Now that the holidays are over, I feel like I have been spending an absurd amount of time at work. It's actually about the same amount of time I always spend here, but it just feels like a lot more. I got a whole four days off during the Christmas holiday this past year, so if you got more than that, consider yourself lucky! Of course folks in the retail sector probably got even less time off. You are true heroes!
I took this shot walking into my office the other morning when the moon was nearly full. There seemed to be a hole in the clouds that was made just for it to shine through. If you get a chance to step outside this morning, there is a great alignment of Mars, Castor, and Pollux. I thought it was SkyLink satellites at first. Pretty cool stuff.
This is Friday though, and on Friday I generally talk about finance...
It is time again for another Finance Friday/Friday Finance. This is a series I started where I talk about random bits of financial stuff that I have seen, gathered, or experienced during the week. I hope as a reader you find it informational, entertaining, or both. I also hope it can generate some good discussion and edify the community.
It's a nice change to come into work this morning and see that BTC has stayed above $100K versus sliding back down as is usually the case. As I said above though, it's Friday, so who knows what is going to happen over the weekend. I'd love to see some sustained days over $100K for a while. Weeks even wouldn't disappoint me at all. I think we can all agree on that. Unless you are still trying to stack right now.
I'm pretty happy with where my traditional investments ended the year in 2024. Even without the "trump pump", they were going to end in a pretty good spot. Between capital gains and dividends, I think my portfolio pulled in about 5% of its total value. That's on top of my monthly contributions and the overall increase in value of the fund due to the markets.
I'd love to see that number be a little higher, but I think with compounding eventually I will get there. I've been investing long enough now that the snowball should be getting relatively big.
My on chain tokens are doing pretty well along with the price of HIVE. We have been holding this $.50 range for quite a bit now. I'd love to hope this is the new bottom, but somehow I don't feel that is the case. Call me a skeptic, call me a realist. Whatever...
I'm just about to three quarters of a million ZING tokens for the 
I'm also looking at increasing a few of my other positions. Most specifically with the 
I've got some open orders that I hope eventually push through.
Like a lot of you I expect, I have been running various scenarios through my head concerning this bull cycle. I keep thinking back to the last one and all the big (and small) things I did that were so so wrong. I wish with all my heart I could take some of my past moves back, but honestly, I can't say they would have put me in any better of a position than I am now.
All we can do is move forward.
I'm a pretty simple guy, I don't need a lambo from this bull run, but a small passive income would be nice. I remember last run when I was making hundreds if not thousands of dollars per day and like a fool I pumped it into other stuff that ended up being worthless. Classic degen.
This time I am going to fully embrace stable coins. I need to do a better job of utilizing them. My middle of the road scenario is this: Say I have a token that via staking I earn about 1m of them per day. I know that seems like a lot, but it's a really low cap token. Then let's say that token gets up to $.002 per token. Doesn't seem too unreasonable does it?
That's $200 USD per day that I would be earning. Move that money into a stable each day and wait for the bear market to come. Of course you can adjust those numbers as you see fit. $.02 would be even better, but beggars can't be choosers right?
As much as I hate how much more expensive the prices are on Travala compared to Web 2.0 travel sites. I've started to realize that there are intrinsic benefits to using Travala that might outweigh the additional cost. Think about it for a second. If I move my gains to fiat to pay for a trip, I will absolutely have to pay the 30% tax to the IRS.
However, if I leave it as crypto, I can move it into a stable coin or AVA, put it into the platform and even if I am paying 10% to 20% more for that flight or hotel room, I am still coming out ahead. Of course, depending on where you live, there are other rules for that crypto that you might have to adhere to.
This isn't financial advice. I'm not going to tell you what to report and what not to, it's just food for thought.
I'll be the first to admit I am more of a silver collector at the moment than a silver stacker. I'd like to change that though and if I were to start taking some regular gains from crypto, I'd like to think I would move some of them into BitPay and pick up some of these bad boys.
Nothing crazy, but something with a bit more heft than the 1oz bars I currently have. It doesn't have to have a fancy design on it or anything, just something I can stack in a decent quantity to hold the value of my gains. Something that I can quickly flip for cash if I need to without feeling any remorse or hesitating.
That's the goal anyway.
All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or 
