1 - not sure I understand the wording of the question, but I think you’re asking if some people hold all of their money in bitcoin except for the cash they need to spend. There are people that do this (there are even tech companies whose entire balance sheets are in bitcoin) - they usually have enough bitcoin to survive if the price drops under $10k. Not recommended for most. Makes sense for most people to continue using fiat for life things since its more stable at the moment, and stack bitcoin in the meantime.
2 - definitely not going to tell you to stop funding your 401k (especially if you’re getting an employer match), but I’d try to do both. It’s really up to you and depends on your situation. The most conservative thing to do is think of it as currency diversification. No one knows of bitcoin is going to be gradually introduced into the world, or if there will be some doomsday black swan event. I THINK it’s safe to say if you a 401k and stack even a small amount of bitcoin weekly, you’ll be just fine.
3a - yes, take your coins out of an exchange! Hold your own wallet, and make sure you’re familiar with the best/most secure/(ESPECIALLY) most fool proof way to do this. Unchained.com has a bunch of great resources for this (single-sig vs multisig, plus easy guides for setting up multisig, which is what they recommend). The concept of self-custody is one of the main points of bitcoin, and countless people have lost access to bitcoin held in exchanges.
3b - Lightning nodes are new to me, but umbrel.com will get you everything you need to set up a bitcoin node (and/or a lightning node). When it comes to mining or running a node, contributing to the security and decentralization of the network is your main incentive. If that goes over your head, that’s ok, I’d just spend some more time learning about what that means and how to do that before getting into it. You’re not going to profit at all from running a bitcoin node, very little at the moment from mining, and idk what it is for running a lightning node.
1 - not sure I understand the wording of the question, but I think you’re asking if some people hold all of their money in bitcoin except for the cash they need to spend. There are people that do this (there are even tech companies whose entire balance sheets are in bitcoin) - they usually have enough bitcoin to survive if the price drops under $10k. Not recommended for most. Makes sense for most people to continue using fiat for life things since its more stable at the moment, and stack bitcoin in the meantime.
2 - definitely not going to tell you to stop funding your 401k (especially if you’re getting an employer match), but I’d try to do both. It’s really up to you and depends on your situation. The most conservative thing to do is think of it as currency diversification. No one knows of bitcoin is going to be gradually introduced into the world, or if there will be some doomsday black swan event. I THINK it’s safe to say if you a 401k and stack even a small amount of bitcoin weekly, you’ll be just fine.
3a - yes, take your coins out of an exchange! Hold your own wallet, and make sure you’re familiar with the best/most secure/(ESPECIALLY) most fool proof way to do this. Unchained.com has a bunch of great resources for this (single-sig vs multisig, plus easy guides for setting up multisig, which is what they recommend). The concept of self-custody is one of the main points of bitcoin, and countless people have lost access to bitcoin held in exchanges.
3b - Lightning nodes are new to me, but umbrel.com will get you everything you need to set up a bitcoin node (and/or a lightning node). When it comes to mining or running a node, contributing to the security and decentralization of the network is your main incentive. If that goes over your head, that’s ok, I’d just spend some more time learning about what that means and how to do that before getting into it. You’re not going to profit at all from running a bitcoin node, very little at the moment from mining, and idk what it is for running a lightning node.