I Sold Bitcoin at $24,300 and Bought Back at $64,200

Sixty-four thousand two hundred dollars per coin. That was the number on the Coinbase buy screen at 6:15 on a Tuesday mornin' in June 2024, and I sat at the kitchen table in a hoodie with my coffee goin' cold and my thumb hovering over the blue button.

The money at risk was $22,470, which was approximately every dollar my wife and I had scraped back into savings since the week in December 2022 when I sold the bitcoin to cover rent. Our emergency fund held $23,900 that mornin'. Buying back would leave a $1,430 cushion. One bad month and we were onto the credit card.

The decision came down to a note. It was written on the back of a Costco receipt from December 2022, folded into the glovebox of my Honda Odyssey, and what it said is the reason my thumb stayed on that button instead of drifting away.

the note on the back of a Costco receipt

The note had three lines in my handwriting, blue pen, dated 12/14/22, and I had read it maybe two hundred times during the eighteen months it lived behind the insurance card. The top line said sold at $24,300 for rent, and it was the right call. The middle line said brakes, $640. The bottom line said only buy what you can lose without moving a single plan.

$28,518 at the top tick

The first buy was November 9, 2021, a Tuesday night. I moved $28,518 out of checking and into Coinbase and bought 0.42 bitcoin at $67,900 at 8:50 in the evenin', which turned out to be the top tick of that entire cycle. Fee: $71.40. No plan. No exit price. I had a year-end bonus and a podcast habit, plus the belief that four hundred years of monetary history had arranged itself for my convenience in the fall of 2021.

The numbers, flat: bought at $67,900. Same-week high: $68,900. Coins: 0.42. On January 1, 2022 the price read $46,300, which put me down $9,072 before the year even began, and I told nobody, not my wife, not the group chat, cuz as long as the tab stayed open the thing was still an investment instead of a mistake.

Then 2022 did what 2022 did. Terra's LUNA went to zero in May and erased $60 billion, Celsius froze withdrawals in June, and by the time FTX blew up in November my 0.42 bitcoin quoted around $10,600 while my employer began quietly canceling the renewal accounts that paid my commission.

the December I needed rent money

My wife was on unpaid maternity leave that winter. Her root canal had been deferred twice. The sell order went in on December 14, 2022 at 9:40 in the morning, from the parking lot of the dentist's office in Columbus, and I sold all 0.42 at $24,300 with cold hands while the appointment reminder buzzed on the dash.

Proceeds: $10,206. January rent: $1,650. That was the trade, and I have never once called it a mistake, because money that keeps a roof over a newborn is doin' the exact job money is for.

$18,312 of losses on form 8949

Koinly pulled the full history in March 2023 and produced a grasped loss of $18,312. It went on form 8949. TurboTax asked if I was sure. I was sure. Three thousand dollars of it offset ordinary income for 2023, and the remaining $15,312 carried forward, which is how a loss you wept about at midnight still counts the same in the IRS column.

four orders in six weeks

The buying took six weeks, and I refused to do it in one click. I spaced the orders apart on purpose, cuz the note in the glovebox did not have a price target on it, only a condition about what I could afford to lose. Order one: $5,000 on June 11 at $64,200. Order two: $5,000 on June 18. Order three: $6,000 on July 2. Order four: $6,470 on July 23 at $66,900, after the average had crept up on me. Coinbase Advanced took $61 in fees across the four fills.

the Vanguard money market, drained

The cash came from a Vanguard money market that had paid 5.1 percent while it waited for me to stop being afraid of a decision I had already made twice. Total re-entry: 0.35 bitcoin for $22,470. Fewer coins than I sold, at nearly triple the price. The receipt went back in the glovebox.

the stack as of this week

The stack sits at 0.35 bitcoin, untouched since July 2024, worth about $32,800 at this week's price near $93,700. The round trip that began at $67,900 finally shows a nominal gain of approximately $10,400 across both legs, and it took about four and a half years to show up. Four and a half years. The receipt is still in the glovebox.

the thumb on the button

So, back to the kitchen table. The note came outta the glovebox the night before and sat next to the coffee mug, and it still said what it said in 2022, right there in my handwriting between a line about brakes and a line about rent. Only buy what you can lose without moving a single plan. The cushion held at $1,430. My thumb came down at 6:21. That is the whole story.