In fact, it is an expression that we must be prepared for all risks. I think no one wants to lose their money, especially those who invest large amounts of bitcoin. That expression is just an illustration of risk, that bitcoin has a high risk and in my opinion if we are not cheated or our bitcoins are stolen then the value of our investment will never run out, at most it will only decrease due to fluctuations in the price of bitcoin

One investment that can make our money run out is if we invest in bitcoin futures, this trading model is like forex and has a very high risk, our money can run out in a day. However, if we buy bitcoin and store it in our own wallet, our money will not run out because bitcoin never loses value and price.

Yeah, one of the old members of the forum said that bitcoin investment doesn't really have any serious static rules for investment, and that's true. Most investors usually have some strategy or rule that they think is best for them to invest in bitcoin, but the most commonly used formula some people use in accumulating bitcoin is DCA. For some common non-static rules, like; buy the dip and hold, hold until you make a profit; if you can't hold, you won't be rich; not your key, not your coin; and the last, "invest what you can afford to lose." In one of my comments just a few days ago, I said that that last common rule should have been modified to "Invest what you are willing to hold for the long term, until you make a profit."

Bitcoin has lived for a decade now, and I don't really think that people have actually invested in it and experienced a total loss like they do with altcoins. Whichever loss that any investor might have experienced with bitcoin is either because they bought at a high price and sold very low, or maybe it is a trader who is leveraging or trading for a short-term profit.

Normally, those that invested in bitcoin and held it for a long time made a profit from it, while those that did not hold it for a long time did not make a profit because they could not hold it for a long time. In such a situation, we can't say bitcoin is actually responsible for their loss, but they themselves were responsible for the loss they encountered. So, that was the reason I said that the rule should be, "Invest what you are willing to hold until the market has earned you the profit you desire."

There can be two meanings of "can afford to lose". One is a relatively small sum that can be lost without any notice. Another one is a larger portion of your wealth that can still be lost without completely ruining your life. The second still applies to Bitcoin and any other investment  Do not put your house as a collateral for investment, do not invest your child's education fund, do not invest your safety net, and so on. This is all especially true for Bitcoin precisely because you have to hodl it and can't afford to take your investment out early during an emergency, because that could force you to take a loss.

The principle of investment is applied for all types of investment, not only applied for Bitcoin investment or cryptocurrency investment.

If you can not afford to lose your money because your investment goes to a wrong way, you should simply keep your cash at home. Keep it at home, don't keep it at bank accounts because when banks have bankruptcies, you can lose your money in bank accounts.

With Bitcoin investment, after you buy it, you must do another vital step, move your bitcoin (withdraw) it from your exchange account to your own wallet, non custodial, open source to keep it safe by yourself. You have private key and you can control, secure your bitcoin.

How to back up a seed phrase

Invest what you can afford to lose not only for investing in Bitcoin but also for other things. Bitcoin has high volatility. Bitcoin prices can change at any time and if people are not prepared for that, they can panic. That's where they must understand the meaning of investing what you can afford.

If they can afford to invest $25 or even $100 for a single purchase, that's an amount they can afford. We are not buying or investing more than we can afford. Our life is not just about investing in Bitcoin. There are other things that we have to fulfill. So we must keep trying to fulfill it.

And if you already have Bitcoin, HODL is what you should do and don't panic if the price drops. The price reduction is only temporary and later, the price will increase. So be patient in holding Bitcoin until the price rises again.

This advice must remain, especially for new people, there are security aspects that must be considered in addition to value risks. Everyone wants to invest just because they hear "it's profitable", but not everyone understands the mechanism. However, this is still relevant to the security factor of Bitcoin.

Not every people who own Bitcoin is a Bitcoin enthusiast or even maxi.

The phrase of "invest what you can afford to lose" is for Average Joe who's interested with Bitcoin, obviously it's different to Bitcoin maximalist who own near 90% of their assets in Bitcoin.

Since Bitcoin is still a fairly new asset and it's not yet as sustain as gold, so it's correct to say that.

It seems like you are confusing a couple of things.
First of all the scams and their variants have nothing to do with "invest what you can afford to lose" statement. Nobody should even touch them to be at any kind of risk to need an statement like the one in the title.
Secondly "invest what you can afford to lose" applies to any investment you make in anything, even the most stable markets like gold. You should always take reasonable risks and indeed invest what you can afford to lose. Meaning for example you should not borrow money to invest in gold, bitcoin or whatever else. You should invest the money that you already have and don't need so that if you lost all that money, you wouldn't be devastated.

Apart from that, I agree with the part of your post that Bitcoin has already grown and the market is not as volatile and unpredictable as it once was which makes it a more solid "investment" even though we still have some way to go before we can get rid of the high volatility and market manipulations.

It is still very much relevant! It all depends on your local regulations on bitcoin. You time when you have invested in Bitcoin etc. This statement is here to remind you about the risks of Bitcoin investment. But it is something you can ignore at your own risk. Today when the Bitcoin price is increasing, we are seeing a whole lot of new crowd becoming super bullish on it. But let's assume you invest at pick and then the price starts going down! Will you be at the same position with the early adopters?

So Bitcoin is a risky investment and you must not gamble with whatever you have. Have patience and take a cautious approach toward Bitcoin investment. That might save you from being bankrupt.

I agree with the general view, contrary to that of the OP, that investing only what one can afford to lose still stands.


This is what I wanted to focus on. The problem with mature assets such as bitcoin is not so much that you can lose everything, although it is a possibility that cannot be ruled out 100%, as volatility. If you put all the money you can into bitcoin even though you might need it in the short term, maybe when you need it the market is down 60%, and you haven't lost it all, but you have lost 60% of your money that you couldn't afford, and now you will have to go into debt or figure out how to get the money you have lost.