In essence in early 2013, I was too busy gazing at my own navel and other aspects of my own real life, and even though I had heard the word bitcoin several times before, the reality of the matter is that to the best of my recollection, I did not really notice any meaningful live details about bitcoin until sometime in November 2013.....
Yeah, and I was aware of (and even following) Bitcoin for something like a year before I bought in too. And today, some other person is just becoming aware of Bitcoin - and they'll buy some months down the road at a large increment in price. And _they'll_ score a hundred-bagger. If this thing goes where I'm 80% convinced it is headed, we have several orders of magnitude to go. Still opportunity for riches for everyone.
If _we_ don't F it up.
And if we are capable of F-ing it up, it wasn't the right solution anyhow.
Actually, I think I agree with your every sentiment in this post.... and the longterm odds seem to be pretty good for bitcoin, whether it is 80% or some other number in that ball park.
Surely, bitcoin could regress in various ways, but I did get involved on the cusp of considerable worry about government regulation being a potential death knell or at least something that could really and meaningfully stifle expansion.
These days, the regulatory threat, to the extent it exists, seems to be a lot more indirect than what had been previously considered.
Furthermore, initially, I had been thinking that if I get into this thing (bitcoin), what are my liquidation possibilities and potential exit strategies.
Even though liquidation avenues may not have been good for bitcoin in the short term, over 2014 and 2015, these building of liquidation avenues are likely very valuable for bitcoin's long term prospects and just its becoming known and useful in a variety of ways for a large number of people in all corners of the world. Yep, probably, we are going to see a lot more liquidation options and even abilities to use cell phone interface in poor countries, which will bring additional liquidation and utility to bitcoin.