I've been wanting to type this up for a while but with so many new investors here now it seems like the best time where maybe someone can actually learn from my pains. I'll keep the back story short and in bullet points.

• 2011 – Went to college, out on my own in residence studying finance. I had some shared classes with IT kids and learned about bitcoin. Was looking to make fast cash and not live like shit on my student loan's allocation for living expenses.
• Bought into BTC, I thought I remembered it coming up to around $37 Canadian but I had to buy a VPN and there was a bunch of bullshit, it was not as easy as it is today. I do remember I had to think up a zip code and the only one I knew was 90210. ^{I used the money from my student loan, a lot of it.}
• Bitcoin dropped to $1 so quickly and fucked around there for over a year, I couldn't sell and had to move out of residence and back home with my family.
• My family was terrible lol, I mean I was an idiot so I get it, but my mother was SURE I was going to jail for currency manipulation and my father kept saying it was roller coaster tycoon money. Randomly he'd get pissed and ask me about my virtual theme park. 0/10 not a good time.
• Got into the mindset that if I ever came close to my original investment again I was pulling out and never looking back.
• When I saw it around $100 I took that chance and left, leaving the rest of those fools holding the bag

Below is my entry and exit

https://preview.redd.it/637i9nih01d71.jpg?width=827&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f0ffb25b84d65c4737244f27035019e4f792fda5

As you can see by the chart I did kinda ride it for a couple days and got into a little bit of a hold mindset, but the market has a way of shaking you out if you're wavering. It dipped a little and I was like NO FUCK THIS thinking it would be another year or so of bullshit. But it was a fake out.. it skyrocketed to $1,000 very soon.

And the rest is history regarding BTC market. BTC is unique and your alts are probably definitely not going to reach 50k, not with today's value at least.. with massive inflation maybe. But the song and dance is the same, everything is a mind-fuck from the market to the way your friends and family will often react.

I paid off my student loan and left college with a 4 year degree and no debt, so it isn't actually a sad story. That's a dream for a lot of millennials like me. I have a fantastic, high paying job and have stayed in the crypto space watching and picking up new projects early on. I haven't sold anything since that day 8 years ago and my portfolio is pretty fantastic.

Things I learned…

• The term "Don't invest more than you can afford to lose" isn't just so people don't starve to death or have to move in with their parents. It's also because you get into a "Fuck, as soon as I have any money in this, I'm out. As soon as I make my money back.. I'm out." You lose complete sight of why you picked this project to begin with and you're going to get shook out and you're probably going to regret it. Money you can happily lose, is money you can get ride to riches.
• Tune out your friends and family, if they don't understand. If you're an adult, if you're only investing what you can afford to lose — don't even fuckin' tell them if you don't want to. Would you say "Oh hey dad, donated $10 to Netflix this month" or "Hey aunt tracy, I spent $80 on Starbucks frappes in April!". Don't worry about telling people if their reaction stresses you out.
• Your schedule is your lifestyle, it's not the market. I won't get into profit shaving because that's another topic for another day but realistically who cares if the market is up or down, are you 55 years old? Are you trying to do your last investment play shortly? Are you looking dead in the eyes at life changing money? The market can't control your life. Let it do what it does and shake out the people who are failing at the first two points.
• Elon Musk is just a temporary vililian figure head, back then it was Bill Gates. There will be others.
• Don't be OCD about crypto dust and whole numbers, I would like the crypto dust I donated to the selfie editor back in the day lol, it could haunt you.

Funny/painful tidbits from my past

• I used a different forum but in 2012 I paid someone 20 bitcoins to edit my selfie for my facebook profile. This was pre snapchat filters. Those 20BTC's would be worth $651,058 at today's price and much more at peak.
• In that transaction I had almost 25 BTC left on that exchange and in the spirit of cleanliness I sent all 24.879 BTC, so 651k and $158,710.45 tip.
• I forgot about this/mentally blocked it out to protect myself from dying of shame and in 2018-2019 I finally got on this exchange where I knew I had about 25BTC and discovered it. Spent the next day in bed and then went to a therapist to process everything.
• My parents never apologized or acknowledged the situation, even as BTC went wild and the media was talking about it frequently, never even a "Hey, didn't you used to have that?"
• One exchange I can vividly remember offered us 5 BTC to transfer our holdings there, I find that amusing because it would be like idk.. 150k now lol imagine?
• Don't tell the CRA (IRS) but I never paid tax on my withdraw and it never came up, maybe they didn't know enough about crypto yet? I also wasn't filing taxes then I don't think. But I've been low key expecting it will come up at some point.

I hope this helps someone, I apologize if you've heard too many clips of my story over the past few months in comments, I've been working through it lmao. Feels better to type it all out, yes it is probably moon-farming so don't feel bad wanting to say so in the comments. What an opportunity to use the 10's of millions I skipped out on for $0.90 in upvotes. Talk about a long-con. Everyone who's been here for a cycle has a story with similarities and I'd love to hear them.