Stacking ’em Volume 23 (June 2022)

Another month mining fiat at the office, another pay check hitting the bank account, another bitcoin purchase added to the stack! June’s purchase came at a price of ~29520 €/BTC which means I got ~0.016 BTC added to the stack that stands at roughly 4.07 BTC today. Price keeps dropping, accumulation velocity keeps rising. Not gonna complain.

Brutal price action! Just when the dust seemed to be settling after the Luna cluster fuck, we got another one in the form of Celsius. I don’t know if we can blame the crashes 100% on these shitshows or 50% or some other portion but it seems obvious their large BTC stacks and the leveraging they’ve been doing is getting too risky compared to the promises they gave their customers. A scheme like that can work for a very long time if only a few people are warned and want to ‘cash out’. But when the revelation hits too many customers at the same time the scheme breaks down or at least has to do emergency measures / capitulations. If you’re a relatively new bitcoiner or a long term stacker, this kinda opportunity is exactly what you want.

You were not planning to spend your bitcoin anyway in the next few years, so do you want to stack at ATH prices all the time or do you want a -50% discount?

Your own emotions are your worst enemy in bitcoin. You always want to buy after the pump because you believe the pump will continue forever. You also might not actually buy when you get a dip because you want to wait for even deeper dip. Continuous (mindless) stacking is good for keeping your emotions at bay. You are not trying to time anything, so you don’t feel pissed if you miss a dip. I can tell you I ‘missed’ the covid dip (March 2020) meaning I didn’t buy at the absolute bottom. But I did buy all the way, once per month, during that time and also during the bear market (2018 – 2019) before that dip. Looking back, I don’t remember ‘missing the dip’, I remember getting some cheap corn at amazing prices. Few years from now, you and me are gonna look back and feel blessed we got the cheap corn somewhere sub 30k. Seize the day!

Somebody wanted a legend in my figures but I couldn’t make a nice one in Google sheets so you are gonna have to read me explain it through. The orange line is my BTC stack, steadily hitting new ATHs month after month. The green line is the corresponding fiat net worth, measured in euros. The dashed black line is the total money put in, around 30k euros atm. The chart is formed with datapoints from purchases which means this was the situation early this month when I hit the market buy. At the time of writing, I’m actually below 100k with the green line. First time below 100k, after I initially broke that level early 2021.

The bars represent every bitcoin purchase I’ve ever made, starting from October 2017, 57 in total. The best buys from 2018-2019 bear market still record over 800% gains on the money. Apart from three purchases, every one since the start of 2021 is currently negative. On average, I’ve made +250% gains on every single purchase. I’m not sure what the purpose of this chart is but it’s a nice visualisation of the stacking journey of 4+ years. I can imagine somebody who started stacking from the start of 2021 could be feeling really down at the moment, but I was feeling the exact same way during early 2019 which in hindsight proved to be the absolute best time for stacking and the best thing that happened to my stacking journey. Now’s the time to make them bars. Focus on being able to buy, not on buying the exact bottom.

The orange line is the performance of my bitcoin savings strategy. The blue line is the performance of a similar savings strategy but bitcoin replaced by S&P500. I made this chart because let’s say there’s an actual hyperinflation event – my bitcoin gains-% don’t tell me too much because the currency itself is worthless. I need to have a comparison with something normal that people are using for similar purposes. If you read the traditional financial independence / early retirement blogs, it’s S&P500 they’re using as their savings vehicle. Seems like I’ve found myself a superior savings vehicle. Even at the time of absolut market mayhem. The chart is gonna look amazing when the next bullphase gets to speed.

That’s all for now! Let’s see how cheap corn the Celsius bros are going to serve us. Eager to see if we get another shitshow next month! The market is very much uncertain but there’s also something that works like a clockwork – bitcoin blockchain and Erbie Stackchain.

-@RetireEarlyBTC

Affiliate links:

Stack at Swan: Swan Bitcoin

Bitcoin gear: Coinkite

Ps. Made my first podcast appearance at Books&Bitcoin, check it out here.

Stacking ’em Volume 22 (May 2022)

Grinding the fiat job for another month in order to stack them sats again. As per usual, I take 500€ off of my salary and market buy bitcoin with it. This time the price was ~ 37200 €/BTC which means I got ~ 0.013 BTC added to the stack that stands at ~4.06 today. Missed the mother of dips since I always buy at the beginning of the month =/ but it’s anyways a celebration for me as I hit another ATH – an all time high in sats that is! This is a recurring ATH and a fool proof way to keep winning month after month – free advice.

Boy, what a shitshow! Feeling for the poor souls who got greedy or shitcoiny and lost ‘it all’ or at least a major amount. This is why I many times say, also in this blog, “don’t trade”. This is why Matt Odell says “stay humble, stack sats”. There simply is no get rich quickly in bitcoin, but there most definitely is a get rekt quickly.

I’m no expert on the details of what happened but I remember when I first heard about this Terraluna thing not so long ago. Pretty soon they had bought a bitcoin reserve of ~ 1 billion dollars or something ridiculous like that. Comparable amounts to what MicroStrategy has. But MicroStategy bought their coins with money that they had accumulated through hard work during many many years, and with loans that are payable by their profit generating business, and stacked over almost a 2 year period. And Terraluna somehow bought theirs in the matter of weeks out of nowhere by simply creating more shitcoins to this world? There are no shortcuts in bitcoin and imo this is one grandiose example of that. If you want to have bitcoin – earn it. Work for it or work for fiat and buy with your earned fiat. Don’t try to ‘innovate’ roundabout ways to get free bitcoin. Bitcoin is the ultimate truth which among other things means you cannot get it without putting in the work. So stop trying to get rekt quickly.

Almost every time I share these posts, someone asks why don’t I put my bitcoin ‘into work’ and generate yield with my stack. Well, you and me both know that since bitcoin is limited in quantity, there cannot be an ‘actual’ yield in bitcoin (imagine 21 million bitcoin deposited on accounts earning compound interest). What you are doing is lending your bitcoin to someone who is lending it to someone else with a higher rate and either it is being used to short bitcoin or somebody somewhere generates shitcoins that hopefully still have value when you are trying to get your bitcoin out of the yield machine. I have no doubt that even the ‘legitimate’ businesses like BlockFi will someday burst in flames in a spectacular manner. The lunatics were promised a 20% interest for holding luna. You are getting promised an X% yield by losing control of your bitcoin. It’s not gonna end well.

The market continues crash to 30k as it has been doing since early 2021. I have no evidence or competence for analysing why that is, but a hunch says we are in a “Retail Rekt Loop”. As long as people are greedy enough to gamble with leverage longs, we are gonna see crashes that will liquidate the gamblers. But each crash seems like a good opportunity to jump into a leverage long position, so it repeats again and again. It will stop when enough retail is rekt and nobody is willing to gamble anymore. The loop is basically big boys accumulating on the expense of retail. When the gambling is done, accumulation is done and only then shall the rekt loop end.

Let’s take a look at the charts:

The orange line is my BTC stack, reaching a new ATH every month. The green line is the corresponding fiat net worth, measured in euros. The dashed black line is the cumulative amount of fiat put in (~30k atm). The green line is plotted with my purchase price this month (before dip), and at the time of writing it is ~115k€, so theres a pretty hefty dip missing from the chart, also in the future (especially if we go back up before next months purchase). The chart is made with monthly purchase data points and gives an overview, another dip missing worth notice is the May 2020 crash which actually took me ~ -15% below the dashed black line.

The bars represent every bitcoin purchase I’ve ever made, starting from October 2017, 56 in total. The bars from the past 16 months (the sideways market) are between +/- 30%. Someday they’ll look like the 2018 – 2020 bars look like atm, and I’ll be stacking in another sideways market but this time with a six figure price. Consistency is the key.

The orange line the performance of my bitcoin savings strategy. The blue line is the performance of the standard and poor strategy of putting your money into S&P500. I made this chart because I used to read a lot of the early retirement blogs, MMM etc. They all mostly buy S&P because its a fool proof way of getting yourself a 7% annual gain (long term average). I was interested to compare my strategy to theirs, as in other ways they are similar. We save money, buy each month the investment vehicle of choice, aim to grow our stack until retirement. I’m feeling like I’ve found some cheat codes.

That’s all for now! Hopefully you didn’t get burned by the crash. Hopefully you have some fiat to buy the dip, and hopefully you’ve perfected your hodl and dedication with the experience you get from these market crashes.

@RetireEarlyBTC

Affiliate links:

Buy Bitcoin here: Swan Bitcoin

Buy Bitcoin gear here: Coinkite

Stacking ’em Volume 21 (April 2022)

Another month passes by at the fiat mine, another salary hits the fiat bank account, another bitcoin purchase added to the stack! As per usual I hit a market buy with 500€ and this time I got a price of ~41930 €/BTC which gives me around 0.012 BTC and brings the total stack to ~4.04 BTC. Volume 21 today, and there’s the worlds biggest Bitcoin Conference in Miami right now. Coincidence?

Price is doing the same kinda sideways stuff that’s been going on for the past year, more or less. Every now and then it feels like we are ‘breaking out’ only to get a big dump / dip straight away. Seems like the world is catching up to Bitcoin far more slowly than I would have expected. Well, us long term stackers are grateful for the opportunity to keep stacking at ‘low’ prices. Feels funny to call 40k a low price but that’s how it feels. My nocoiner (precoiner) friends would probably disagree. For them bitcoin is always too expensive (not gonna buy, maybe if it was cheaper) or crashing (not gonna buy, the bubble has burst). No idea how long it’s gonna last, talking about the sideways market, but it’s bitcoin we are talking about so probably its gonna sleep long enough to bore everyone and wait for it to be declared tamed.

And then pump like hell.

Bitcoin has a way of messing up peoples trades, models & theories. If there’s one thing we can be sure of bitcoin doing it’s: the unexpected.

The orange line is my BTC stack, slightly over 4 full coins. The green line is the corresponding fiat net worth in euros, 170k€ atm. The dashed line is the amount of fiat put in, around 30k€ over 4.5 years. Interested to see if the bounce on my green line is gonna continue towards 200k and beyond. For anybody relatively new on their stacking journey: take a look at the green line for the first 2 years. First year, I have absolutely no gains to show of my continuous monthly stacking. The second year is starting to see some gains but I’m quickly dragged back to square one regarding gains. Then, all of a sudden, I’m being lifted to another level. Your gains are not gonna be linear. Patience.

The bars represent every bitcoin purchase I’ve ever made, once per month, starting from October 2017, 55 in total. The height represents the gains-% that the particular purchase gives me with the current price. For example, the highest bar (~1300%) is from February 2019 when I bought with a price of below 3k€. It’s a nice way to visualise the gains and understand that the most recent history is always kinda flat. You need months and months under your belt and at some point the earliest purchases are gonna weight a lot in your stack.

The orange line is the performance my bitcoin savings strategy has given me for the money put in. The blue line is the reference performance, the S&P500, which is used by most people for passive investing. Before Bitcoin came around, the S&P was probably the best fool proof strategy. But now it’s only a fools strategy and Bitcoin wins, hands down. For all the money I’ve chipped in to Bitcoin (including this months purchase) I currently have a ~470% return. If I would have chosen S&P as my vehicle my return would be only 44%. That’s a 10x, and it’s going to be a 100x.

That’s all for now! One quarter down, three to go. Let’s see if we can get a six figure bitcoin in 2022. While waiting, keep on stacking! See ya next month.

Mr. ERB

Affiliate links:

If you’re gonna buy bitcoin from somewhere let it be a great Bitcoin only exchange: Swan Bitcoin

Blockclock, backup seed plates, Coldcard, etc quality Bitcoin gear: Coinkite

Ps. I gave an interview recently and if you wanna know more about my background or how the blog started, you might find it interesting. Check it out here: Cryptofireside