hard to tell. back when i started and btc was so cheap i didnt really pay attention. i got in it for the experimental aspect more than any profit. all i know is, aside from the first few years, every year i have less btc, but the real world value of that lessor amount of coins is more. usually much more.
as a miner you can look at it as dollar cost averaging, more or less. like i "buy" coin every week, non stop as long as i mine. then sell as needed.
ive mainly used btc as a kind of a "level up" thing. as in i mainly used them to "upgrade" stuff like vacations, toys, gifts etc to a higher level than i would of without btc. occasionally i would lock a chunk of profit up and put it into efts or other non crypto assets that (hopefully) earn returns in a more conventional, less risky way but of course with much less potential profit.
So it seems to appear that you are regularly taking profits in fiat and consumable goods, and you are not stacking aside bitcoin in a kind of fundamental view that bitcoin could potentially have more value some day.
I understand that you have been in bitcoin longer than me, but largely I have considered bitcoin as something to attempt to stack up, so if I spend BTC, then I attempt to replace the ones that I spent. I have been looser with myself regarding this in recent times, because I have established some ways to monitory my fiat versus BTC level, and created my own reasoned considerations regarding how many BTC that I want to maintain at certain price points, and if I have at least enough BTC to continue to reach that stacking BTC goal, then I don't mind shaving off a bit extra fiat for consumable goods.
im guessing you are younger than i. im on the wrong side of fifty. at my age i take less risk as im too old to start over.
Of course, age should be a considered factor for any investment strategy, yet to me, it seems that my assertion of your approach is not so much related to age, but instead what seems to be your gunshyness about BTC.
Of course, you can do whatever, you believe is best for you and your family, and like I mentioned in my previous post, I had already developed a pretty decent portfolio of investments prior to my involvement in BTC, so therefore, my BTC has been a kind of icing on the cake of my previous investments. I don't feel any compelling need to reallocate into my other investments apart from the fact that I believe that my strategy of selling BTC on the way UP and buying BTC on the way down (largely with the proceeds that I have accumulated on the way UP) causes a largely sufficient amount of lessening the risk of the BTC portion of my investment.
So, overall, I consider that my taking about a 13%-ish investment into bitcoin as compared to the value of my other investments was perhaps a few percent higher than I initially had planned, but such allocation has allowed me to feel o.k. if BTC prices go down (and perhaps even the a bit higher than anticipated initial investment into BT causes me to feel o.k. shaving off some profits as the prices go UP. .and NOT getting too anxious either way that hte price moves.. even though of course, I feel much better when BTC prices are UP and going up... but still, even considering all matters, if BTC prices were to go to $1k, that is still 4x higher than BTC prices were through most of 2015 - and I even doubt that there is very much likelihood that BTC prices are going to go to $1k.. They would surely have to break through a lot of support levels to get down to the $1k arena.. even seeming to have some difficulties getting below $6k and/or staying below $6k for any meaningful amount of time.
if i were younger i certainly would be increasing my stack as finances allow. i hope to get back to that too once certain new goals are met. but as of right now, other priorities are more important.
Nothing wrong with that. Tentatively, I am thinking that I might start cashing out of BTC in 5 to 10 years, but that tentative timeline is not going to cause me to NOT cash out some sooner, if I believe that it might work for me for whatever reason. I already have a fund that pretty much is allocated to buying BTC on the way down and enough BTC to sell on the way up to keep fueling the fund.. So generally, I tend to extract anticipated future expenses from my other monies... which seems to go to the principle of NOT investing more than you can afford to lose.. while at the same time, I have no problem with guys (and gal) who consider it to be in their interest to permanently cash out some of their BTC holdings on the way up in order to lock in profits and perhaps not even having a buying back plan on dips.. I just find it a bit more problematic to be cashing out on the way down.. but that relates to me and how I attempt to prepare myself which I understand might NOT have worked out as well for some other folks.
not depleting your stack and especially increasing your stack is always a good thing. for instance i have recently taken advantage of btcs currently lower price to replace some that i sold ~100% higher earlier in the year. but im still down btc from last year.
That seems to be a good thing, and supports a conclusion that you have been cashing out some BTC on the way up. I don't think that it is necessary for any BTC investor / HODLer to necessarily maintain his/her stack quantity, because there should be some projection that as the BTC price goes up, the quantity of your BTC stash would go down, unless you happen to have some lucky breaks along the way.. and of course, with ongoing BTC volatility and expected continued BTC volatility, there are likely going to be some lucky breaks along the way, just built into the already existing BTC price dynamics - and likely expectations.
i see btc as a tool. a new, experimental tool to manage value. and its still experimental really. there is still the risk it will fail.
Seems that you have been in BTC long enough to recognize that BTC has gotten past quite a few obstacles in recent years, and the level of its experimentation is NOT as high as it was a few years ago. Furthermore, those of us who have spent a considerable amount of tim e learning about BTC are able to advantage ourselves from the disparity of information and the ignorance of the public regarding this particular topic. Even though we may want to prepare ourselves for either scenario, we should not be so timid as to underinvest in BTC just because we see a lot of stupid-ass bearish information out there that is based on misinformation or perhaps purposeful disinformation about the topic that we know about - namely BTC.
or, through personal error, my wallets could get compromised and coins stolen.
Of course, these things can happen, but the more that we know about bitcoin, the more we know that it is necessary to take several precautions to lessen these kinds of risks - even if we are NOT able to completely remove them. Once again, if we have been in bitcoin awhile then we can learn as we go on these matters and recognize various security measures that are important (perhaps necessary) that newbies BTC investors are not going to as likely recognize.
so im using part of my stack to diversify into different non crypto holding in case it all goes south.
Do what you like, because it is ultimately your money.. but hopeful you are NOT being too BTC timid and selling on dips rather than selling when the price goes up.... Ultimately, you are the sovereign of your own BTC investment and its allocation level(s).
maybe because i got into it fairly early, i still see it as a tool to be used, not as a "get rich" thing. although i hope we all do. but currently im using it now to secure our (wife and i) future with as little risk as possible.
To me, it seems that if you had been in longer then you would not seem to be coming off as someone who is selling on the way down... hahahahha or possibly advocating that others consider such an approach... and being in a long time should have already allowed you to do what you need to do when prices were going up.. .hopefully.
so on average for the last few years i have generally spent more btc than i replace.
There is nothing wrong with that, and seems definitely acceptable when your coins are in decent profits.
at this stage in my life i have changed some priorities and used btc profit to try and ensure a more than comfortable retirement (if all goes even close to well). we were at the point that retirement should go well for us anyway but its time to revisit that position and nail down a few potential lose ends. once im happy with that i will go back to accumulation. at least i hope to.
It sounds as if you are in a decent position, and surely it is neither bad to rethink your allocations from time to time and also to reconsider your fiat-based reserves. Part of my reason for getting into bitcoin in the first place was that I was looking for a gold-like investment of an asset that was possibly inversely correlated to the performance of the dollar - because I thought that I had too many investments that seemed to be too highly correlated to the dollar's performance. I never really liked gold for its storage difficulties and I had always been skeptical about paper gold (and the degree to which it would be sufficiently non-correlated to the dollar's performance), so therefore bitcoin seems to have been (for me) a much better (more portable too) version of gold and could take on some of the diversification risk that I thought that I needed in my overall investments.
I still don't feel overallocated into bitcoin, but I understand that others might conclude or even reanalyze and conclude that they are more allocated into BTC than what they consider (after reanalysis) to be prudent.
lol 
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