Personal Finance

but they have proven that they are here to stay

That is sort of true, but incredibly misleading. I've been poking around crypto for quite a while now. The concept of cryptocurrencies are going to stick around, they're just code and large numbers, after all. But there's no reason at all to think they will continue to hold their value. Particularly since governments are starting to understand that they will never be able to regulate crypto entirely, but can heavily regulate the on and off ramps.

And while there are a few key cryptos that have proven they have enough ongoing demand to stick around, those have already gone through their initial "to the moon" phases and are not likely to turn people into crypto millionaires anymore.

So crypto these days is like a lotto ticket, except the payout potential for all the "blue chip" cryptos is no longer that great compared to the downside of the entire sector tanking. That leaves the new coins to bet on, but too many of them are ERC-20 tokens (or their counterparts on the Ethereum clones) that are way too easy to make (and rugpull).

So it's not enough that you think Crypto as a whole is here to stay, you need to look at the thing you are buying. OG BTC and Ethereum are relatively "safe" bets in the space, but it's still an open question whether they are more likely to see a 10x gain or 10x loss in the next four years. Buying the Hot ERC-20 token of the day is even riskier.

If you do have 20% of your net assets in crypto, I advise you to DCA some out. That's what I did. Of course, it went up afterwards, and if I had held, I would have more on paper right now. But I have the unique ability to say I've already taken 10x out over what I put in, and I have a bunch left. If BTC has another 10x left, I retire early. But if it all evaporates, I can still eat.

N00bs who are interested in crypto now should stick with BTC or ETH, on reputable exchanges that openly state they keep customer assets in reserve, with full KYC vetting, and a little at a time. Crypto exchanges' trading fees are normally super low, and there isn't really a lot size limit. You can often buy $50 worth of ETH at the same percentage in fees as $5000. They also often expose their whole order book and let you place limit orders, so it can be a good place to learn to trade without much in your account before taking a larger amount to the stock market yourself.

And don't forget to pay your taxes, kids. Every time you sell, you take a capital gain (or loss), which is taxable. People who got in trouble with crypto are the ones in the US who sold their fat stack of BTC for a 100x profit, but forgot to set aside their taxes, and plowed it all into SafeElonInuCoin which crashed in value, but not until after the tax year was done. Those folks still owed a pile in taxes to rhe IRS, but some rugpuller took all the value out of their investment.