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We just need to know now if this explosive increase in prices is based on speculative reasons, or if it is a solid increase based on supply/demand based on this opening of the market to thousands of investors through ETFs, or if it is just the market getting ahead of itself and pricing the price based on the next halving
You may be correct that there are always chances that some kind of substantial and meaningful correction could take place, and in this particular price rise we are likely measuring since about mid-October 2023 when the Blackrock's ETF application was clearly announced.. and so the upwards BTC price action has been pretty much ongoing and relentless ever since.
Personally, I believe that is it not really necessary to know if it is fake or not, because I doubt that we are having a blow off top right now or having a couple more years of down or sideways, but hey guys can believe what they like, and for you, probably you should make sure that you are ongoingly stacking rather than waiting for dips that might not happen, and sure you are likely at a disadvantage if you are coming to bitcoin at any time around your forum registration, and surely there could be scenarios that you are just forced to continue to buy as the BTC price is going up.. and maybe the BTC price will come back down to these levels, and maybe it won't.
Another problem that newbies have is cashflow.. so the cash only comes in so rapidly, and maybe they are in a worse situation if they are in college or some kind of status in which they are not earning much if any income that goes beyond their living expenses (also known as discretionary/disposable income that they would be able to use for investing in something like bitcoin).
An action plan is very individual, I still believe that today anyone with a minimum knowledge of the bitcoin cycle can very well radically change their standard of living, they just need to be patient and responsible.
I have no dispute with any of this, yet at the same time, I think that there is value in front-loading (if you have the money) and also DCA - and buying the dip as long as you had already front-loaded your investment into BTC... but yeah, each person has to find his own balance based on his own circumstances, including considering the 9 considerations that I frequently mention.
These 9 principle individual factors that influence your decision whether to invest into bitcoin and how to invest into bitcoin have financial, skills and psychological components that include:
1) your cashflow,
2) how much bitcoin you have already accumulated,
3) your other investments (including an emergency fund and/or other purposes that cash reserves might be held),
4) your view of bitcoin as compared with other investments,
5) your timeline,
6) your risk tolerance,
7) your time, skills, goals (investment/lifestyle targets, which includes figuring out the extent that you are in BTC accumulation, maintenance or liquidation stage),
8 ) your abilities to strategize, plan, research and learn along the way including tweaking strategies from time to time,
9) your considering your time, your abilities and whether to trade, reallocate from time to time, to use of leverage and/or to use financial instruments... (and for sure the use of financial instruments, leverage and margin trading involve higher level skills and are not even necessary to still become richie in bitcoin's already existing asymmetric bet.)
These are ongoing areas in which anyone should be working upon without necessarily concluding that they need to perfect all of them or even to perfect any one category prior to being ready to start investing into bitcoin.. whether that is investing with their time, their energies and/or their finances.