Borrowing against your bitcoin doesn't make selling disappear. In many cases, it changes when you sell and how much bitcoin the future sale requires.

A bitcoin-backed loan gives you dollars today, but it also creates a dollar-denominated principal balance plus interest. Unless you have other cash to repay it, you've delayed the sale until later. If bitcoin appreciates faster than the loan's total cost, you may need to sell less bitcoin to repay the debt. If it doesn't, the trade gets worse.

The loan also introduces a risk that a normal sale doesn't: your collateral is marked to market. A deep price decline can require you to add bitcoin quickly or face liquidation at exactly the wrong time. You also give a lender some control over an asset you may have spent years accumulating.

That doesn't make borrowing inherently bad. It means “never sell” is an incomplete plan. Before considering a bitcoin-backed loan, write down three funding sources: one for the principal, one for every interest payment, and one for additional collateral during a sharp drawdown. If any box depends only on bitcoin going up, you don't have a repayment plan. You have a price bet.