Manbabies. If someone doesn't have any bills to pay then their how theories on when to buy and sell aren't relevant. Obviously it would be easy to HODL if you have no bills.
Don't know if I fall into this category or not. Back in 2008 I sold off most of what I owned because of the financial crash so I could continue to run my software business. I managed to get my bills under $800 / month. However this decision left me homeless (I was in Las Vegas, NV area at the time). In late 2009 I was forced into bankruptcy and because I was unsure how this would affect my business arrangements, it was around early 2010 when I first encountered bitcoin. I was too immersed in my own software projects at the time so I thought it was just another PayPal and didn't investigate further, but a few hundred dollars invested in bitcoin then would have set me up for life.
The situation taught me how to live far below my means and I continue to do this to this day even though it's no longer necessary for me to do. Bitcoin encourages a saving mentality, but because fiat feels like it evaporates in your hands, you want to spend it for something that holds value. Now I'm semi-retired because of a company pension I was vested into for over 20 years and have been using the dips to buy more crypto. I become eligible for social security in 2023 just about when the government is likely to say they have no money left.
I'm thinking longer term here. This technology isn't going away. I think we're seeing attempts at mass adoption. What happened late last fall and the current aftermath seems to be like what happened in 2014 - 2016. I have reason to believe that the next adoption attempt will be 2020 - 2021. If the technology still isn't ready to scale, then it will drop back like it's doing now, but probably at a much higher price (maybe 10x what it is now, just as we are 10x from what it was in 2013 - 2014. An 87% correction (about $2500 / bitcoin) as Tone Vays says wouldn't surprise me, but it won't stay down for very long.
My sense of time is not what it used to be. Seems like everything is going by so fast. Months pass like days.
Nah you don't fall into the man baby category. I know guys in their 30's who have their parents paying for everything. I know a guy who is 36 who admitted he has never bought toilet paper in his life and that was a guy with a Masters degree in Computer Engineering.
You have thought this all out very well and I feel like you have a very good grasp of what could likely happen and then what we could see with the next surge.
The Bitcoin halving in 2020 could be the next major catalyst to cause a mind blowing run. I hope we don't have to wait that long but we might have to.
Even with STEEM we experienced a 98% loss of value from the highs in mid 2016 to the lows in early 2017 and then it surged again. Sometimes stuff has to go so low in people's perception that they throw Vegas gambling type money at it that they are truly willing to just take a shot in the dark in a way.
The fact is we will 100% have another crypto surge and with each boom and bust it confirms its strength and longevity and becomes "less risky." I feel that there are certain cryptos that have sort of became reserve assets that have secured their place in history.
Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Monero ...... but then also EOS, Bitcoin Cash, Dash and a few other have likely secured their future as well.
I noticed you haven't listed Steem as secured. In addition to most of those above (except Monero and Dash), I have a little Bitshares too in case governments start shutting down exchanges out of panic.
STEEM is likely safe for the long run and technology wise this really is a top 5 - 10 crypto but you have to have a wide and fair distribution for a crypto to succeed and STEEM didn't have that. It has weighed heavy on it and continues to be an ongoing issue.
EOS had a more fair distribution but there are still governance questions and how that will all work out in the end.
I have some BitShares as well but I worry that a decentralized exchange will be built on EOS very soon and will render BitShares "OLD"
We should be ok with STEEM as long as our timing is decent. Easier said than done but realize that the initial founders and early ninja miners got such an extreme amount of STEEM that they can always dump hard on us and also people start to depend on STEEM to earn so as payouts go down and they start depending on it then they can be forced to dump even more if they started to depend on it for bills. It can make the down periods that much more steep.