I talked to 21 whole coiners for advice about accumulating 1 full BTC ...
Here are 21 lessons i leared:
1. Self custody
Always. Send your BTC to cold storage. Don't hesitate because of high network fees when mempool activity is high. Rather pay 10% or more to secure your coins than risk loosing 100% of a cosiderable amount.
2. Back up well
Restore a wallet at least once. Make sure you know how to get back your coins in a worst case scenario. (Also make sure your heirs are able to do it when time comes.)
3. Never try to time the market
DCA. Set it and forget it. Monthly, weekly, by-weekly or daily doesn't matter. Choose what best suits you. Do this for the majority of your BTC allocation. You can not time the bottom. Period. (But you can have a little pile of FIAT to buy dips when they occur.)
4. You can not time the top either
Never sell the majority of your Stack. Take a little profit if things go parabolic to reward yourself but always keep your main stack intact. It can be hard to get it back. And it will only go up with time. HODL and understand what you own.
5. Keep emotions out
Greed and fear are the main factors for people to get wrecked. Slow steady purchases, even tiny ones, all go to building a stack.
6. Never use leverage
Just don't. No, not even if BTC is below 10k. Make sure every sat you own truely belongs to you.
7. Every sat counts
Even if it's small amounts, just keep dca-ing and stacking sats. Little pieces add up. 0.001 BTC = $25 at the time of this writing. Do this 100 times and you have a tenth of a BTC.
If you have very little FIAT, stack free sats. You can:
- use faucets (like Heads or Tails Game)
- do tasks (like microlancer.io)
- play games (like Bitcoin Miner)
- shop with services like https://www.lolli.com/ or foldapp.com
- listen to podcasts (with https://www.fountain.fm/)
- or be active and provide value in communities like nostr or stacker.news
Remember: Faucets used to give hundreds of Bitcoin per day. Now it's 5-250 sats 10 years later. In 10 years it may be 1-5 sats.
8. Don't go all in
Keep FIAT to survive hard times without being forced to sell BTC. (for example 6 months of monthly spending)
9. Enjoy life while stacking
There is only one thing that is more precious than Bitcoin. It is lifetime. Stack sats, but also stack moments. Be present and enjoy life. Every day. No amount of BTC can ever buy back lifetime. Remind yourself of this often.
10. Don't forget yourself
Always have a little fun money to maintain hobbys, traveling and to treat yourself. Otherwise you might burn out quickly.
11. Involve your significant other
Make sure he/she knows the reason why you do what you do. Otherwise you risk burnig out him/her too.
12. Automate and relax
When you check you portfolio ten times a day or more think of automating things. Don't trade lifetime and serenity for small gains.
13. Don't do shitcoins
Most altcoins never reach their ATH again. BTC and BTC only.
14. Stay humble
Never get lured by offers that promise yield in exchange for holding your BTC. FTX was a recent example of how that can end.
15. You lost your keys in a boating accident
Never share how much Bitcoin you own. Better yet, don't share that you own any at all (exception: rule #11). The less is known about you having BTC, the less risk. Also consider buying non KYC. For example with robosats.
16. Don't rush. Be patient
It is a marathon, not a sprint. Time is on your side. You already own Bitcoin. You won. It isn't a race like with FIAT where you have to fight inflation. You preserve wealth.
17. Increase your FIAT earnings
Learn profitable skills to increase your buying power and generally grow as a person. Even if you loose all your wealth, nobody can take away your skills to accumulate it again.
18. Don't compare
Every stack of BTC is better than no stack of BTC. And even if you are a whale: there will always be a bigger fish somewhere in the sea ...
19. You don't need 1 full BTC
This was huge for me! The urge to have one full BTC is very FIAT minded thinking. Goals are cool but:
21 million BTC / 8 billion humans in the world =0,00262500 BTC
And not even that is possible because of the 1,1 m BTC wallet of Satoshi Nakamoto and lost coins. You can find out the exact amount every individual on earth could possibly own at satoshisperperson.com.
Not everyone needs a whole coin. About 225.000 sats = your little block of Bitcoin. ... That's roughly $55 at the time of this writing. Got that? Congratulations! 99% of people are still on zero. Safe your share and then slowly add more every pay check.
20. Change perspective
You can change settings in your wallet to display value in sats rather than BTC. This liberates from the feeling of shortage and the urge to fill that full BTC. It opens up the feeling of gratitude and abundance.
21. Always learn
Keep educating yourself about Bitcoin. The rabbit hole is deep ...
Thank you!
Thank you wonderfull people who helped me gather those tips. I chose conciously to not give personell credit in this post because of rule #15 =)
Check out Nostr
Huge shout out to the Nostr protocoll and all the devs involved. Without an anonymous network like this it would have been extremely hard if not impossible to gather that much information from real whole coiners in that short amount of time. If you haven't tried Nostr yet, consider giving it a try. It's an extremely positive community where value flows like Bitcoin in the early days.
What have i missed?
Do you agree with these tips? Did i miss any? Please let me know and help refine this set of rules so we can breed more an more whole coiners over time ... or let's rather call it 'satoshi millionaires' (see rule #19 ;-)
P.S. Feel free to tip me some sats or share this post if you find it helpful. Working on my own little stack too ;-)