OP, it's a risk, but it has paid off handsomely for me and many others.

Don't do the trading route though.  If you lose it, you lose it all.  If you go hardware and lose it, then at least you have the hardware to sell back.

Also, don't worry about the Scrypt ASICs.  The sheep love to bleat about them, but they are still a pipedream from the investor pov.  No-one wants to invest millions into a device which plays in a market where there are whales waiting to pull the rug out from under them.  The second LTC hit $40 a month or two ago there were massive sells (hundreds of thousands of LTC) that went up.  LTC has yet to recover.  Keep that in mind.