Part 5: Today (end of 2024) and conclusion

You can find the first part of my investment story (incl. background and TL;DR) here: https://getqu.in/JldknL/

The second part here: https://getqu.in/Ptei6g/

The third part here: https://getqu.in/sfTZ3P/

The fourth part here: https://getqu.in/d4GUta/

Welcome to the last part of my far too long investment story. But before that: Perhaps you've noticed that I've secretly switched the numbers? Originally, I was only able to beat the MSCI World by a paltry 21,000% and I was still imagining things. Due to the bull run since the publication of the first article in this series, I have now achieved an impressive and absolutely sustainable 25,000% 🚀

Restructuring the portfolio thanks to Kellogg's

The Kellogg's experience from part 4 got me thinking. I came to the conclusion that I would never trust individual companies enough to invest a significant amount of money. I also shied away from the effort involved in analyzing companies. But I trusted the global economy. I therefore decided to sell all my individual shares and move the proceeds into my ETF.

At the end of 2021, my ETF portfolio still contained a few niche ETFs, for example on AI or environmental protection. I also sold these at the beginning of 2022 and reallocated them to my global portfolio. Fun fact: You might think that I sold the AI ETF much too early as a result. However, the performance from the beginning of 2022 to the end of 2024 was so awful that it was pulverized by a simple world ETF - despite the AI hype. Another indicator that such ETFs are generally not recommendable.

In addition to my world portfolio, I made a conscious decision to keep two sector ETFs on IT and healthcare in my portfolio. I know that sector ETFs are evil. I really expect IT and health care to outperform in the long term. So far, 50% of them have worked out 😁. Only time will tell whether I will be right. At least the two ETFs are not so heavily weighted.

I continued with crypto. Here, too, I mucked out and sold just a few weeks ago with $HBAR (+3.05%) and $IOTA (-0.78%) my last two Shitcoins. My crypto portfolio now only consists of $BTC (-2.64%) and a small share $ETH (-2.64%). The rule still applies here: I keep hodling until it becomes life-changing or goes to 0.

I also dissolved nonsensical "forms of saving" such as pension insurance, endowment insurance, bonus savings from the branch bank, ... ... I originally wanted to use the money freed up as equity for my own property. But before that, I had to take another critical look at this potential investment.

A property for own use? No thanks!

If you remember the first part, you may remember that I actually wanted to buy a property for my own use and saved up a lot of equity for it. When interest rates rose in 2022, I started doing the math. You can find the results in my series of articles entitled "Own home or rent": https://app.getquin.com/activity/FoLdCxttXY .

For my region and the properties we are considering, buying is currently not worthwhile at all. We also don't necessarily want to live the homeowner lifestyle. We don't want to tie ourselves down to such a big lump, have to bear a greater risk and then have even more work. A home must therefore be financially worthwhile for us, otherwise it doesn't make sense for us.

As the home was written off for the time being, I started to shift the equity I had saved into my ETF. The theory is that it's better to invest everything at once. Looking back, it would definitely have been a much better option to put everything into Welt AG at once in 2022 - the $VWRL (+0.18%) was between 90 and 100 euros at the time. But you're always smarter afterwards, so instead of a one-off reallocation, I decided to increase my monthly savings plan first to EUR 5,000 and later to EUR 7,500 and gradually reduce my home equity. I started in 2022 and will probably need another 1-2 years until the equity is completely in my ETF.

As soon as the equity in my own home is at 0, the money I currently have in managed funds and P2P will also be reallocated. However, I will keep my Riester pension. It's also going well.

Today and in the future, I will only save in my ETFs. Crypto + ETF is currently enough diversification for me. But I'm not ruling out the possibility of adding a property or gold to my portfolio at some point. But then in an appropriate ratio to the rest of my portfolio.

And how does this gigantic return come about?

Through an unexpected Bitcoin rain. 10 years after the Mt Gox hack and the first total loss of my crypto assets, I was able to close the chapter in a reasonably conciliatory way. Shortly after the hack in 2014, some of the stolen Bitcoin was recovered. After a 10-year process, airmail from Japan, many ups and downs, ... the time had finally come in 2024: I got a fraction of my deposits back. Despite the gigantic price performance since 2014, it wasn't a life-changing sum. So I kept on hodling.

And that, together with my crypto investments in 2017, is what made this gigantic return, which is nothing but luck. I was early, in the right place at the right time and idealistic/stupid enough. This also becomes clear if you just run my crypto portfolio in the getquin benchmark against common indices. And that despite all the shitcoins and the associated losses:

Finanzen aktuell

I was able to significantly increase my salary again by changing jobs. Over the years, I learned to sell myself well, to assess my value correctly and to negotiate hard. I also applied for jobs without need and was able to be selective. That was helpful. I was also always hard-working and had good references. And of course, I now live in a much more expensive city than I did a few years ago and have switched to an industry that pays much better (no, I'm not at $VOW (+1.96%) 😂). My gross annual salary is now around 150k, with all the trimmings. When I signed the contract, this gigantic sum humbled me. Especially since I started a good 15 years earlier with just 26k after my apprenticeship (see first part). But I tell it like it is: you get used to such sums very quickly.

But I still can't afford a higher savings rate. Now that I'm a dad, there are expenses for the child, financial compensation for mom, who is cutting back on her career, and soon costs for a larger apartment.

Conclusion

What advice can I give you? Get to grips with finances early on. Try something out. Treat yourself to something without throwing money out the window with both hands. Be crazy sometimes. Not everything always has to be rational. And most importantly: work on yourself, on your salary. Make yourself valuable. Perfect your craft and pay attention to what the job market is looking for. This is a much bigger lever than cashback, cheap food or a part-time job. And it increases your quality of life. I was able to increase my salary by around 12% per year on average. The $IWDA (+0.23%) can pack their bags.

Oh yes, of course you shouldn't blindly trust donkeys on the Internet or other dubious figures.

Kiss on the depot

Your donkey 💋

My "What if?" portfolio

Would have, would have, bicycle chain

Do you know this? You're sitting around like this, you're unemployed, you're 6 months behind with the rent, your landlord has given notice and your girlfriend is now with @Testo-Investor because he's a real doer. And while you get up because the bailiff is taking away the last armchair you were sitting on 5 minutes ago, you think to yourself "At least I don't have to organize a move anymore. But if I had invested in $BTC (-2.64%) then none of this would have happened".

We mourn missed opportunities. Opportunities that we didn't know about ("Bit... what?"), opportunities that we didn't believe in ("Somehow the old job is more comfortable, I don't need that bit more money and promotion opportunities") and opportunities that we screwed up ourselves ("lol, they're actually offering 100 euros for my $NVDA (+2.01%) shares. Take my stock, you fools"). But is it really that bad?

In 2022, I wrote my post "Why it makes sense to sell bad buys at a loss" https://app.getquin.com/activity/JMQwETSOoS . Back then, there wasn't even formatting for posts on getquin. We had to use shoddy tricks, which is why the umlauts in headlines looked so funny. But I digress. Anyway, I was busy selling positions and was in the middle of finding my strategy, which was still changing or at least concretizing over the last few years. As I continuously pushed ahead with my change in strategy, I sold some positions. Not primarily because I no longer believed in the positions, but because they no longer fitted into my strategy of a leaner and less expensive portfolio.

For example, a few weeks ago I sold $HBAR (+3.05%) with a loss of over 60%. Since then, the coin has risen by around 180%. I also sold Nvidia in January 2022 for EUR 26.315 (split-adjusted) - at least at a profit. The list goes on and on.

Do I regret the sales? Of course it hurts to see how much return has fallen by the wayside. But I stand behind my overriding goal of adjusting my strategy, so I have absolutely no regrets.

But sometimes I still ask myself: what if? And that's why I created my "What if?" portfolio on getquin. All my sales are listed there as purchases with the selling price at the time and the corresponding quantity. In other words, it tracks the price development since the sale. And with this portfolio feedback I give you an exclusive insight - including absolute values.

What do I learn from it?

• It's amazing that you've made it this far. I really tend to beat around the bush. And you almost seem to be in love with me, the way you're glued to my lips.
• In retrospect, some sales were really annoying, e.g. Nvidia
• Despite high returns recently, I'm not at all annoyed about the sales of $ADA (-3.31%), $HBAR (+3.05%) and $IOTA (-0.78%). Overall, the difference is only a few hundred euros and therefore peanuts in the portfolio. Moreover, the positions would still have been very far from the entry price
• Other positions performed rather mediocre to poorly, for example . $YOU (+0.31%), $MPW (+1.92%) or $BAYN (+0.17%). Here the sale definitely made sense
• Overall, I have sold relatively little of my portfolio. The sales currently only make up a fraction of my overall portfolio
• Of course, it should not be forgotten that I have reallocated the proceeds from my sales to my existing portfolio (crypto to crypto, shares and ETF to ETF) and a return was also generated here
• My "what if" portfolio achieved a TTWROR of under 20%, while my aggregated portfolio generated a TTWROR of over 30% in the same period
• It's damn difficult to time the market. I can't do it. So I don't even try

Looking back, I did everything right. But even if I hadn't, I wouldn't have any regrets. So don't fret about missed opportunities, stay true to yourself and focus on the future.

$MIOTA (-0.78%)

$IOTA (-0.78%)

There are probably 2x

In case anyone is wondering about the price increase today.

https://blog.iota.org/iota-rebased-fast-forward/

How I beat the MSCI World by over 25,000% over 13 years

Part 2: How I helped launder the Bitcoin that was stolen from me and lost it all a second time.

You can find the first part of my investment story (incl. background and TL;DR) here: https://getqu.in/JldknL/

Nice to have you back for part 2. Before I resolve the cliffhanger from part 1, let's first take a look at another topic:

Financial development until mid-20s

Of course, there was still a world outside of Bitcoin for me. I was able to increase my salary to a good 36,000 euros gross after 8 years (including training). Simply through growing experience and further training. That gave me room to breathe again. Insurance and savings were now appropriate for my salary. And slowly but surely, with my modest lifestyle, I didn't know what else I could sensibly spend my money on. So I went to my trusted bank advisor and occasionally invested four-figure sums in managed funds with poor returns and nasty initial charges. I also regularly put money into various fixed-term deposit products. My goal, if I had one at all, was to build up equity for a property for my own use. I also took out a private pension insurance policy.

I continued to do this until around 2018. In between, however, a lot happened in my crypto portfolio.

How I lost everything several times

In 2014, my Bitcoin exchange, Mt Gox, unfortunately went bankrupt due to a hack or something similar. I had everything on Mt Gox and never cashed out. My scarce 10 $BTC (-2.64%) and 1,000 - 2,000 USD were gone.

However, I didn't want to be discouraged by this and shortly afterwards started to build up a new portfolio on BTC-e, another crypto exchange. I also bought altcoins there for the first time. Of course, again without having understood anything. I seriously imagined that any coins worth billions could rise to a unit value like Bitcoin. I had never heard of market capitalization 🤦.

Of course, I hadn't learned anything from Mt. Gox and left all my coins on BTC-e. It came as it had to. The US Justice Department shut down BTC-e in 2017. Reason: BTC-e was involved in the money laundering of Mt Gox coins 😂. You can't make this stuff up. I helped launder my own stolen coins, so to speak 😅 and ended up losing everything twice.

More stupid decisions

Everything? Not quite. BTC-e came back as WEX.nz. Former BTC-e customers had the chance to get some of their former deposits back. So I was able to recover at least some of my coins.

As was to be expected, WEX.nz also disappeared from the scene without a trace a short time later. But in the meantime, I had finally learned my lesson. My coins were already safely stored on my hardware wallet at the time. At the same time, I decided to invest a few thousand euros in Bitcoin and randomly selected altcoins such as $ETH (-2.64%), $DASH (-1.67%), $XRP (-2.06%) and $IOTA (-0.78%) to invest. Of course, I still didn't understand what I was actually doing. I used Kraken and Binance as crypto exchanges.

This was also the time of ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings). Every fool created their own cryptocurrency and tried to sell it to the people with wild promises. Of course, I was also tempted by the quick money 🤦. I invested around 1,000 euros in the tokens of a crypto AI project (cryptics.tech), which promised to use AI to predict crypto price movements with sufficient accuracy to enable profitable trading. I actually traded for a few months following the AI's recommendations. But this project soon disappeared - along with my 1,000 euros.

As you can see, I'm pretty good at acting first and thinking later. Of course, this doesn't stop in part 3 either. But then it's even more fun, because I've climbed the ladder in the meantime, increased my salary and was able to make stupid decisions with more money. I followed in the footsteps of my bank advisor, so to speak 🚀

You can now find the third part here: https://getqu.in/sfTZ3P/

Shifting the mortal remains of the Shitcoins $IOTA (-0.78%) (Idiota) and $HBAR (+3.05%) (weed) into the slightly smaller Shitcoin $ETH (-2.64%) . As always against the recommendation of the getquin community, which would have considered an investment in $BTC (-2.64%) would have made more sense 👍

https://getqu.in/HOakoX/

Pictured here: Only half of my new $ETH (-2.64%) in the depot

Get rid of the rotten eggs!

I have watched the tragedy of $IOTA (-0.78%) and $HBAR (+3.05%) long enough now. I reactivated my Binance account yesterday and will sell the two cryptos. Even if they were to increase tenfold (which I don't believe they will), I would just about recoup my investment. Then I'd rather invest in $ETH (-2.64%) and $BTC (-2.64%) then.

But where exactly should I reallocate? Normally I would put everything into $BTC (-2.64%) to shift. But I already have 6 figures in there. In $ETH (-2.64%) only 4 digits. The effects of $ETH (-2.64%) would therefore be greater. However, this is only a mini position anyway.

Vote!

😭 Of course in $BTC (-2.64%)

😂 Naturally in $ETH (-2.64%)

♥️ Just do 50:50 (and pay the withdrawal fee twice)

🚀 Oh donkey. Don't be so conservative! You're back on Binance? I've written a coin in the comments that will help you recoup your loss in no time. Trust me.

I'm into crypto right now and these 3 are on my watchlist along with Bitcoin and Ethereum. What do you guys think about it? See a lot of potential

IOTA up +45% since the shorts rose by 2,500% overnight.

Things are starting to get interesting 🧐

Let's see when the bears cover their shorts to limit the loss.

What do you think 🤔

Shorts on IOTA have risen ~2,500% overnight out of nowhere and are higher than ever before.

However, the price has risen by 25%.

Perhaps interesting for @monchella

From now on you also have insight into my crypto portfolio! 🙏🏼

I personally got into this asset class rather late in April. Had it on my radar since December, but was not yet familiar with the apps where you can trade them. Now I mainly use Binance and for a small coin KuCoin. The BUX token.

How many of you also hold cryptocurrencies and what are the reasons if you are not yet?