[editet out]
Well, JJG, I will say it. I'm jealous. Jealous of you, and many other early adopters, and most of the WO brothers. Jealous in a good way. I love you all (no homo) and wish you the very best. As much as I understand the inner workings of Bitcoin (and that was the main force that drove me to it), I can't help but admitting that I could have done better. Much better. I had the fiat. Lots of fiat. A good part of which I used to buy BTC. But not when I should have. I waited, and ended up buying much less than I could have bought. Sometimes we must take risks. And not just take risks, but take them at the right time. Because if you time it wrongly, you end up risking more for less. So, hats off to you guys 'n' gals, you deserve it.
It's cash. That's the beauty of it. You don't need to know who I am, I don't need to know who you are. Add to this the ability to transact over-the-air, via a channel that only needs to be able to transfer information, and you're entering Star Trek territory. You're Captain Kirk and I'm Scotty and we're thousands of miles away from each other and we're beaming up cash to each other. It's as clean and pure as it gets. And the more you understand how it all works, the more it sucks you in. It's like a beautiful woman you just can't take your eyes off of. And she wants you too. She accepts you for who you are...
No, I'm not smoking leaves from the elephant garden, although it sounds like it. The second time I felt so excited about something was when I watched a BBC documentary about Fermat's Last Theorem. The next day I called BBC and asked for the transcript (there was no YouTube at the time), which they kindly sent me. Such mathematical theorems may sound boring and pointless to most of us, but they really are maps. They're mapping the universe. It's like being in a pitch-black room without a single clue of what's inside. So you start to feel the objects, forming some images in your mind, of their shapes, their function, their significance. And at some rare moments during the course of this exploration, a brilliant mind comes along and flicks a switch, which illuminates part of the room, helping you see the treasures that exist right next to you, waiting to be harnessed, to be understood. Satoshi Nakamoto helped illuminate part of that room and gave us this brilliant mathematical construct called Bitcoin. That's the way I see it anyway...
As for Lambos, hookers and blow, this is something that may happen, but not just yet. Not for me. My stash's current value is far too small to be spending it on such indulgences. Their time will come, but we're (I'm) not there just yet. Regardless of where this path will lead us, though, I feel lucky and blessed to be part of this. Let the riches come when they should (fully agree with your "why not both" comment), but let that not be a target, but a consequence.
I can relate to that. When I decided to go full in Sept 2017, I realized the risk that I try to catch a train at the last station from where it won't go any further. But I took the risk and don't regret about my choice. I think it is obvious that the exponential growth from below $1 to 20K$ in 8 years is not possible to be repeated in our lifetime. Back then even one buyer with several hundred bucks could drive the price up by 10%. Honestly, I find the expectations for future growth, by comparing to the previous peaks, ridiculous. Including Plan B, C or whatever. I think that in the years to come, we can realistically expect a new ATH between $40K and $50K. It is still possible to have a peak above 100K, but it would be brief. For prices in $300K-400K area we should probably wait another 4-5 years. Overall, if anyone entered like me at prices around $4-5K, in 8 years the profit would probably be like 100x, compared to > 20 000x for the same time interval 2009-2017. Of course, itt is still a very good profit to live with. The problem is that Bitcoin can do anything else with the same probability in the years to come. Nothing is guaranteed. Probably the best idea is to cash out something on the way up as an insurance of another long bear market.