Post/stackingem

Stacking ’em Volume 30 (February 2023)

Posted on by Bitster Money Mustache

First post of 2023! Sorry for everyone waiting patiently for the January post that never came. Too busy / lazy. I have similarly missed at least once before, and it feels like shit tbh to let you down. Trying to not make this mistake again. But, the most important thing is – one *never* forgets to stack. Jan price for me was around 16700€ / BTC and February ~23300 € / BTC. The usual 500€ per month stacking budget brings me to a total of ~4.28 BTC today. I vividly remember breaking that 4 full coins not that long ago, and now its getting closer to 4.5 coins. Slowly but surely is the way to get your stack.

Finally, the bottom is in? After more than one year of non stop crashing. Feels like the ‘crises’ can’t get much worse after war, rate hikes, lending scams and cryptoscams with FTX as the icing. This is about as low as the bitcoin price can crash atm, you would guess. Thought, we are still relative close to the bottom so the stacking season is as good as it will ever be. I have gladly stacked the whole way down, gladly stacking the current price level, and will gladly stack all the way to the new ATH and beyond. It’s one more year before the next halving so if you are someone only recently getting into the stacking business, be assured – you’re not late, but also – don’t wait for a better opportunity. Seize the day. Let’s take a look at the charts:

The orange line is the ever increasing bitcoin stack hitting new all time highs month in, month out. The green line is the corresponding fiat value, possibly having found its bottom, on its way above 100k again. The black dashed line is the total amount of fiat put in, around 35k euros at the moment, over more than 5 years. The average price per coins has been ~8200€ so far.

The bars represent every bitcoin purchase I’ve ever made, once per month starting from October 2017, 65 in total. The best buys from 2018 – 2019 bear market record 600%+ gains atm while the worst from the past two years are giving me nearly -60% losses. Imagine if you would have started stacking only at the beginning of 2021 (I’m sure some of you are this) and all you’ve got to show is the last 2 years of this chart. Painful journey, but has to be made. Bitcoin will test you, one way or another. Worth it in the end.

Here I’m comparing the bitcoin savings strategy to the standard savings strategy of putting it all into S&P500. If there was a guy saving similar amounts of money monthly and buying S&P while I’m buying bitcoin, his performance for the money would be the blue line whereas my performance is the orange line. The S&P strategy would have given less than 30% for the money put in whereas bitcoin strategy has given me nearly 200% even after all of the recent crashing and burning. Basically no competition here, bitcoin is the ultimate tool for savings.

Many of you have asked for my google sheets template for the charts above. I’ve given it to some of you already but next month I’m gonna post it here with some instructions how to use it for your own charts. Stay tuned. And keep on stacking them sats!

–@BRetirementPlan

_____________________

Affiliate links:

Stack and withdraw to self custody at Swan
Buy bitcoin gear at COINKITE

Post/stackingem

Stacking ’em Volume 29 (December 2022)

Posted on by Bitster Money Mustache

Last post of the year, last stacking of the year, lowest price for stacking this year! As per usual, I ‘squandered’ 500€ from my monthly budget (paycheck) and market bought Bitcoin with it. The price this time was around 16560 € / BTC which translates into ~0.03 BTC added to the stack that stands at approximately 4.22 BTC today.

What a year it has been! Thought I’d seen it all having lived through the 2018 – 2019 bear market. Tbh, pricewise it has been feeling a lot like it, but back then there was none of this big companies scamming & going under. Also, the geopolitical environment has been more or less stable during Bitcoin’s first 10 year. Now we have all the storms going on simultaneously (paper bitcoin, war, inflation, recession), giving Bitcoin a real test for the first time, a rite of passage. Some might say the ‘cycles’ are broken and I kinda agree but also the cycles might not have been broken if everything else in the world would have been the same as before. In a way, ‘the cycles’ might have contributed to Bitcoin holding on relatively well in this turmoil of an environment and it could have been much worse if we didn’t have the cycle enforcing bitcoin scarcity / adoption equation.

The near future is as uncertain as it ever could be, but in the long term the war will end, the recession will come and go, the halvings will happen on schedule & bitcoin adoption will increase. There simply is no potential future in my mind where bitcoin doesn’t succeed, and no potential future where you wouldn’t feel sorry for not stacking more while you could. So that’s what I will be focusing on during the next year and the year after that.

Stacking sats as much as possible!

The orange line is my ever growing bitcoin stack, starting from zero pre October 2017 and increasing every month ever since. The green line is the corresponding eurozone fiat value, my net worth so to say. The dashed black line is the total amount of fiat spent, currently ~34000 €. The average price for bitcoin during my 5 year stacking period has been ~8000€ / BTC and I’m up slightly more than 100% for the money put in. Not bad, considering we are in the depths of one of the worst bear markets in Bitcoin’s history. After this has been suffered through (stacked through) the rise will be glorious.

The bars represent every bitcoin purchase I’ve ever made, starting from October 2017, 63 in total. It paints a gloomy story of my stacking during the last 24 months. All of them are basically at a loss, meaning it would have been ‘better’ to stack them euros on my bank account instead. But, as we know, you cannot time the bitcoin market so if you’d try to be clever like that you would only miss the best opportunities and end up buying at 50k (for example) instead of the current below 20k prices. So, I’ll happily take this 24+ month stacking season and be down for a while in order to be up greatly eventually. On my best buy, I’m up 460% and on the worst, down -70%.

The orange line is the performance of my bitcoin savings strategy. The blue line is the ‘reference strategy’ of putting similar amounts on similar times into S&P500 instead. Obviously, we get more volatility in the bitcoin savings strategy but whereas the performance curve (orange line) went below S&P strategy during the previous bear market (2018-2019) the bitcoin strategy is miles ahead (107% vs. 26%) during the current bitcoin bear market. My conclusion is that the upward volatility greatly ‘surpasses’ the downward volatility and there really is no rational excuse to not use bitcoin as your savings vehicle. The only valid reason would be you are not handling the bitcoin swings mentally. This actually is true for many people but this is also why you shouldn’t sit in front of the trading screen and wait for quick riches. Instead, you make a multiyear stacking plan and brainlessly buy every month, regardless of the price.

Thanks for reading! 2022 out! I hope you have more bitcoin now than you did in 2021. Let’s keep on going and stack another year!

@BRetirementPlan

___________________________________________

Affiliate links:

Buy Bitcoin & withdraw to self custody at Swan

Buy hardwarewallets, seed plates etc. at Coinkite

Post/stackingem

Stacking ’em Volume 28 (November 2022)

Posted on by Bitster Money Mustache

Another month goes by grinding at the fiat mine, another salary hits the bank account, another Bitcoin purchase adding sats to the stack! The November price was ~20900 €/BTC for me which means I got roughly 0.024 BTC added to the stack that stands at ~4.20 BTC today. I vividly remember hitting the 4 full coins almost one year ago near the top, thinking I will never be able to get 5 full coins (because we would surely go to the six figure price soon). Even the 4.5 mark felt unachievable. Today, I feel confident in my possibilities – always a silver lining in Bitcoin price action!

Good god. What. A. Shit. Show! I really thought the Luna, Celsius, 3 Arrows etc. collapse was as bad as its gonna get. Though I did say back in May I expect even BlockFi to eventually burst in flames, I did *not* expect it to happen anytime soon. My condolences to anyone affected. FTX is something I’ve not even realised happening. Few times I saw the hairguy on a news clip and thought this is some fiatbro I don’t need to know about. Came as a total surprise to learn they were the 2nd largest exchange in the world. It means many people are affected, probably some of you readers too. It sucks really bad and I feel sorry for you. But you can’t say you haven’t heard people saying “don’t leave your coins on an exchange”. You just thought it’s not urgent or not affecting your exchange of choice. In this case, turns out you didn’t even have the coins on exchange. You just sent money to them and they updated your screen. So, ‘self-custody’ is more than holding your bitcoin yourself. It is:

  • making sure you actually have the bitcoin
  • making sure your exchange actually had the bitcoin
  • making sure there actually is only ever going to be 21 million bitcoin
  • making sure when you need to move your bitcoin you don’t need to ask for permission.

Some people have wrote about the hairguy that he was “one of the most intelligent people they have met”. I have heard him talk only a few times on some podcast clips but to me he sounds like a retard who cannot form a thought properly. He also looks sick and visibly shakes. Literally zero reason to hold this guy on a pedestal. Complete fiat clown world shit. Possibly made up to make you send your bitcoin to him. Seems to have worked.

Anyway, if this scam didn’t blow up we would have a ‘regulated’, trusted, ESG compliant, mainstream best buddy selling you bitcoin that doesn’t exist & funnelling taxpayer money to politicians. So, I’m very glad they got exposed. Sorry that you lost your money. Glad that the scammers got exposed. Always a silver lining I guess..

The orange line is my BTC stack, reaching a new ATH every month, rising with a steeper curve recently. The green line is the corresponding stack value in eurozone fiat, crashing hard for the past 12 months. The black dotted line is the total amount of fiat spent, mostly 500€ per month, few exceptions that have been mentioned on the blog (bonus etc.). The chart is made with purchase prices so the situation right now is a little more dire (-20% or so). Let’s see how low its gonna dip. My time horizon is so that in the best case I think I could reach the target (1 million) around 2025 (year from the next halvening). So, the current dip is purely unemotional stacking season for me. I have already learned that the road will be rocky. I have experienced similar crashes before. I was not going to touch the stack anyway anytime soon. Bring it on!

The bars represent every bitcoin purchase I’ve ever made, starting from October 2017, 62 in total. The best buys were made during the 2018-2019 bear market that give me around +600% return for the money still. Nearly all of the purchases made during the last 2 years are at a loss today with the worst buys around -60% for the money. In hindsight you could say I should have waited instead of stacking. But with that kinda mindset I would have surely missed the stacking completely in 2018-2019. With Bitcoin you don’t try to be clever.

If you do, Bitcoin will humble you.

The best way through a long bear market is to stack consistently and not even dream about trading ‘the bottom’. This way you can actually forget about the market and keep you sleep rhythm / mental health. The bear market will be over before you know it because you are not constantly obsessed about it. Give yourself long-term target, how much bitcoin you’d like to have in 2 years or 5 years? If you’re not gonna sell for many many years, why would you care about the short term price action? Focus on mining that (eventually) worthless fiat, and being able to stack through this amazing stacking season that might not repeat during your lifetime.

The orange line is the performance of my bitcoin savings strategy. The blue line is the ‘reference strategy’ of putting similar amounts into S&P every month. Here I’m basically comparing how much better bitcoin is as a savings vehicle when compared with S&P. There are many people who are using S&P index funds as their savings account. This is the norm. Bitcoin will be the new norm. My bitcoin strategy has given me ~160% gains for the total amount of money put in. Corresponding S&P strategy would have given a measly 20% gains for the money. Therefore, the bitcoin savings strategy is approximately 10x better than the S&P strategy, even at the bottom of a brutal bear market. Somebody tweeted recently that if you bought bitcoin in December 2017 you’d be down -20%, whereas if you bought S&P instead you’d be up +50%. True, and impressive numbers for the S&P but if you bought every month since December 2017 instead of a lump sum, the numbers change completely as you can see above.

That’s all for now! I wish you happy stacking and great strength for ye hodlin’ hands. Take care.

–@BRetirementPlan

————————————

Affiliate links:

Hardware wallets, seed plates, Blockclock etc: COINKITE

Stack and withdraw to selfcustody: Swan Bitcoin