I'm fourty years old and just learning about cryptocurrencies, isn't it too late? If anyone asks this question, I will quote a favorite Arabic saying as an answer: learn from the cradle to the grave.

Utlubul ilma minal mahdi ilal lahdi, reads the Arabic saying. It's a message to never stop learning for the rest of our lives. Especially if it can improve the quality of life, either materially or immaterially.

This includes the crypto world, which I have actually known since the Bitcoin boom became a news topic about 10 years ago. But at that time I was still not interested and even tended to be skeptical, typical of most of us every time we hear something new.

Instead of delving into crypto, I chose to learn about stocks. I attended the capital market workshop organized by the local branch of the Indonesia Stock Exchange Gallery, and then began to dive into the world of investment while trading.

My assets have always grown since I bought my first shares after attending the workshop. The percentage cannot be considered small for a beginner who is self-taught armed with Google, never once attended a seminar or entered a paid group.

But there was one thing that always bothered me every time I traded stocks. If the share price goes up and then I sell it, the feeling of joy is mixed with regret.

Why? Because I have to let go of a company that I've researched carefully, even staying up late at night to dig up information and make comparison tables. If I want to buy them again, the price has risen very high.

For example, TMAS stock is still my biggest regret so far. Between the end of 2019 and mid-2020, I routinely bought this stock in the range of IDR 100 - 110 until I accumulated several hundred lots.

Do you know what the price is now? It is IDR 138. It must be noted that this is the price after the stock split in May 2023 with a ratio of 1:10. This means that the price before the stock split was IDR 13,800.

From IDR 100 to IDR 13,000, how much profit should I have made if I had kept TMAS shares since 2019? Unfortunately, as soon as I felt that I had made a good profit, I sold it and the price kept going up and up.

Investing in Stocks, Trading in Crypto

From this experience, I came to the conclusion that stocks are more suitable as a long-term investment instrument. Especially because I am the type of person who only wants to buy stocks of companies with good fundamentals and never glances at fried stocks.

Now, for developing funds, aka trading, I think the crypto exchange is a more appropriate vehicle. First and foremost because crypto coins are digital assets that, many of them, are not linked to anything in the real world. Especially memecoins.

Unlike shares, which are proof of ownership of a company, crypto coins are just digital bits that will remain forever in the global internet network. They only become real things when they are sold and the fiat money from the sale is withdrawn from an ATM.

Selling crypto coins or tokens whose prices have jumped thousands of percent will not cause me any regret. Because there are still many other crypto coins or tokens that offer equally good opportunities and they continue to appear from time to time.

Missing Bitcoin, which is now worth hundred thousands USD, for example, there is still Solana, whose price is still in the range of 200 USD. Or you can also save second layer coins such as Arbitrum and Polygon, even focus on memecoins as trading material.

Selling PEPE which has risen 100%, for example, why regret it if it means our capital has doubled? Then just look for other potential memecoins that will never run out. Moreover, creating tokens in Pump.fun is as easy as pressing the mouse.

Unlike TMAS shares where until now I still haven't found a similar potential company with a price like when it was still priced at IDR 100 a piece. There are indeed some good shipping companies on the stock exchange, but there are none like TMAS in the period of late 2019 to mid-2020 so far.

So, my thinking has now changed a bit. If previously trading and investing both used stock instruments, from now on the investment remains in stocks but the trading is on crypto exchanges.

Develop Funds for Investment

One thing that I think must be noted, our real asset is the fiat money that is used as capital for crypto trading. Because that is still the main medium of exchange in everyday life.

Moreover, I live in a remote village where only fiat is known. If I want to buy durian in a pick-up for IDR 1.5 million, for example, I can't pay the seller with half a Solana. All he wants is 150 pieces of IDR 100,000 bill or 300 pcs. of IDR 50,000 bill or a combination of both.

So, the goal of crypto trading for me is to grow the capital deposited on the platform many times over. Coins and tokens may change, as well as the exchange media used, the most important thing is that in the end the initial capital grows and continues to multiply.

From a capital of IDR 1 million, for example, how to make it in a year to IDR 10 million and even more if possible. The coins and tokens can be anything, you want to use Jupiter or whatever, the important thing is that the balance in Phantom or Metamask or other digital wallets continues to multiply.

Likewise, the strategy used, you can use whatever is most important to make a profit. Want to trade perpetuals every day, use the swap method to take advantage of rising and falling prices, or collecting cheap memecoins that are considered potential like DOGE and keep them until the price jumps, everything is valid.

Then no less important is the allocation of profit results. Do not all of them folded into trading capital, but also not entirely stored in the form of coins that in the long run promise maximum profit.

Just like in the world of stocks, every profit made must be allocated with a certain percentage. For example, 50% to be played back as additional trading capital, 30% to be stored in major coins such as Solana, then the remaining 20% let it settle in a balance that can be withdrawn at any time into fiat money.

I personally plan to set aside some of my crypto trading profits to pay for my favorite stocks. This way, the purpose of crypto trading is purely to develop funds that are eventually invested in stocks of good companies.

Why is that?

Because holding stocks offers the side benefit of dividends, something that is not available when holding crypto coins. In Indonesia, it is normal to see a company regularly pay dividends with a yield of around 7% per year, some of them even 10% per year.

Yes, I know there is something similar in crypto too. Namely by utilizing the staking feature on the exchange or wallet. But in my view, stock dividend yield is still superior to APY crypto staking.

As for the potential for price increases, stocks also have that opportunity. Remember how TMAS jumped from IDR 100 to IDR 13,000 in 4 years. Then PANI experienced a 218.41% year to date increase. From IDR 5,025 on January 2, 2024, to IDR 16,000 as of December 30, 2024.

I haven't set the allocation percentage yet. But my target is not grandiose, which is to collect shares whose total dividends are enough for daily living expenses.