ways, including some guys making it difficult to get access to their coins and not necessarily realizing that they may have already lost access to their coins... or for example leaving instructions for how their heirs are supposed to get their coins, but the instructions are not adequate.