Well, let's say that you came to bitcoin in 2018 (so 5 years ago)---
and between 2018 and now you were able to accumulate 4.5 BTC for an average price of around $10,000.... so you could have various price points in which you sell those BTC in 2023 (or maybe at some future date), and if you sell all of your BTC, you may well end up struggling to figure out how to get them back. Whether you can buy back your BTC at the price that you sold them might be another question... and whether you can invest the value of those sold BTC into something that is equal to or better than BTC is still another question that you will face with levels of uncertainty.
When it comes to taking profits along the DCA line, one needs to apply a lot of constraints and shouldn't over sold at any point no matter what the price may be or the profits merging on the Bitcoin, since selling Bitcoin at every possible opportunity only lead to loss of your bitcoin holding, because bitcoin is more fun when it is held for the long term.
There is risk associated with taking profits at every market advantage which is the possible inability to get those bitcoin back at the same value you first buy the bitcoin, and since bitcoin accumulation is a journey, one needs to apply the same time principle in both the buying and selling point without a rush in both.
I do agree with the idea of incremental selling rather than trying to sell too much at once, and it has been my practice to expect that any time that I sell, I may well not be able to buy those BTC back, so in that regard, my sale levels tend to be so small that they do not constitute a vary large portion of my BTC holdings - in other words, I am selling profits ONLY and ONLY a small portion of the profits.
Let's say for example that I have accumulated 1 BTC, and my average cost per BTC is $10k, so I am sufficiently in profits right now, so if the BTC price goes up from $30k to $33k, I have a 10% price appreciation, and I have $3k of extra profits in there, so maybe I might be willing to take 1% of my holdings off of the table, and I decide to sell 0.01 BTC which is $330, and if the price goes back down below $30k, then maybe I will buy back the .01 BTC that I sold, but if the BTC price never goes back below $30k then I am content to having had sold the 0.01
BTC amount that I sold at $33k, even if the BTC price then goes up to $40k and never comes back down below $40k - and if the price keeps going up, then probably i will continue to have those kinds of small sales of my BTC, and 1% of my holdings becomes a higher and higher value even though my BTC holdings is continuing to go down little by little.
Not everyone is in a sufficiently good position to be selling his/her BTC on the way up, and perhaps having 1BTC is not enough to feel that you are able to sell any, and maybe if you have 1 BTC, then you might want to just continue to buy, and don't be thinking about selling any BTC until either you get up to a higher quantity of BTC or BTC prices reach such a level that you are starting to feel o.k. about shaving off some BTC at various price increments on the way up. Those kinds of threshold considerations (regarding when to sell and how much to authorize yourself to sell) are likely going to be different for each person depending upon his/her personal financial and psychological circumstances.
When it comes to taking profits along the DCA line, one needs to apply a lot of constraints and shouldn't over sold at any point no matter what the price may be or the profits merging on the Bitcoin, since selling Bitcoin at every possible opportunity only lead to loss of your bitcoin holding, because bitcoin is more fun when it is held for the long term.
It looks like you are one of those people who are seriously considering continuing to hold Bitcoin in the long term because maybe you have put too much affection on Bitcoin so that you still want to hold it all the time without having to sell everything, even though you have seen real profits in front of your eyes. I'm quite motivated by what you're saying because it's really nice when we want to continue to hold Bitcoin for the long term and not oversell, especially when we don't have a sudden need to sell all the Bitcoin we already have.
There is risk associated with taking profits at every market advantage which is the possible inability to get those bitcoin back at the same value you first buy the bitcoin, and since bitcoin accumulation is a journey, one needs to apply the same time principle in both the buying and selling point without a rush in both.
The obvious risk here when all the Bitcoins we have is sold is not being able to get those Bitcoins back at the same price they were before. Yes, what you say is very correct because of the fact that the price of Bitcoin always tends to change at any time, although a lower price can still be expected when a big decline occurs. But it also doesn't happen all the time, so everyone needs to have time to be patient if they really want to buy it back at a cheaper price or at almost the same price as what they bought before.
You are free to think about bitcoin however you like Davian144; however to me it appears that your mental framework is not correct... because you seem to want to accumulate BTC, but you believe that selling BTC is a decently acceptable strategy in terms of accumulating more BTC - and I think that is wrong thinking.
Personally, I think that it is way better to merely consider various ways to ongoingly buy BTC until you get to a level of BTC that you believe is sufficient for your circumstances, and sure you can try to time the dip, lump sum buy and DCA, and that is likely a much more assured way to continue to accumulate more and more and more BTC, whether the cost of the BTC is high or low.. after a while (maybe it takes several years?) you are likely to be in profits and perhaps even very good profits, without the risk of fucking around with selling in order to buy back cheaper - which seems a fool's game - especially for anyone who has goals to accumulate BTC - and appreciate that it is valuable to accumulate BTC, even if some of the BTC might cost more than others and even if the dollar value of your BTC holdings might not seem to be going up as quickly as you would like.