My buddy asked why I never sell my crypto and I didn't have a good answer until recently

So, I was at a friend's place playing a game on his PS5 last weekend and crypto came up like it always does. He's been asking about getting in for a while. At some point he goes "wait, you've been holding for years and never cashed any of it out? what's the point then?" Caught me off guard, so I mumbled something about waiting for the next cycle and we moved on.

But it stuck with me, because I have sold before. Winter of last year my boiler went out and I needed cash fast, so I sold a chunk of BTC to cover the repair. Felt fine at the time but I'd rather still have those coins as I am always hoping for BTC to go up lol.

After that I looked into what else you can do. Had heard of borrowing against your crypto but never bothered to try it tbh. Checked out a few platforms (Coinbase and a couple others) before settling on Nexo. Felt the most straightforward and the rates worked out fine.

Last time something came up I pulled a small line against my holdings, paid it back from my paycheck over a few months, BTC stayed intact the whole time.

That's the answer I should've given him. You don't actually have to choose between holding and using the money. Still kinda bitter I didn't figure this out before the boiler crisis lol.

So how do you guys handle it? Sell along the way, hold no matter what, or borrow against it like I ended up doing? If borrowing, where do you borrow?