My letter reads:
* AAPL & AMZN, long hold
* Leicester City, 2015-16 English Premier League
* It is your L3 nerve root. Get a second MRI
* Move to New Zealand in 2019
* AAPL & AMZN, long hold
* Leicester City, 2015-16 English Premier League
* It is your L3 nerve root. Get a second MRI
* Move to New Zealand in 2019
If you bought and held (which requires keeping the keys secret against a lot of attacks and not losing them), and also managed to pick the peak to sell at, and managed to sell without being scammed, exit-scammed by the exchange, or having your account locked, then yes you could have made a lot of money. Because there's a lot of risk along the way.
Piece of paper in a safety deposit box (maybe even at 2-3 different banks) would do this just fine, but you'd have to know it was going to be worthwhile enough to have bothered.
> managed to pick the peak to sell at
Just sell bits of it here and there to spread the risk around.
Leaving this as a memo to my future self.
Travel broadens the mind. There’s a profound truth in this cliché that is better experienced than explained. If you have an opportunity to live in a land not of your birth, take it.
Simply being resident overseas doesn’t terminate US citizenship; you can’t lose it accidentally (although you can lose your passport; pro tip: don’t). Taxation, especially inadvertent liability for double taxation on income, is a can of worms though, and it might limit where you live & work to nations that have an income tax treaty with the US. That is still much of the planet, but there are demons in the details so rather than attempt to interpret the smorgasbord of IRS regulations and treaties for you I’d recommend obtaining advice from an international tax professional, it’ll be worth it.
However you’ll find all of these issues pale into comparison with the logistics of finding somewhere to live, opening a bank account, maintaining resident alien status with employment rights, registering (and remaining in regulatory compliance) with local governmental entities, finding work/society and so on in another country and culture and maybe even different language and alphabet.
I’ve done this 𝖿̶𝗈̶𝗎̶𝗋̶ five times now. What we leave behind is the least of the problem. Fortunately, I don’t ever see it as a problem. It’s always been an incredible adventure.