My question for today, which I'm working through live and then putting on X for feedback, is a simple one: how much ICP is enough? Right now I have about 5,800 ICP in my neuron. Plus I have my meme coin, JBBJ, and I hold about another thousand ICP worth of that. Half of it I put into a big trade to see if anybody wants it, so I could actively swap people back and forth. Then I have another thousand ICP sitting in Water Neuron. And on top of all of that, I've got over 20,000 dollars sitting in the bank.
Someone asked if I asked my wife for money. Yeah, I did. She got a loan, and I told her my crypto business hasn't been doing much lately because I've been stacking. I originally made a video asking if 4,000 ICP was enough. Then I did one at 5,000 ICP. Now I have 7,000. So the question is, at what point can you ever have enough? Nate in the chat says you can never have enough. And I'm thinking, well, I have 20-some thousand dollars in the bank, which is plenty of money for the whole rest of the year. Based on my business, everything could go bad with ICP and that would still be enough money for the whole year. And yet, do I want to put even more into ICP at this point?
The disclaimer first
I should do my disclaimer, because it's been a minute. I am not a financial advisor. This is not financial advice. And I obviously am holding thousands of ICP, as I've described here. None of this is a recommendation for you. It's just me thinking out loud about my own decision.
What I'm really wondering about, especially after the video I did yesterday on my original videos channel, is whether I already have enough. Yesterday I said it plainly: ICP, we have some serious issues on Internet Computer Protocol. I appreciate everyone who watched that, and I put it on X as well. And the honest question is, don't I have enough already? If this doesn't go well, I'm going to lose plenty. If this doesn't go well, I'm on my way to losing 35,000 or 40,000 dollars, plus having spent a whole bunch of time being a content creator. That's part of why I've rebranded to Jerry Banfield Live, so I'm not stuck only doing crypto videos, and my other channel is Jerry Banfield. I'm not lasered into just crypto anymore.
Canceling the trades that turned against me
Jay, you've got 4 million JBBJ. Nice. That's my meme coin. I'm testing out putting some trades up against ICP. Oh no, I have to cancel one of those, I'm going to get screwed on it. Good thing nobody bought it. So let me cancel that one, because I was about to lose a couple hundred dollars, and your boy did not want to lose a couple hundred dollars. I'm going to cancel this other one too, because JBBJ just pumped against ICP. So let me cancel those and put them back up more in my favor in a minute.
But here's the thing I keep circling back to: how much is enough? If this goes well at 7,000 ICP, and it's not financial advice and I have no idea what's happening with the world and I'm pretty dysphoric some days myself, but if this goes well, isn't this already enough to go well with? If ICP takes off like I've said it could a thousand times, don't I already have enough? In my experience and belief, I think I already have enough to be very rich if things go well. So why keep buying more?
Stacking versus runtime
I was thinking I could stack up another 1,000 or 2,000 ICP right now. But that would also cut down the runtime of the cash in my bank account. Right now I could just pay all the estimated taxes and chill and play video games every day. ICP could suck for the next year. Caffeine AI could bomb. And I'd be fine, because I've got enough cash in my bank for a year. Everything could go to crap and I could still afford to live.
But if I take more money out to put into ICP, sure, I obviously could. The real question is why even buy a few hundred when I already have so much? I could buy 100, 200, 500 ICP. Why even buy that much? This issue is kind of driving me nuts, because I genuinely don't know if I want to buy more or if I already have enough. My wife says I have enough, and I'm starting to agree with her. If you didn't have any ICP, that's one thing. But my wife's view is that I have enough. If this goes well, we're going to be in a great position. And if it goes poorly, I'm already going to lose plenty.
If I take 5,000 or 10,000 dollars more out of the bank, the money my wife sent me, then my runtime drops to a few months. And I'll tell you what, I do not want to ask my wife for money again this year. She made about twice as much as I did last year, because I chose the path of being a humble ICP creator instead of trying to make myself as much money as possible. I stockpiled. I accumulated over 20,000 dollars worth of ICP on the blockchain. Instead of selling for cash, I just accumulated it on chain and paid tax on it, which was annoying, because it meant taking more cash to pay tax on assets that are now just sitting on the blockchain.
What compounding looks like for me
So I'd really love to know what you think: is this enough? I already own over one one-hundred-thousandth of the whole supply. There are only 99,999 of those slices left. That feels good to me. And yes, I'm also compounding. If you look at my Network Nervous System neuron, I'm constantly compounding. Right now I'm up to 500 maturity, my voting power is over 8,000, and my rewards are actually going up. Even though the overall APR is going down, my own rewards are climbing, because I keep compounding. I'm up to 1.55 maturity a day now.
At this point I'm thinking all I really need to do is keep compounding. I have over 1,000 ICP earning an APR in Water Neuron. And then I have my JBBJ meme coin, which keeps going up. I put 700 ICP into that after I let the community have 98% of it, sold my 2% for 300 ICP, then bought back in for 700. So I guess I've effectively lost 400 ICP on my own meme coin compared to if I'd never sold. I now hold about 1,000 ICP worth of it, which is only 2% of the supply.
And I keep coming back to the same point: I'm getting 1.55 ICP in maturity a day right now, and I don't have to pay tax on that because of how it's set up. I've looked hard at all the bearish scenarios, and Caffeine AI could very well disappoint.
Why I ask other people
What I find really helps with a personal decision like this is asking other people for advice. Each of us, if we just sit there in our own head, sometimes it's hard to get perspective. I really needed to ask everyone what to focus on today, and I thought, this is the biggest thing I need to make a decision on. Am I going to stop buying ICP even though the price is at such a good accumulation point?
I'm thinking I could just buy another thousand ICP right now at 5 dollars. And if it goes up to 20, 30, or 50 dollars, I sell that batch and keep all the rest, selling that short term to make a lot of money. Again, not financial advice, just what I'm thinking. But here's the counterpoint: if it goes up that much, say it gets to 50 dollars, and the price is so low right now that even my optimism is drained, then at 50 dollars I'll be getting 75 dollars a day in maturity alone. At that point, why even bother trying to make a few extra tens of thousands when I'll be getting so much passive income without having to touch the principal?
And if ICP pumps, my meme coin price will likely move with it. Not financial advice, and meme coins usually go to zero. Mine certainly could, but it could also go up alongside ICP. If you want to see how I've been thinking through all of this over time, it's all in my ICP Crypto playlist.
So my thinking today is that the decision will be this: I've got enough ICP, and 7,000 is going to be the stopping point. But I would genuinely love your opinion on it.