When is it appropriate to let go?

[FlameSmith 62]

Hello!  I’m sorry for the semi-dramatic title.  But I would really appreciate your help on this. So, recently, I’ve been finding myself in need of extra money because of unexpected expenses.  So, the only money I have left is the money I’ve been HODLing for my cryptos.  I can’t seem to withdraw it in fear that I might miss out the chance to make it even bigger.  But, what am I supposed to do? How do you know it’s time to stop HODLing?

[BtsDoom 62]

Hello, I understand your anguish. We quickly grew an account last year and now see BTC at nearly 50% of its ATH from two months ago. One of the reasons I decided to devote a lot more time to BabyPips, preparing a seriously detailed trading strategy and plan for Forex trading, was that I expected the crypto market to crash or become choppy around September, but it happened earlier. I am very pleased that this has occurred, and at one point I considered withdrawing all of our capital, but we did not need to do so, so we simply let it roll.

The only advice I can give you is based on whether you have any other options. I'm not sure if you've considered the concept of good debt versus bad debt (relates to using good debt to invest in long term income generating assets and trying to avoid the use of bad debt which is spending money on things whose value goes to nothing - like meals out, holidays, new clothes).

After carrying large amounts of good debt for over a decade, we are now deleveraging our real estate assets and will do so for the foreseeable future. I took advantage of the opportunity to reduce our bad debt at the same time, and we do not carry any credit card balances forward at any time, and we do not have any car loans.

All I can ask is whether those unexpected expenses are one-time or expected to occur again and again in the future. If they are one-time events, that is one of the main reasons why anyone invests at all - to have a buffer against unforeseen expenses and to avoid being forced into a course of action by circumstances beyond your control.

Consider the current value of your crypto assets as if you had just purchased them. Not at their mid-April value, but at their current price. Would you hesitate to sell them to cover an unexpected expense, or would you consider short-term debt that you could pay off in a reasonable amount of time (1 year to 3 years) and could afford the repayments? What would you do if you could see a month into the future and discover that the value of your cryptos has dropped another 20% on top of the 50% drop since mid-April? What would your decision be?

As difficult as it is to cut losses, you know it is human nature to hang on to losers for too long and sell winners too soon. That is the nature of our game in Forex.

If you are still unable to make a decision after this, please post again. And if you need all of the money, sell everything. If you only need half the money and can't decide which cryptos to sell, sell half of each type. To summarize:

Have you exhausted all other options for covering the unexpected expense, or is selling crypto assets your only option?
Do you require all of the funds, or can you sell some of them?
Take action, don't look back, and focus on your future plan, which should be reset to the new asset value, even if it's zero.

Best wishes We're sorry to hear the bad news.

 

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[AnimeSalt 21]

It's an intriguing question with a difficult answer. not knowing your circumstances or how the future of crypto currencies will pan out
Personally, I would never buy or hold them because they have no intrinsic value and the energy costs associated with mining bitcoin are exorbitant.
Try reading this inexpensive book to focus your mindset on financial management, as it did mine - I never expected to learn so much from it.
The Richest Man in Babylon is a 1926 book by George S. Clason that offers financial advice through a series of parables set in ancient Babylon 4,000 years ago. The book is still in print nearly a century after the parables were first published, and it is considered a classic of personal financial advice.

[BtsDoom 62]

I had a similar experience 30 years ago in Dier Ez Zor, which Isis briefly controlled. I asked my driver as we walked down the street why all the women in this backwater town wore large costume jewellery around their necks. He was taken aback and stated that it was not costume jewellery, but rather 22ct gold. These women were Bedouin, and they were in town for the annual camel trading, which took place just south of Deir Ez Zor. Those bedouin families believed in gold, and since Syria claims to have the world's oldest continuously inhabited city (Damascus), I reasoned that "us westerners could learn a thing or two from these bedouin types." So began a lifelong passion for gold collecting, which has served us well over the last 30 years. I first read Richest Man in Babylon about 25 years ago, and it has served as the foundation for our long-term investment plans. I agree - it's worth a read, especially for anyone at a crossroads in their lives.

[FlameSmith 62]

It's difficult to predict where cryptos will go and when all of these changes will occur. But, to be honest, I'm too far in to turn back now.: But, of course, I understand where you're coming from. Thank you for the book suggestion! 😃 Your description sounds intriguing, and given how old it is, I'm sure there's something to be learned from it. I'll try to obtain a copy.:blush:

[BtsDoom 62]

Hi,

I'm glad you were able to borrow money from your partner to get you through this difficult time. My partner (wife of 32 years) and I appear to be well attuned to each other. I'm not sure if our strategy would work for anyone else, but the important thing is that we agreed to make five-year plans. These were not investment plans; they were life plans, and we are now approaching the sixth (and possibly final) plan. We've had our ups and downs, but it's fair to say that there has only been one period in which our financial goals were not met, and that was the last one. We had outperformed our plans for the first four by such a wide margin that the fifth was our first serious plan for "stretch target."

Anyway, I could write for Britain about this, but here are some relative figures that we agreed on in the first plan and have never deviated from.

1 Your Principal Private Residence (PPR) is a long-term liability, not an asset. Maintain PPR borrowing at around 75% and use the ever-increasing fiat currency to invest in longer-term assets that should not depreciate in value.
2 Keep 10% of your assets in gold and silver (not ETFs, physical bullion). The actual figure began at 5% when we were young and now ranges between 10% and 20% as we get older.
3 Never spend more than 5% of your assets on cars. They are assets that depreciate completely. Prefer to pay cash, but if a bank loan is required, make sure the car is always worth more than the residual loan.
4 Budget for mandatory, discretionary, charitable causes, taxes, and savings / investment, in that order. This appears to be counter-intuitive. For five years, our discretionary spending consisted of vacations and gold accumulation, which we both approved of. slight smile:
5 Rather than investing in bonds or public stock (shares), consider investing in your own or other small businesses.

Allocations have varied greatly over the years, but they have served us well. It helped a lot that our gross income (salaried OR self-employed) has always been far greater than our required living costs, but if other people find this impossible, there are always options. For example, despite the fact that three family cars amount to less than 2.5 percent of wealth, I refuse to double my car spending. We only bought new cars for my wife twice, and being self-employed in the UK, the commuting mileage to and from client premises has paid for both my wife's and my car costs as expense deductibles before income or corporation tax over the years. I would never have leased her car if we hadn't had the benefit of this "cost offset."

I hope this was helpful. It took us 20 years to confirm that the plan was sound. Please be patient.

By the way, crypto began as 1% of our wealth; after six months, we agreed to increase it to 3% of our wealth, and at its peak, it was 12% of our wealth, with the remaining 9% being capital gain. So, after a 50% market drop, it is now 6 percent of wealth. That explains how we were able to weather the recent downturn. The trading component will not be activated until I complete a full backtest, but it will then support both crypto and gold/silver in terms of risk mitigation for our existing holdings. I guess you could say it took me more than 20 years (and approximately 28,000 hours of IT and management consulting) to realise that long-term investment and trading (short-term risk management) are two components of the same goal. To maximise wealth opportunities while maintaining a manageable risk profile.

[FlameSmith 62]

OMGosh!  As usual, you are extremely helpful. Huhu. I appreciate the response, and I'm also grateful that I was able to overcome the difficulties with the assistance of my partner.But, of course, I don't want to rely too heavily on him. 

Anyway, I'm curious, why do you believe the sixth plan is your final one? :

open mouth: Is it too difficult to complete?:open mouth: To be honest, I haven't really thought about my goals as "plans," which may be why I've been all over the place, attempting to accomplish everything at once.I'll definitely keep these figures in mind, but the third bullet may be a little too late for me Nonetheless, I'll try to use this in future decisions. Thank you very much.

[CherryZiver 40]

Will most likely sell half of it or something.

I like how we're thinking about BTC at $80,000 right now. Next week, it'll be down to $10,000.

[Chimpantzer 23]

When the money isn't worthless. Investing money should be done with spare cash. Get your life back on track before returning to investing.

[PopplioSoda 26]

This is a good idea. Cryptocurrencies aren't going away. Come back after you've gotten your finances in order. You'll most likely have saved yourself some mental anguish for the time being.