@JJG So you had a plan (10%), and stuck with it (buying more) when the dollar value of your investment went down.
In late 2013, I had a certain amount of money that I could invest, and in September/October 2013, I invested part of that money in traditional stocks, and I had not really thought about bitcoin but I had it bookmarked in my browser to look into it, and in about mid-November 2013, I pretty much learned about bitcoin by looking into the bookmarked resources that I had set aside. Accordingly, at that point, I decided to take a stake and I had some preliminary and initial ideas based on having little information, and I had also planned to research further into the matter while I dollar cost average invested over the next 6 months (and like I said, my overall initial idea was to invest no more than 10% of my quasi-liquid investment capital into bitcoin).
If I make an initial and rudimentary assessment in time 1, I am not locked into that rudimentary assessment at time 2 (6 months later) or time 3 (one year later) or time 4 (three years later). That would be ridiculous to suggest that I need to be locked into any kind of plan or any kind of way of thinking about apportioning of risk or even feeling sufficiently invested or sufficiently diversified.
Additional thinking that I had was to buy on the way down and to sell on the way up (that is more or less a concept that I attribute getting from Warren Buffet, even though I doubt that he is any kind of originator of such concept). So, yeah, I continued to dollar cost average buy throughout 2014 and attempting to buy more as the price went down and to refrain from buying when the price went up, because during all of 2014, I considered my BTC portfolio/holdings to be largely continuing to be in an accumulation only phase.
But now when it is 30%, you don't stick with your plan by not selling down to 10%
Through the past 3 years of looking into BTC, investing in BTC and considering and reconsidering my own financial particulars, I have the right to change my ideas however I believe is reasonable for my own evolving circumstances and my own evolving thinking.
I also think that there is a bit of a different dynamic if a person invests up to 10% without appreciation in an asset or invests 30% without appreciation in an asset... Surely the appreciation of the asset should be considered, but merely having appreciation of an asset, whether that appreciation is 5% 20%, 100%, 500% or more than 1000% does not dictate what is the next action of the investor. I think that ultimately, any consideration of a plan needs to be tailored to individual considerations and even tweaked based on various individual considerations that are not necessarily locked in and have the ability to evolve (whether gradual or steep).
(not judging, just summarizing).
Yeah, a little judgement seems to come off in your summary, but that is fine, I suppose. Sometimes, I also write responses that may contain some judgement inferences therein (sometimes intentional and sometimes not).
I think that part of the reason that I participate so much in this forum is to be able to consider what other folks are doing and thinking and also to bounce some of my ideas off of other folks. I don't necessarily expect to interact without being the recipient of some judgement.. and frequently, I stick to the position that bitcoin investors need to tailor their considerations and their BTC investment strategies (or not) to their own circumstances and comfort levels.
My plan was to own a certain percentage of the Bitcoin network which got easier over time because of the declining price.
Actually, I agree with you. Sometimes, I may share a lot about various aspects of my investment, but I also decide not to share all particulars about what I do and various intimacies of my own plans. Nonetheless, the change in the price (especially lowering of the price), made some goals to be easier (whether that goal is expressed in fiat or expressed in BTC). And, yeah, I have come across a lot of discussion in which some posters have a goal to accumulate and continue to hold a certain quantity of bitcoin, and the quantity may vary, such as 1BTC or 21BTC or 100BTC or some other variant.
I also kind of have a certain quantity of BTC in mind that I would like to stay above, and I have some charts that I have created that project my BTC holdings into the future and at certain price points, so there is some underlying considerations that I have regarding a desire to hold a certain quantity of bitcoin (and yeah holding a certain quantity of bitcoin could also screw up my other thinking in terms of what percentage of my net worth BTC represents and whether I need to diversify some of my networth out of BTC in order to feel more comfortable).
Now I have it, and like you can't seem to sell them for fiat or s(t)ocks I don't need. A bitcoin is just too damn precious.
I agree with you that overall Bitcoin is likely a whole hell of a lot more valuable than a lot of the other traditional investment vehicles - nonetheless, I think that we remain quite a ways away from a day in which we remove all of our investment from various traditional asset classes, yet I understand that if you have little to no investment at all, you may think that you want to get started by investing in BTC only or you may diversify with some crypto currencies, and to me, maintaining 100% of quasi-liquid investment assets in various kinds of crypto (even if mostly or almost exclusively in BTC) remains considerably risky. Sure, sometimes, younger folks (in their teens or early 20s) may consider that they have a timeline in which they can be more risky with their investment strategy, and surely there is some truth to the fact that age (and timeline) makes a difference in how risky of an approach may be prudent for one person but not prudent for another person.