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Trees, meet forest

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@tarazkp
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5 min read

Sometimes I fantasize about pulling out.
Out of most of my tokens that is.

Wouldn't life be easy just to hold Bitcoin and not care about anything else at all? No social consideration, just speculation, no need to take the risk of DeFi platforms, just bury it on a Trezor in the forest?

The problem is, unless Bitcoin goes to around 2 million dollars - I don't have enough to just hold. I should have more, but I didn't buy Bitcoin early on and it has only been in the last two years I have started adding any at all. For the longest time, the only reason I had Bitcoin at any given moment was because it was paired with something else.

However, because I don't have enough Bitcoin, I have to take risks on other tokens in the hope that they will outperform and I will be able to make up the gains taking another track. So far, so good I guess, even though I have missed a lot and lost a lot along the way. Not all of my moves have been winners for sure, but I am doing okay considering.

But, the reality of the situation is that if you have some Bitcoin right now, if you were to hold it, you will likely have more than the vast majority of people in the future, considering the limited supply. As I have mentioned before - there will be 21 million bitcoin and some percentage of that is already lost or bricked. However, there are over 55 million millionaires in the world, so even a millionaire these days can't own a full bitcoin. Of course, most people who have crypto now don't have a full Bitcoin either, as there are far more people holding BTC than there are full BTCs out in the wild.

Likely, I have several magnitudes more Bitcoin than someone buying in now will ever have, as there is just too much scarcity for them to own more. But, people will want to own more because it is Bitcoin and the institutions are going to be shilling the crap out of it. The more they shill, the more people will want and, the greater the scarcity gets. Each paying more to buy into a relative shrinking pool, compared to demand.

Even while the large holders are dumping in, they will start dumping less and less, as they don't need as much to make phenomenally massive gains. The pool gets throttled and the price keeps climbing, with an expanding base ready to soak up dips, meaning that even when there are large dumps, there are more people to catch the dip and create a higher floor.

Of course, this doesn't mean that only BTC will do well of course, because the higher it goes, the more people are "priced out" of the market, but still want to be in crypto, or have to be in crypto as the economy might dictate. So, alternatives like Ethereum or BNB, Cardano and the myriad others will increasingly attract attention too. But, there will be many more people like me who want the gains, but can no longer afford to get into those either, so the lower-tier tokens and projects will keep getting attention and with hundreds of millions more (if not a couple billion more) users coming in within the next decade, the amount of value held across the industry is going to be absolutely immense!

But of course, many people can't wait a decade, because they need money now. All kinds of expenses come up over time and when there is crypto availability, it is easy to dig in and take a bit here and there. I wonder what today's value would be if they calculated all the here's and there's over the last couple years and whether what they paid was worth it, if they had to pay today's prices. It might very well be of course, because of something like medical expenses or food in some circumstances - but would you pay 8x more for a laptop, phone or TV - just to have it a little earlier?

But of course, this depends on whether there are other ways to pay for it and sometimes there are not, so digging into the future might be the only option available. For me, I am lucky and can cover my life expenses through work, but this doesn't mean it will always be the case, especially if there are more nasty health issues that arise. What this means is that crypto is not only my plan for retirement, it is also my hedge against not being able to work and bring in a living income, so using it is an absolute last resort position and would be used to the absolute bare minimum, if I had to.

There are others who see their crypto earnings and stacks as a way to get into some luxury want purchases and there is nothing wrong with that - but I just think that if I did that and then ten years down the track I was struggling financially, knowing that I could have been very comfortable instead, I would probably have regrets. I mean, people regret not investing into something like Apple or Google - but what about those who invested and sold very early? The thing is that even with those people, if they were investing early, they probably aren't on the breadline anyway, but that might be very different for those getting into crypto.

I don't give advice in what to buy or when, but discussing the things I experience and observe helps me build my own position in the world and improve my processes. Some people think I am trying to convince them to be a certain way or do a certain thing, but I am actually reinforcing my own views, by exploring them and seeing if they are still valid to get me to wherever I want to be getting or, if where I want to get has shifted too.

Some people get lucky and believe they are gurus who made good decisions - but no, they guessed right or, had their bag boosted by unforeseen forces they never predicted. Nothing wrong with getting lucky, but confusing it with skill can be costly. Since we act on what we believe, improving our beliefs by evolving our thought processes will have an affect on our behavior. Acting better will on average yield better results as while everyone generally focuses on the outcomes, it is good process that will inevitably beat luck, or at least, give luck space to have more of a positive impact on our good process.

It is about being in the right place at the right time consistently and when it comes to investing, the right time is hard to predict, so being in place at that moment can be hard. However, if one can find that place and hold position long-term, eventually the ball will find its way. Yet, because people are always chasing the latest and greatest opportunity, a large percentage will find that they are always out of position, like kids on a soccer field all chasing the ball, rather than making space and calling for the pass.

Chasing the ball is an all or nothing approach and unless faster or stronger than the rest, unlikely to pay off enormously, as so many more will get there first with so much more. It isn't that gains can't be made, but one has to recognize that time is a factor, as time will not only mean more coming in on top, but also those who were in early dropping out, making what you hold the same percentage as the pool total, but a higher amount than many others.

Who knows, perhaps ten years down the track, my meagre Bitcoin holdings might be relatively large, even if they don't grow at all. Because when three billion people hold bitcoin, the median amount held, isn't very much and I should have more than that buried somewhere.

Ten years... an eternity?

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