I sold my Bitcoin even though it crushed all my other investments in terms of returns.
I bought 60 shares of the BTCC ETF in May 2021 when it was down for approximately 500$. My logic at the time was that crypto was the future. I decided to invest 500$ because it was an amount that I was ready to lose without significantly affecting my financial future. If Bitcoin went to the moon, I wanted to be part of the journey. I saw this opportunity as an asymmetric bet that Nassim Taleb talks about. Many smart people were bullish on crypto. My investment thesis was to hold it until retirement or let it go to zero.
Even though I bought Bitcoin after it fell by approximately 50%, it still managed to be down another 50% after 2 years. This forced me to reevaluate my initial investment. Data-driven finance communicators like Alex Gavrila and Ben Felix showed skepticism about the crypto hype. I still believe that crypto is there to stay, but I started to doubt whether Bitcoin was fundamental to the crypto project.
Although it didn’t keep me up at night, I realized I allocated mental real estate to care about crypto. This faint mental noise was a distraction from the things that truly matter. It was mental energy not dedicated to my career or relationships. Hence, I decided to sell about two-thirds of my ETF shares to make my money back. As a result, I get to be invested in Bitcoin and benefit if it goes to the moon while playing with house money. I may eventually sell the rest of the shares if I notice that the mental noise is still present.
Update
I sold the rest of the Bitcoin on August 8th, 2024. I noticed that the mental noise was still present. The bitcoin was a distraction to my buy-and-hold low-cost diversified ETFs strategy.
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