re: Official CryptoTalk Thread

Speaking of BITX... just missed a massive haul.. BTC went 101.9 to 106.1 in a little over an hour

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I am doing the same now, except gains go to FBTC. Although there has been days when one can get rich quick with BITX, I've had to learn that cutting losses and winning some small gains per day is okay as well.

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It's perfectly fine to use any of the Bitcoin Spot ETFs, except GBTC in my opinion.

BITO looks terrible in comparison if you just look at price charts of IBIT, FBTC, etc. However, the great majority of BITO's gains are via dividends (which are actually just distributions and not really dividends). When you add BITO's dividends and reinvest them, it slightly out earned the SPOT ETFs in 2024. I accumulate BITO in retirement accounts (Roths, Traditional IRAs and HSA) so the gains grow without any current year tax consequences. I would never accumulate BITO in a Taxable Brokerage account as you have to pay taxes on ordinary dividends in the tax year you earned them. I would use FBTC instead, although any Spot ETF would be fine except GBTC which still has greedy fees above and beyond the other ETFs.

One other thing about BITO. In Fidelty I have our accounts set up to loan shares. It's fully protected and I can sell shares at any time even though virtually 100% of our BITO shares are always on loan. We make a nice paycheck each month now just on loaning BITO shares and that is paid in cash each month. I was holding all of the Bitcoin Spot ETFs early in 2024 trying to loan shares. Only BITO was getting loaned out. None of the Bitcoin Spot ETFs were getting loaned out.

Concerning cutting losses, I haven't been doing that at all. Two of my trades buying BITX were made in mid December, and Bitcoin still hasn't recovered to where I make the profit I desire on those two trades. I'll wait until Bitcoin gets closer to $110K and then sell the BITX on those trades. I also agree with locking in gains that I set, even if Bitcoin keeps rising in price. That never upsets me that if only I held it a little longer I could have made more. The same when I see a dip and buy BITX only to see the price drop further. That doesn't bother me that I just should have waited longer before buying BITX. It's impossible to guess tops and bottoms. I trade on the trends and just try to open and close as many trades as I can. This strategy has worked for me throughout 2024.

In my tradeable cash, I only buy BITX with 5% to 10% of it at a time. That way if Bitcoin keeps falling and trading sideways, I can continue to open other trades buying more BITX and set a sell point on BITX for each trade set when Bitcoin rises again so that I make the profit that I set on each trade. In the larger Bitcoin pullbacks, my strategy is like buying into a falling knife which is really risky, but I just wait patiently and open and close trade sets in reverse order. It's really risky if Bitcoin were to go into a really deep bear market as my BITX positions would approach zero. But in my opinion, I can keep doing this through the current bull cycle which ends maybe at the end of this year. Bitcoin has never let me down. It will bounce back and all of my trades with BITX pay off, either same day, same week, or longer. It just takes patience. I rarely even look at my portfolio totals. I just enjoy being retired, and pay attention to Bitcoin's price. If it swings low I look to buy more BITX. If it swings higher, I look at selling open BITX positions. It's really simple. My wife is even getting used to it. She has badgered me over the years just paying attention to Bitcoin drops in price and why didn't I sell. Now she can see that her Roth Account is much higher now because of my trades and I show her how many more shares of BITO she has each month over and beyond the large dividends. So she leaves me alone and is trained to not care about Bitcoin pullbacks because I am only going to make more money in her accounts as well.

I also have separate positions in BITX that I am just holding as I do not want to miss out on any parabolic runs. I calculated that BITX loses about 2.5% or so per month in decay from trading futures contracts. So if Bitcoin remains flat for a month and I am holding BITX, I know I will lose about 2.5% of value. Not worried about that at all. In 2024, BITX easily outearned all of the SPOT Bitcoin ETFs & BITO. In 2025, I believe that BITX will do even better, even with decay losses.

My trading strategy is not for everyone, especially newbies or those who don't have money to risk. I do have large unrealized losses on some of my trades. I always just wait until Bitcoin recovers and they turn into gains. However, many people cannot stomach to see large unrealized losses for a month or so on some trades and they will sell locking in losses.

The Chinese New Year in 2025 will be from January 29th to February 12th. Bitcoin historically has a price gain around this time. The Chinese historically cause a spike in buying pressure during this time usually with pre and post selloffs to some degree .

Here are some historical numbers (all gains) around this time frame that try to account for perceived volatility (before and after) because of the Chinese New Year. These numbers reflect buying 3 days before, and selling 10 days afterwards to incorporate for increased volatility (selloffs, etc.). It's not a perfect comparison between the years because the volatility differed. A straight up comparison of what happened to Bitcoin's price exactly within the Chinese New Year dates would average higher gains due to pre and post selloffs that occurred during most of the years, but not all. Ironically, Bitcoin only gained 8% during the exact Chinese New Year dates in 2024, but gained 28% during the period of 3 days before and 10 days after the Chinese New Year. Again, not a perfect comparison between the years.

2015: 11%
2016: 9%
2017: 11%
2018: 7%
2019: 3%
2020: 7%
2021: 24%
2022: 12%
2023: 13%
2024: 28%

Not saying this will happen again this year, but historical data suggests we may very well see a new all time high during this time. 2024 likely had larger gains due to the introduction of the Bitcoin Spot ETFs on 1/11/24. Bitcoin was on a tear during this time in 2024 with little to no selloffs so adding 3 days before and 10 days after likely resulted in skewed gains of 28% compared to the other years, most of which experienced pre and/or post selloffs because of the Chinese New Year.

If we don't see any pre-selloff before the start of the Chinese New Year on January 29th, in my opinion, that has to be a very positive sign for potentially really nice Bitcoin price gains to follow in the next 2 weeks afterwards. No guarantee, but we could easily see Bitcoin rise 20% or so based on historical gains related to increased Chinese buying pressure around this time of the year. Just my opinion and not investment advice.

I'm obviously at the very high end of 2025 Bitcoin price predictions.

Mid February - $125K due to the Chinese New Year bump

$500K+ peak in 2025 due to very positive regulatory clarity, which brings in massive institutional investors currently sitting on the sidelines, plus US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve established creating worldwide, state and pension fund Strategic Reserve FOMO.

Let's hope I am right no matter how crazy some of y'all think I am.

Good info on the Chinese new year trade!

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I agree we are going to 125k pretty soon. I don't agree we hit anywhere near 500k in the next few years.

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You can give me another beer emoji if I am right, plus you would be over 3X of your Bitcoin retirement number.

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We hit 500k in BTC, it will call for an IRL beer.

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You can take your jet or yacht to the Money board party, depending on the destination.

No shot at $500k but i've never wanted to be more wrong in my life

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200-300k this cycle.

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170k this cycle.

I’ve got enough in alt coins that my feelings won’t be hurt if btc goes up to 500k after I sell.

I will be cheering for btc because the bigger the btc rise, the bigger the alt season.