I think the best thing about that period for those of us who were new is that we learned a lot about hype. Yes, I also lost a lot, and won some, and in the end I think it was a net loss if you count in all the hours and days put into research and all that. So never mind, we lost time and money but this made me immune to all the memecoin and defi and now nft hype, and just focus into saving as much Bitcoin as possible.
Research is impossible if you have a mindset that projects are honest when they're mostly not.
I was here during 2013/2014 boom and bust as well and I was here during 2017 peak and 2018 bust as well, I lived through many of them, I was here in march 2020 when it crashed and everyone panicked as well as seen it go above ATH in the same year as well.
So, I have seen multiple times when bitcoin price crashed like crazy and then increased in price a lot as well. I can't say that it was easy to handle all those times but the more you live them the more you realize "this drop is actually a great place to buy".
I know that many people feel like they will lose a lot of money if they keep their coins, but keep buying bitcoin whenever it drops was the method I managed to make my investment grow. It takes time for people to learn this, they may not be able to do it on first time it happens, or maybe even second time but come third time they are ready more than ever.