Huh?

How could have the start of the year been bad, unless you started investing at that time?  You seem to be talking arbitrarily when you pick a high price point as your starting point?  I recall that Jorge Stofli used to do that all the fucking time.  Throughout a decent period of 2014 and even into 2015, he would talk about bitcoin's history as if the whole of bitcoin started from November 2013 - which is ridiculous.

In the first nearly 3 weeks of this calendar year, BTC prices were bouncing between about $12k and $17k.   Of course, BTC prices have not returned to those levels, so ifyou started buying in the beginning of this year, then maybe you are going to feel a bit nervous and underwater. 

However, if you had been buying any time before December 2017, you are likely going to feel a bit more comfortable, even though anyone who started investing in bitcoin in the past six months, might still be feeling somewhat uncomfortable, because they are still just getting used to bitcoin and having had experienced a lot of BTC price volatility in the past 6 months.

I cannot really call the beginning of this year as a bad thing, if you consider the beginning of the year in context, and I suppose the beginning of this year could be considered as starting at a handicap..., perhaps?