Bitcoin B Killin’ It

byoscope

288k. That was my net worth about a year ago. Now it sits at about 526k. Honestly I didn’t believe this when I first saw and did a major double take, which caused some further investigation.

I’ve been very happy with some of my decisions, and I don’t necessarily mean outcomes here. I thought I was sitting on too much cash, needed to study a lot, and figured I’d put the cash to use and save on some of the interest while not actively looking for housing deals. Thus I made an active decision to pay down my Michigan properties. I tossed an extra $3,300 towards principal on those houses, for ten months, and they are now paid off. Now the Monday quarterback in me wants to say I should have put that money into Bitcoin instead, as it has now FINALLY broken free from the 20k barrier, but such is life.

You can see above the distribution from last year has changed fairly dramatically. I elected to pay down the mortgages on the Michigan properties and lock in the 6% return instead of battling the turbulence in the markets, starting from the lockdowns. Instead of saving cash I moved much into Bitcoin, on the March and April slides, and tossed more towards my employee stock purchase plan (ESPP), which is a component of the ‘Liquid Stock Accounts’.

The large majority of the pop though came from real estate in a combination of paying down loans (~50k), much paid by renters, appreciation of my Charlotte, NC home (~30k), and finally Zillow’s Zestimate finally taking the sale price from two years ago out of the equation (~100k), although I have not confirmed this I have a strong suspicion.

This has me reflecting on some fundamental ideas. One is compounding. Two is spending less than you make. Three is diversifying one’s income streams. Four is finding stores of value, that preserve one’s purchasing power. And five, perhaps the most ambiguous, being that there are many lenses that one can look through, and the more one looks through the more truth they uncover.

10-day BS Refresh

Analysis Intelligence

The Opening NW in the 12/20/2020 column is the closing NW from the 12/10/2020 column. The green numbers represent estimated changes to my net worth in those categories (green numbers in 12/20 column are the changes that I estimated on 12/10). The white “Gain from” rows show how the actual numbers turned out compared to my original estimates, ten days prior. I was expecting to get reimbursed for a few things that I haven’t yet. The story line for the last ten days has been the pop in Bitcoin, driving the ‘Gain from Currencies’.

I now own about 1.4 Bitcoin. According to Bitcoin, Litecoin, Namecoin, Dogecoin, Peercoin, Ethereum stats (bitinfocharts.com) only about 1.4 million Bitcoin addresses have more than 10,000 USD. There was a comment made about the wealth distribution of USD vs Bitcoin. I found the Bitcoin page an interesting contrast to: Distribution of wealth – Wikipedia. I’d love to hear how people think about these distributions.

Crystal Ball

Since I haven’t worked four months this year, which would result in being in a lower tax bracket, I’m thinking of selling some stocks to either reset the basis, hold cash, or buy more Bitcoin.

My presentation on December 2nd to the International Association of Black Actuaries (IABA) went well I thought and I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback. Here’s the link: What Studying to be an Actuary Teaches You – Jack Allweil – YouTube

Ideas for increasing NW

  • Start analyzing how affiliate programs really work.
  • Learn about Salesforce
  • I’ve had a friend ask me multiple times now to write macros for her. I was able to help her again last night and maybe should keep this idea open for as a way to help people and make some good money.
  • Seriously considering taking out my liquid trading account to put all into Bitcoin. More analysis to come.
  • Instead of relying solely on Amazon to sell my book I’m thinking to sell the books on my website as well.

Notes:

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