Life 10 years after the big bitcoin rally

I thought I'd share my journey and thoughts. I was into bitcoin relatively early (2012) and was fortunate enough to have been a hodler into the 2017 rally and exited at the top. I've been lucky enough to make good investments from bitcoin into real estate and some startups and stocks.

Life almost 10 years later has been comfortable and all but a dream. Reconstructing what brought me here, I think it would be harder now than before despite it "looking" more attainable.

Cryptocurrency which is more popular than ever now has become this dragon investor's chase. Away from the milieu of scams and scammers, earnest investors are hoping for the next big rally but I don't see anyone really planning beyond their imagined gains in personal and public interactions.

As a true believer in the concept of Bitcoin I never sold even after the first few rallies to $1,000 even though I was up almost 80x when that first happened. I regularly bought the dips on occasion up until 2015, because I had conviction in blockchain and bitcoin, not because I just wanted to get rich. Getting rich was the consequence of the conviction.

I was a paper millionaire and still going to work in 2016.

When I sold the majority of my bitcoin, I still went to work. I didn't make any major lifestyle changes and instead did research on real estate, taxes, stocks and where to invest fiat. When I did quit a few months later it was non-climatic.

I held my stance and stayed away from the ICOs and exchange explosion and just kept watching from the distance. I wasn't tempted by any of it because I already made a plan in my last months at work and chose to stick to it. I'm certain that saved me because some of my friends who were also believers lost it all in the ruckus by chasing the dragon and thinking they'd go from millionaire to billionaire in the same way. Sometimes, most times, it just happens once and it's best to call it luck and get out. So make a plan for the one time and stick to it.