I sold everything and cashed out. But I'm OK and have no regrets!

Yes this is a personal story. But I believe someone who finds himself/herself in a similar position can benefit from my reasoning or simply from knowing they are not alone in this.

So, I thought I was well positioned, not overexposed at all. I had a place to live, me and my life partner had modest but stable sources of income, our family members were doing okay too. Even when the market started going down since November, we agreed that we wouldnt be forced to touch our portfolio until the next bull if ever.

Our finances were well balanced: some savings for the rainy day, enough stable coins for buying a potential crypto crash, and crypto holdings that would make significant returns in the next bull run.

Then a fucking war started in my city (Eastern Ukraine).

I didn't see it at first, the realization was gradual: even though I was relatively lucky to be physically unharmed and managed to get to safety with my family, my household's finances took a heavy blow:

1. Even though I still technically own a place in my home city, it's practically unlivable because of the constant shelling that will continue God knows how long — hence the need to rent for an extended period of time or buy a small place.

2. Most of our relatives lost their jobs and homes as well, it's on me and my wife to support their existence.

Due to this, in 5 months we quickly burned through our rainy day savings. Habitually, we kept buying the sweet dips since March with dedicated stables, but then started cashing out the stables into paper fiat.

Now to present day. I bought a flat instead of Bitcoins, Ethereums and such... I had to. It sucks so much, I waited for these prices to come, but a roof over our heads has obviously become the first priority.

That took out all of the stables and emergency fund, and I'm suddenly left with no savings but a volatile portfolio. The investment we didn't intend to sell within 5-10 years suddenly became our life savings. And altcoins in a bear market is no place for life savings.

In these new circumstances, I could wait for the prices to recover, but that would be just wishful thinking. I could not afford to lose even 10% of what was left. And I knew I would need to cash out gradually in a month, in 3 months or in a year.

So I sold everything the other day, at these prices, some bags -80% from the purchase price.

And I will not be able to invest again until my wife and I settle and find decent jobs in the new location, until our closest relatives get back on their feet financially, until we accumulate a new little emergency fund, and of course until this fucking barbaric invasion is repelled. This all may take a while.

Investing before all of these conditions are met would not be investing, as I might end up force selling again. It would be trading which is a form of gambling.

So here I am, almost a no-coiner (maybe around 1% is left in alts that take time to unstake and shitcoins that cost almost nothing) having to sit out this crash. I'm at peace with this even if the market recovers tomorrow — I couldn't have known and couldn't afford to lose more. It was kind of a stop loss decision for me.

Overall, crypto has been generous to me and I'm extremely grateful for the opportunities I was given.

I hope none of you will ever end up a forced seller. To make sure — never invest more than you are prepared to lose. And even if you have to force sell, don't beat yourself up over it. Life goes on, there will be other bulls and bears and crabs - crypto won't go anywhere.

Thank you for bearing with me!