Nearly everybody who is in the market for some time now has lost money in it. In germany we say "Lehrgeld" ("education-money") ;-) What I mean with that: It's still a very young market and even if we lose some money there are good chances that we also see the good opportunities early and make it more than just back. In 20 years we will have a lot of good stories about this wild-west-market ;-)
Darn right we will! Just think of the stories the Bitcoin early-adopters will be bending ears with in 2020, when "blockchain" is mainstreamed.
"Lehrgeld" is a good way of thinking about it. It dovetails with the old-fashioned English term "the school of hard knocks."
heh, pray for the guy who threw his hard drive in trash. It had a BTC wallet with 7500BTC