Looking for feedbacks on my strategy

I’ve been stacking up BTC since 2020, not really DCAing but always trying to buy the dip with whatever I had left from my salary (which, as a uni student who moves around, isn’t really consistent). During the last cycle, which I was sure would set a new ATH, I realized that I missed an opportunity of a lifetime, which doesn’t come very often. Don’t get me wrong, I was up (and still am) on my position, but even a 100% return (which is huge, I know) does not mean big money in my case, as I don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars invested.

So I decided that, even if I still continue to invest on a monthly basis in BTC, I would be ready for the next ATH, which means trying to leverage it. Now, I’m not that crazy, or I don’t have enough courage — whatever you prefer — to risk my savings to buy leveraged BTC, as I couldn’t handle such a huge loss. Since I’m really into stocks and have also dealt with options, I thought that this might be the perfect fit for me. I’m willing to lose the premium as long as I understand the risk and know that it cannot bankrupt me.

My first thought was to get some options of (Micro)Strategy, but these are way too expensive. One LEAP (Jan 2028) is about 5k, which is a little bit too much for me for a single contract. So I thought of MARA Holdings, which has a lower stock price and therefore lower premiums on LEAPS (like 300–400 bucks). I understand that this also implies that my gains would be smaller. The main problem is the high implied volatility — about 95% for MARA and around 70% for Strategy — which almost makes it not worth buying the options instead of BTC itself. I realized that I could try going for the IBIT ETF stock options, with an implied volatility of about 50%. Still high, but it doesn’t eat up all the potential gains and allows you to leverage a bit by “just” risking the premium.

So let’s look at the following scenario: if BTC were to reach the old ATH (which I actually think will be surpassed in the next cycle), then the IBIT ETF would gain about +90% (same as BTC from today’s price). Based on the option I buy, it should return about 150%. This would allow me to leverage the trade by roughly 1.5x to 2x if we reach new highs. This scenario refers to an option expiring in January 2028 (which costs about 1200 bucks, depending on the strike price).

I’m confident that BTC will keep rising, and until now I didn’t care too much as I kept stacking, but if I pursue this strategy I need to be confident about the timeframe. I’m no magician, which is why I would buy LEAPS and not short term options, to increase the probability of success.

I’ve been trying to look at the chart and find similarities between past cycles and halvings. BTC has always peaked about 545–570 days after the halving (~18 months), and this has been quite consistent. It has also usually reached a bottom after a new ATH in about one year (360–380 days), which would coincide with November 2026. Typically, after reaching the bottom, BTC tends to stagnate or accumulate for about a year before gaining momentum ahead of the next halving.

I’m confident that from now on BTC will not go much lower than the 60k level we already touched, so if I were to buy BTC itself I wouldn’t be too worried. But when it comes to options, time is your enemy. Thefore I´m not sure wether to buy LEAPS in this period or wait for the end of 2026. Also the implied volatility scares me a little, for IBIT the average is at about 40% making the current 50% expensive, but not extremly.

I’m pretty sure many of you in this community will just suggest I keep buying BTC and avoid making things too complex or risky with options, but I would really appreciate some feedback, thoughts, and suggestions.

Thanks!