Indeed, if you are just keeping your bitcoins in a paper wallet which you created offline, you may well claim you are at all times the sole owner of all your coins. On the other hand, as to me, that wouldn't be very wise overall unless of course you belong to a group of truly early adopters who got thousands of bitcoins basically for nothing. Otherwise, you may want to sell a little bit here and a little bit there whenever the price goes up another hundred dollars and buy back what you sold when a correction starts (or ends, which would be better). But this is obviously impossible if you set yourself to strictly follow the rule of being the "sole owner of all your coins at all times"
I do cash out profits from time to time, but I have different kinds of wallets for that. My stash structure is a bit as follow;
- 2 cold wallets containing 60% of my entire coin count. I haven't touched any of the coins in these wallets for more than 2 years. These coins are meant to stay in their wallets sleeping for plenty of more years. It's some sort of a potential retirement bonus.
- 3 semi cold wallets containing 20% of my entire coin count. I frequently supply these wallets with coins coming from the profits I make with trading. From these wallets I use coins to secure profits if the price is high enough like is the case right now.
- 3 trading wallets containing 20% of my entire coin count. These wallets contain coins purely for trading purposes. I sent them to my exchange account at the time I am trading, and withdraw them back at the time I am done trading. Not a single satoshi stays in my exchange account. The profits I make with these coins will go to my semi cold wallets.
Everything is stored offline without having any way to access it through whatever machine without my approval.
