I am in the same boat as the op. I can remember talking about bitcoin years ago and not doing anything about it. Then a couple of years ago started going on faucets to start off. I should of just started buying then as the hours wasted on faucets didn't equal what I could of bought with an hours pay. As for alt coins all that needs to happen is for a coin to become more mainstream than bitcoin. We are already seeing this with eth and people who missed the original bitcoin voyage are on that one