If I had held my bitcoins I could be retired by now. BUT here's the thing I think people need to understand. I couldn't handle the mental strain of seeing my "investments" devalue so much at times, and frankly after that year of discovering I have a mental disability at the age of 28, I can safely say I don't have any regrets about spending my Bitcoin at the times I chose to. It always made my life better, and that's really the way you have to look at it.
If you can hold through thick and thin, awesome, good for you, but understand that it could easily go back to sub 10k, for a year or more, before it reaches 40k again. I've invested a little bit over time, for a long time, and always got to a point where I sold off bitcoin for tangible experiences I otherwise wouldn't be able to afford. A trip to Europe, an education in the wine industry as a sommelier, a hot air balloon ride in Napa and a ring for my now wife, a telescope, a camera, a wine collection...
You need to personally ask yourself if what you are doing with your "gains" matters to you and what your true goals are. If you're true goal is to sit on bitcoin for 20+ years, great. Buy it up, but not because aliens have all the Gold, or because stock to flow says so, or because "1m coin is inevitable". Do it because you trust Bitcoin. Do it because every single thing your government is doing, regardless of where you live with very few exceptions is building up a huge debt. Do it because China has a much higher demand for Gold than any other country out there right now, and might be the new Gold standard. Do it because $5 here or there can pan out to $100 or $1000 down the road and your wages probably aren't going up much year over year compared to inflation.
But... Don't do it with the shortsighted belief of dollars without understanding you could easily see your money dwindle to a fraction of what it was. Don't be a, "woulda coulda shoulda" and tell yourself you could have retired if you were a true HODLer. If you have bitcoin, great! You're still in an incredible minority, and you will be rewarded if Bitcoin pans out Successfully over the next couple decades. Don't sweat it, and only invest what you would be comfortable losing to the wind, a theft, or any other negative event you associate with losing money. Even last year, I cashed out at 11k because I really, really wanted a telescope to help my depression and coping with the pandemic back in May 2020. Do I regret that I can see that amount of bitcoin today would be worth about $20,000? Absolutely not. Without that telescope, I wouldn't have had the family gather of everyone telling me they were concerned with my impulse purchases, the psychologist and psychiatrist meetings, and the medications I take everyday that make my life livable. If I had to choose between 100k and myself right now, I'd still choose myself.
Some of you may not know you have a mental problem that shows itself in the feelings you may feel or the actions you may take that are created by your sudden surplus, loss, or fantasies about money. All I'm saying is, if you want to hold Bitcoin, I suggest buying little bits at a time, especially if you are a bad budgeter. I also suggest storing it offline and keeping a copy of a qr code on paper with your recieval address so that you don't have to keep an app on your phone to look at your balance all the time. I suggest not following /r/ bitcoin. I suggest avoiding giving yourself mental bitcoin related "food"that could throw your well intentioned plans for yourself out the window or under the bus.
If you wanna be a part of Bitcoin, cool. But don't sit there watching it go up and down unless that's your plan instead of sitting on it for years to come. Timing a market like Bitcoin is ridiculous, and it will be years before we see the numbers we want to see. If it's anything less than that, there will probably be more world events that will negatively impact us, like Covid 19, that will contribute to "gains". Just remember that until a new money standard is established, these conversions to dollars will mean nothing as long as that debt is unpaid.
If cashing out changes your life for the better, do it! If it gets you to where you can work part time to retirement instead of full time, do it! While this isn't the "immediate retirement" route that many think of, this is still an extremely good position that you could put yourself in and be perfectly happy knowing you made out with such a great benefit to your life.
At the end of the day, I can't tell anyone what to do, even my loved ones and even myself without medication, but I hope you consider what I said here. Bitcoin has helped me a lot over the years, and without it I don't know where I'd be. I can tell you it's okay to cash out if you know it's going to help you, and you need help. But don't put yourself in a financial situation, and if you do and find ourself continuously in that feedback loop because of crypto, stocks, or anything else... Please go find professional mental help. I did, with no insurance, no savings, no understanding of what I was doing, and I'm not experiencing those situations anymore. I was not demeaned, I was not stigmatized, I was not put down, and I came out the other side a better person.
Tl;dr :
If you want to hold, hold, if you want to cash out, cash out, and if you want to be free, be free.. Cause there's a million things to be.
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