Tonight, I ventured out on a limb and took my wife through various incoming (potential) revenue streams I have, and after listening for a bit, she asked when would be the time to sell - as she thinks that paying off the house would be a good enough outcome from the last almost five years of work. She is right and wrong in this, depending on how one looks at it.
If for example I was able to pay off our house now, it would be quite an incredible accomplishment, considering we bought it less than two years ago. Being mortgage-free would be awesome! However, if to do so I had to sell all of my tokens, it would mean I would not only have nothing available for the future, but the "passive" (it seems a full time job to manage crypto) income would also stop.
Even mortgage-free, there are still a lot of expenses that roll in, which means we still need incoming funds to pay costs of living. This means that we would still need to work and likely, til retirement age, something that is far from guaranteed as a possible, considering the world that is quickly coming and us both having 25+ years left in our working life - more if you think that retirement age is continually increasing, due to the constant addition of debt, borrowing from the future.
Also, being debt-free today, but having no crypto, isn't only the loss of those streams, but even if I started buying back in with the equivalent amount of the mortgage saved into crypto, the most I could have before the next bullrun (assuming 2025, is perhaps 10% of what I hold now in value, but it would be far less, as the value of tokens keep increasing, meaning the value of fiat today, is going to by less and less in the future.
This will mean that while debt-free, I'd still have to work and my savings would still be relatively insignificant to carry me through into retirement anyway. Sure, I would have potentially 25 years of no mortgage to save, but even assuming I work all of that time, it still wouldn't be enough to retire on.
However....
If the markets climbed for the next six months and the stock to flow model on Bitcoin was correct for the next few years (BTC pulls everything still), that "pay off the mortgage" turns into, pay off the mortgage and buy 5 rental apartments using something like 30% of what I hold, leaving 70% still available for the future, where perhaps the magical million dollar Bitcoin becomes a reality.
but, I do understand my wife's concerns and I do get that she is scared that it will all go south into a bear market or worse. But even under those conditions, is it better to have several incoming revenue streams, even if they are a tenth of what they are now and have crypto for the future, or have the house paid off now and risk having to work the rest of lives to pay our bills?
I know that for her, the last five years of me working on this has been somewhat hard too and probably feels like a very long time, but I don't consider it a long time at all, if those "wildest dreams" times arrive and what was hard and poorly rewarded work, becomes the most lucrative hours ever spent. So lucrative, that both she and I would be able to pick and choose exactly what we want to do in life, as we won't be obligated to do anything for money, as we will not only be debt-free, we will also have continual revenue streams incoming, whether it be through staking, curating, renting, or several other options available, and more to come.
For me to sell now for example, would bring a lot of relief in the short-term, but I would be torn apart in the long-term if what I expect could happen, happens - and instead of financial freedom, I will just be on a slightly higher rung of the same ladder I am currently on - day to day though, my life doesn't change much. Giving up life-changing potential for the security of a higher standard status quo, would crush me.
I don't want to unlock the door, I don't want to open a vault. Ideally, I want to be able to live solely off the cream, never dipping into the capital, but I don't suspect that will be the case, so I will more than likely have to use some at some point. How much, is going to depend on many aspects of the crypto industry, and the global economy as a whole.
It isn't easy to decide when to sell, but it is very easy to decide when to buy. It is just that too often, when that time arrives, there is nothing to buy with. In someway, it is a catch-22 situation, but I'd rather be caught in that trap holding crypto, than without.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
