A few years back, when ASICMiner came onto the scene hardcore, I was chatting with someone of arguable importance, and he made the point "You know, if you believe in this Bitcoin stuff, you should really spend some of it to (blah blah blah turn the wheels of the economy)..."
Blew 300 Bitcorns on something that never materialized. Gone. Scammed.
With the benefit of hindsight, I really should have stuck to my guns, and my gut, that were telling me "But HODLing is a good strategy too, but this dude is smart, so... fuck..."
KnowwhatImean ?
Sheeit.
I feel you.
When btc was not even at 400$ I took some money to buy 5 of them even though I was just a student at that time so that was a big investment for me.
Few months after I had a similar "seemgoodopportunity" and saw 4 of those 5 btc leaving me without returning ever.
If I had the guts to keep them... So yeah knowwhatyoumean
Different paths had different results. I made a killing on antminer S1 hardware (huge btc/btc gains, but in terms of fiat/fiat during 2014 it was less impressive but still a solid profit) and some well-timed GPU/ASIC purchases while $0.12/kwh was considered *cheap*.
however, i also put several bitcoins towards a K16 avalon groupbuy and got burned on 100% of that investment. Same for investing in asicminer/friedcat (hindsight, right?)