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Having an unrealized gain does not mean you made money if you cannot realize it.

• nullc 4y ago
  > if you cannot realize it. If you do not, sure. But cannot? Bitcoin markets have been quite liquid for a long time. Even during run ups to peak price you can sell millions of dollars of Bitcoin without significantly moving the markets. Then you can simply wire the funds to your bank. It's essentially the same experience as selling a comparable amount of a popular ETF w/ a stock broker, except the bitcoin exchanges are somewhat more prone to waste your time with invasive and irrelevant requests for personal information. The implication that bitcoin markets are meaningfully illiquid at the level of individuals is weird and wrong. Now, if you want to talk some weirdo fringe 'crypto' stuff instead of Bitcoin, your mileage may vary-- some of it is reasonably liquid, some of it isn't. A lot of it is primarily or only traded at exchanges that don't support real USD, so to trade it for USD you have to first trade it for something supported at an exchange that has banking relationships (potentially something like tether if you like playing with fire-- but Bitcoin is probably a better choice). But that nonsense doesn't apply when dealing with Bitcoin.