Bitcoin’s volatility can be stomach-wrenching! Please make sure you can handle it! Here’s my story

00:01 Foric here based on the price of
00:02 Bitcoin, which is warranted. It’s up
00:04 holding solid above
00:06 $111,000. But I just wanted to remind
00:08 everybody of the volatility of Bitcoin
00:10 since I feel like, you know, my job is
00:12 to be your personal sherpa to the top of
00:15 the Mount Everest of Bitcoin, which
00:17 let’s call that a million dollars. Um,
00:19 and that’s not going to happen soon. I
00:20 don’t know, 5 years, eight years, I
00:23 don’t know. It’ll, you know, what I
00:25 always tell people is I think it’ll go
00:26 up to between $500,000 and a million
00:28 dollars a coin in the next 5 to 10
00:30 years. So, um, you know, I think we have
00:32 a good shot of being a million dollars
00:34 per coin by 2030, but I don’t know, you
00:37 know, maybe it takes longer than that.
00:38 Who knows? But here is my own journey of
00:41 the ups and downs of Bitcoin. And I want
00:42 you to hear this because I want you to
00:45 make sure that the amount of Bitcoin you
00:46 own is an amount that your stomach can
00:49 handle. Right now with Bitcoin at
00:50 all-time highs, there’s not a single
00:52 person in the entire world who has ever
00:54 bought Bitcoin that is down on their
00:56 investment right now. Everyone’s up. Uh
00:59 that means everybody who has not sold
01:01 while it’s down is up right now. Which
01:03 means if you can’t handle the roller
01:05 coaster, you can get off it right now
01:08 and get more for your ticket than what
01:09 you paid. You can literally do that
01:11 anywhere in the world right now because
01:13 Bitcoin is uh setting new record highs
01:17 every few hours for the last two days.
01:19 Okay, so here’s my journey. So, I bought
01:22 my initial Bitcoin. Uh, so in 2017, the
01:25 price spiked up to
01:26 $19,000, which of course caught my
01:28 attention. It caught everybody’s
01:29 attention. There’s a ton of people in
01:30 the class of 20 2017 because, you know,
01:33 you pay attention when something does
01:34 that. Um, it had rocketed from like
01:37 $1,200 to like
01:39 $19,000 in a year. So, that gets
01:42 everybody’s attention. I had certainly
01:43 heard of Bitcoin before that. It’s just
01:45 I didn’t have time to research it. I
01:47 didn’t have time to study. You know, too
01:49 much going on. I assume the market will
01:50 shake out and something, some other
01:52 technology will win, which of course is
01:54 not the case with Bitcoin for all of the
01:56 reasons I’ve covered on numerous other
01:58 videos. But anyway, I did what everybody
01:60 does, which is you try to ignore the
02:02 noise in life so you can focus on the
02:04 signal and not the noise. Well, Bitcoin
02:06 had been the signal all along since I
02:08 first heard about it in 2014, but I
02:10 didn’t get around to buying any until
02:12 2017. So, the price spiked up to
02:14 $19,000. Then it started coming back
02:16 down. I tried to make a purchase at
02:18 about $15,000 per coin. Uh but
02:22 thankfully my bank rejected it and so
02:24 and returned the money, which means by
02:26 the time it actually went through on a
02:28 second attempt, the Bitcoin was down to
02:31 $12,000. Uh then I bought some
02:33 additional Bitcoin at about $9,000. And
02:36 ultimately the Bitcoin I bought in 2017
02:38 and 2018 had an average price of about
02:41 $9,000. So, I am up more than
02:45 1,000% on all of that Bitcoin uh in
02:48 total that I bought uh in 2017 and 2018,
02:52 but it was not a huge amount of Bitcoin.
02:53 It was just I mean, it was an amount
02:55 that enough to matter, but not enough to
02:57 really be sort of game-changing. Uh
02:59 because again, I was new to it all. Then
03:00 I got super distracted and but in the
03:03 process of being super distracted, um I
03:05 had decided that if Bitcoin dropped, I
03:08 was going to buy more. if it dropped to
03:09 half my current average price at the
03:11 time, which was $9,000. Meaning, if the
03:14 price of Bitcoin dropped to $4,500, I
03:17 was going to buy significantly more
03:18 Bitcoin. Of course, I did not. The price
03:21 did drop. I saw the price drop. But when
03:23 the price dropped, of course, I
03:24 chickenened out because that’s what
03:26 happens whenever you wait to buy more
03:28 Bitcoin later is when the price actually
03:30 does drop, people chicken out and they
03:32 don’t actually buy the Bitcoin they
03:33 thought they were going to buy. Same
03:34 thing happened to me. So, I did not buy
03:36 the Bitcoin at 4,500 that I said I was
03:39 going to buy. Um, so but I held what I
03:43 had, which is important. It’s important
03:44 to understand that I had Bitcoin that I
03:45 had bought at 9,000, 11,000, 12,000. Uh,
03:49 the cheapest Bitcoin I ever bought
03:51 during that time period was for 6,400,
03:54 which just I guess happened to be a
03:56 lucky purchase in 2018 sometime. Uh, but
03:59 the average price again when you
04:00 factored in the $12,000 Bitcoin and the
04:03 $6,400 Bitcoin came to an average of
04:05 about 9,000. But I did not buy the
04:07 additional Bitcoin that I was planning
04:09 to when the price dropped. But most
04:12 importantly, I did not sell any of the
04:14 Bitcoin I bought in 2017 and 2018. So
04:16 even though the price went down to
04:19 $3,200 at one point, and on paper I had
04:23 lost almost 2/3 of my investment in
04:26 Bitcoin. Um, now of course I should have
04:28 bought a lot more at 4,500 and I would
04:31 have been, you know, way better off, but
04:33 I didn’t. And it is the same story.
04:35 Everyone everyone’s story is the same.
04:38 They wish they had bought Bitcoin the
04:39 first time they heard about it. They
04:40 wish they had bought a lot more than
04:42 they ultimately did. And they wish they
04:45 had actually followed through on their
04:47 thought process that they were going to
04:48 buy more if it would if it was ever
04:50 significantly cheaper. And nobody buys
04:52 Bitcoin when they first hear about it.
04:54 It’s always 2 or 3 years later
04:56 typically. Uh nobody buys as much as
04:58 they should have. Uh and then nobody
05:01 buys the additional amount they thought
05:02 they were going to buy when the price
05:04 drops. It’s just human nature. My story
05:06 is almost verbatim everybody’s story
05:08 that’s been in Bitcoin uh a good while.
05:11 So anyway, the price did drop. I did not
05:12 buy more and but I still had that
05:14 Bitcoin with an average price of $9,000
05:16 and I held on to it. And importantly, I
05:18 held on to it even though the price
05:20 crashed all the way down to $3,200. I
05:23 did not sell. So to my credit, I did not
05:25 sell. Now, not to my credit, I did not
05:28 buy the additional Bitcoin I thought I
05:30 was going to buy or that I had
05:32 considered buying or that I told myself
05:33 I was going to buy, but I didn’t sell.
05:35 Okay. So then the price recovers in 2020
05:38 and goes back above the price I paid for
05:40 it. At this point, I’m like, wow. Okay,
05:43 I’ve been super distracted 2018, 2019,
05:46 2020. Super distracted with politics,
05:48 public policy. I was deeply involved in
05:51 a, you know, massive, uh, political
05:53 race. I mean, it was just a gazillion
05:55 gazillion gazillion things were going
05:57 on. So, I didn’t have time to focus on
05:58 anything else. And so, uh, so here we
06:01 go. It’s 2020. It passes my initial
06:03 price and I’m like, you know what? I’ve
06:05 got to pay attention to this. I really
06:07 need to pay attention to this because
06:09 Bitcoin just seems to always keep coming
06:11 back and I’ve owned this Bitcoin in 2017
06:13 and 2018. I should have bought a lot
06:15 more. I didn’t. Um, should I buy more
06:17 now? Well, then the price just kept
06:19 going up and up and up in 2020 and 2021.
06:22 And so ultimately, I did buy additional
06:24 Bitcoin. I bought some. I can’t remember
06:26 if it was 20 or if it was uh early 2021.
06:29 But regardless, at various points, I did
06:31 buy more Bitcoin on the way up. The
06:33 price ultimately peaked at
06:35 $64,000 and then started coming back
06:37 down. Uh it ultimately flash crashed. Uh
06:41 so ultimately on its way down as it you
06:44 know peaked at 64, marched down to the
06:46 50s and then by the time it was you know
06:48 really sort of the the price was coming
06:51 down in the middle of 2021
06:53 uh the price uh in the the month
06:56 preceding up to my largest single
06:57 purchase had dropped uh to 54 thou I
07:00 think it was
07:01 59,500 and then it had dropped all the
07:04 way to a flash crash of $30,000. It was
07:06 up at for like $4ome,000, flash crashed
07:09 to $30,000, recovered to
07:11 $42,000, and this is on one day. On one
07:14 day, it went from either the high30s or
07:16 the low30s, something like that, crashed
07:19 down to $30,000, then went back to
07:22 $43,000, and then had fallen back to
07:24 38,300 by the time I actually made this
07:27 the largest single purchase that I made.
07:30 And I I posted the details of this uh in
07:32 written form uh right before I recorded
07:34 this video. Okay, so here I am. I
07:37 finally made a big additional purchase
07:38 of Bitcoin in addition to a bunch of
07:40 smaller purchases above that price and
07:43 some smaller purchases below that price.
07:45 But the largest single one-time single
07:47 transaction Bitcoin purchase I made at
07:50 that one time for
07:51 $38,300. Okay, so what happened next?
07:53 Well, the price a few weeks later
07:56 crashed, if you want to call it a crash,
07:58 it basically just marched slowly down to
08:01 less than $30,000 very briefly, making
08:04 me think, well, dang it. I thought I had
08:06 missed a flash crash that I’d never see
08:08 again, but it stopped at $30,000. Now,
08:11 it marched down to just under
08:13 $30,000. And had I waited, obviously, I
08:16 would have been able to buy more Bitcoin
08:18 for less. But again, that’s the same
08:20 story of everybody’s journey is, you
08:22 know, you can’t time the market. It just
08:23 is what it is. So then after dipping
08:26 just below $30,000, Bitcoin marched up
08:28 by the end of 2021 up to
08:31 $69,000 before subsequently as the
08:34 result of a a cascade of human stupidity
08:37 that had nothing to do with Bitcoin. A
08:39 cascade of human stupidity dragged the
08:42 price from $69,000. It started marching
08:44 down. People who were leveraged up had
08:47 borrowed a bunch of money with uh to buy
08:49 Bitcoin, could not make their, you know,
08:51 debt payments. They started puking
08:53 Bitcoin all over the market, having to
08:55 force uh force sell Bitcoin they didn’t
08:57 want to sell to meet uh borrowed money
08:60 payments and all that sort of stuff.
09:01 Anyway, and then FTX blew up because Sam
09:04 Bankman Freed uh defrauded a bunch of
09:06 people out of like $10 billion or
09:08 whatever it was. Anyway, so Bitcoin
09:10 marched all the way down to
09:12 $15,500. Um and again, I was holding on
09:15 to $38,300 Bitcoin. uh even the watching
09:19 the price of that $38,000 Bitcoin march
09:21 all the way to below 16,000. Um now I
09:24 was buying all the way down. I mean at
09:27 this point my conviction was high enough
09:29 that I think when this whole process
09:30 started in 2021 I had I don’t know 40%
09:34 of my net worth 30 40% of my net worth
09:37 in Bitcoin maybe. I’m just I’m guessing.
09:39 And by the end of that period, marching
09:42 through 2021 and then 2022, I had
09:46 ratcheted that up to 60% of my net
09:49 worth. So, literally 20% of every dollar
09:52 I had to my name got dumped into the
09:55 market as it marched down in 2022 and
09:59 stayed low in early 2023. Again, these
10:02 are like gut-wrenching moves here. Uh,
10:05 but I was buying all the way down. I not
10:07 with the same magnitude of the purchase
10:08 I did at
10:09 38,300. Um, because I just didn’t have
10:12 the capital to do a a one-time purchase
10:13 of that magnitude. But I was scrapping
10:16 together everything I could and finding
10:18 new sources of capital and freeing up
10:20 money I didn’t think I could free up. I
10:22 mean, I was just doing everything I
10:23 could to buy Bitcoin. Um, so I did buy
10:25 quite a, you know, as much as I could
10:27 below 20,000, including a, you know, a
10:29 fair amount below 17,000, uh, in 2022
10:33 and early 2023. Uh, and then when it’s
10:36 when the price started marching back up
10:38 and the banks blew up in March of
10:40 2023 and I saw that the banks, everybody
10:43 freaked out, stock market went down,
10:46 Bitcoin went up. Then I took my exposure
10:48 to Bitcoin from 60% up to 80%. And then
10:51 this year uh well then I slow sort of
10:54 slowly edged it up to 90 and then
10:56 ultimately 97%. Um as the price kept
10:59 recovering higher and higher and higher
11:01 I was buying in more and more and more
11:02 because my confidence level was higher
11:04 and higher and higher. Um including with
11:07 the election last year where a a more
11:09 pro- Bitcoin candidate won as opposed to
11:12 a less pro bitcoin candidate. And even
11:14 though look Bitcoin will survive
11:15 anything. Bitcoin went through the
11:18 presidencies of Barack Obama and then
11:20 Donald Trump and then uh Joe Biden and
11:24 now Donald Trump. Like Bitcoin can
11:26 survive anything. It can I mean it
11:27 doesn’t matter. At the end of the day,
11:28 Bitcoin always wins. It’s still nice to
11:31 have a favorable regulatory environment.
11:33 That’s still a a uh a tailwind instead
11:36 of a headwind. It’s nice to have
11:37 something pushing you forward instead of
11:39 blowing you back, even though Bitcoin
11:41 always wins in the end. Um but anyway,
11:43 so here we are. uh as it marched up uh
11:46 to 109,000 I was sitting at 97% of my
11:48 liquid net worth in Bitcoin. Then the
11:50 price dipped into the ‘9s and ultimately
11:53 into the 80s. When it went into the 80s,
11:54 I put another 2% in to take my total
11:57 Bitcoin exposure to 99%. And then when
11:59 it temporarily dropped into the 70s at
12:01 about $78,000 per coin, I put the last
12:04 1% of my liquid assets into Bitcoin. So
12:07 that puts me at a 100% Bitcoin
12:10 allocation for all of my liquid assets.
12:12 Now, as I’ve mentioned before, that does
12:14 not include an emergency fund that
12:15 Rachel manages that I have no legal
12:17 access to and no physical access to. Um,
12:20 it’s just money that she manages just so
12:23 our kids still eat groceries and don’t
12:25 starve in case my very uh high-risisk
12:29 appetite approach to things somehow
12:31 doesn’t work out, which I think is
12:32 extremely low probability, but not
12:34 impossible. Nothing’s impossible, right?
12:36 So, anyway, but for every dollar I
12:38 possibly could put in Bitcoin, I now
12:40 have 100% in Bitcoin. So, if the price
12:42 dropped tomorrow and people were like,
12:44 “Oh, aren’t you going to buy more
12:45 Bitcoin?” My answer is, “Unless money
12:47 becomes available that I don’t even know
12:50 existed, which did happen earlier today
12:52 when I discovered
12:54 $14,000 on a refund that I knew was out
12:57 there, but I had totally forgotten
12:58 about. Um, that showed up today. So, as
13:01 soon as I can suck that out of Trustmark
13:02 and into Coinbase and buy $14,000 of
13:05 Bitcoin on Coinbase Advanced, uh, which
13:07 I will do literally this the moment it
13:09 shows up in Trustmark, you know, unless
13:11 stuff like that happens that gives me
13:13 money I wasn’t expecting or didn’t know
13:14 was coming, I can’t buy more Bitcoin. I
13:16 don’t have any more US dollars to buy
13:18 Bitcoin. All of my expenses are paid for
13:20 with Bitcoin on the Coinbase debit card
13:23 or with the the payment on my 2026 Tesla
13:27 Model Y. I liquidate the bitcoin and um
13:31 move the money to uh bankd draft at
13:34 trustmark basically a day or two before
13:36 the payment is due. Uh because uh river
13:39 and coinbase which are the primary two
13:42 platforms I use do not have bill pay
13:44 yet. And um I tried to set it up on
13:46 strike with bill pay but uh Trustmark
13:49 requires a voided check in order to set
13:51 up bill pay. And the way Strike is set
13:53 up you can’t get a voided check because
13:55 there’s no checking account. It’s just
13:56 bankdrafted. Um, so in as soon as
13:60 Coinbase or River rolls out bill pay,
14:02 then I’ll put my 2026 Tesla Model Y
14:06 payment on there. And I I say the year
14:09 and the model because if you’re in the
14:10 mood to buy a Tesla, the best one is the
14:13 Model Y. And specifically the 2026, they
14:17 upgraded everything in 2026. And the
14:19 2026 model is way better than 2025 or
14:22 before. So, that’s why I throw in the
14:25 year and the model because all Teslas
14:28 are not the same. If you want the latest
14:30 and greatest, you got to buy a Tesla
14:32 Model 3 that’s 2024 or newer or a Tesla
14:36 Model Y 2026 or newer. The larger one is
14:40 the Model Y. I’m tall. I’m 6’4 and so I
14:43 bought the uh 2026 Tesla Model Y. But if
14:46 you don’t need the extra sort of
14:47 vertical height and extra just general
14:49 space, you can get away with the uh
14:52 Tesla Model 3, which is cheaper. And uh
14:54 if as long as you buy the 2024 or newer,
14:57 you’re getting the latest. But anyway,
14:58 all that to say, Bitcoin’s volatile. It
15:01 will reward you handsomely if you can
15:02 handle the ups and downs. A lot of
15:04 people can’t, which means they buy it
15:06 when it’s high because it feels
15:07 euphoric. It feels great. It’s going up.
15:10 And then when it goes down, they puke
15:11 their Bitcoin all over the market. And
15:14 when you’re puking your Bitcoin all over
15:16 the market, it makes the price fall
15:17 farther, which is good for people like
15:19 me who want to buy it as cheap as you’re
15:21 willing to sell it to me, but is bad for
15:23 you because you end up buying $111,000
15:26 Bitcoin and then selling it at, I don’t
15:29 know, $75,000 or $95,000 or whatever is
15:33 the lowest price that you just can’t
15:34 take it anymore. You just can’t stand
15:36 it. And so you throw your market, you
15:38 throw your Bitcoin up and you just can’t
15:40 keep it down. So, if your stomach cannot
15:42 keep your food down, don’t ride the
15:44 roller coaster. If your stomach cannot
15:46 keep your Bitcoin down, don’t put it on
15:49 your on your assets because you’re going
15:52 to end up losing if your stomach can’t
15:53 handle it. If your stomach can handle
15:55 it, it’ll uh reward you handsomely long
15:58 term, which has been my case. My my
16:00 average cost probably for all the
16:02 Bitcoin I’ve bought is somewhere in the
16:04 ballpark of $30,000. U now obviously I
16:07 have a bunch of Bitcoin. That’s, you
16:09 know, an average price, not a bunch, but
16:11 I have some. That’s an average price of
16:13 $9,000. That’s up more than a,000%. But,
16:17 um, that it’s even it’s more than 1,200%
16:21 1,200%. So, I’ve got that original
16:23 $9,000 Bitcoin that’s up
16:25 1,200%. But obviously, that’s V that’s,
16:28 you know, that has to be uh averaged in
16:30 with that single largest purchase I made
16:32 at 38,300 and a bunch of purchases uh at
16:37 prices higher than that. and lower than
16:39 that. So, if you average it all out, I’m
16:41 guessing my average purchase price is
16:44 low 30,000s, maybe 30,000, maybe
16:46 probably low $30,000. Um, which is
16:49 again, that means of all the money I’ve
16:51 ever put in Bitcoin, which is now 100%
16:54 of my net worth, it means my liquid net
16:57 worth is triple what it would otherwise
16:59 be. Um, now I’ve done other videos about
17:01 about why I own a lot less Bitcoin than
17:04 I have than I could have owned in the
17:06 past and primarily that was because I
17:08 spent the vast majority of the money I
17:10 had between uh 2015 and 2021 on politics
17:15 and public policy. I spent the majority
17:18 of the money that I made selling Bombgar
17:21 Corporation in 2015 uh 2014. the
17:23 majority of that money I spent in
17:26 politics and public policy between 2015
17:29 and 2021. And I’m thankful I did. I
17:32 wouldn’t change anything. But the result
17:33 was I had a lot less money to buy
17:36 Bitcoin when I actually was ready to buy
17:39 a lot of Bitcoin, which was 2021 and
17:41 forward when my conviction was really
17:43 there to buy as much as I could possibly
17:45 get. I did not have the majority of my
17:48 net worth that um that uh had been spent
17:52 uh on politics and public policy between
17:55 2015 and 2020. Um so but for what I
17:59 still had obviously what I still had
18:01 that I had not spent on many numerous
18:04 efforts to change the world I have
18:06 tripled that. So it feels great to
18:08 triple what was left over even if you
18:10 spent the majority of it. Anytime you
18:12 spend your majority of your money on
18:13 something and then you triple the the
18:17 meager amount that’s left, well, that
18:19 feels great because it’s triple than it
18:20 would what it would have been. Um, and
18:22 since again the average is in the
18:23 low30s, I guess it’s still right at
18:26 well, it’s more than tripled, you know.
18:28 I don’t know. I guess at 120 it’d be
18:30 quadrupled or whatever, but anyway. So,
18:32 it’s let’s call it tripled. Maybe
18:33 slightly more than tripled. Um, but
18:35 anyway, so I have a lot less Bitcoin
18:37 than I would have had if I had not gone
18:40 on numerous quests to change the world.
18:42 Uh, so I have a lot less than I would
18:43 have had if I had not done that. But I
18:45 have a lot more purchasing power than I
18:47 would have if I had attempted to make
18:50 back a portion of the money I spent in
18:53 stocks, bonds, real estate, commodities.
18:55 Anything else I could possibly have put
18:57 money in from 2021 and forward, I don’t
19:00 think would have gotten anywhere close
19:02 to tripling my money with as low of risk
19:05 profile as Bitcoin is. Once you really
19:07 understand Bitcoin, you really realize
19:09 how low the risk actually is as compared
19:12 to stocks, bonds, commodities, real
19:14 estate, and things like that. So, I
19:16 continue to think Bitcoin is the best
19:18 asset in the world. uh it has more than
19:21 tripled my liquid assets and liquid net
19:24 worth over the last you know however
19:26 many three four years whatever it’s been
19:29 and um but I want you to just understand
19:31 that 100% of the world can get off the
19:34 merrygoround right now if they’re
19:36 feeling sick if you’re feeling sick
19:38 because the volatility of Bitcoin is a
19:40 little more than you can handle you can
19:42 get off the merrygoround right now if
19:44 you can’t handle it please pair back
19:47 your Bitcoin holdings to something where
19:49 you can handle anything. If your stomach
19:51 can handle anything, I believe Bitcoin
19:53 will reward you handsomely in the
19:55 future. If you can’t, you will be puking
19:58 your Bitcoin all over the marketplace at
19:60 the worst possible time and at the
20:02 lowest possible prices. And many people
20:04 will love you for it because you’re
20:06 selling them your cheap Bitcoin, but you
20:08 will not love yourself for it. So, make
20:09 sure you can handle it. We’re at record
20:11 highs right now as I record this. We are
20:13 at record highs above
20:15 $111,000. And hold only the Bitcoin. you
20:18 know that you can handle that you’re not
20:20 going to wretch up in the marketplace in
20:23 a downturn.