My Accidental Bitcoin Journey Ended Tonight

I originally bought my first Bitcoins in 2012, while living in Europe, as a means for buying substances of ill repute. At any given time, I had several of them in an online wallet (don’t even remember where). I eventually stopped partying so much, but still had 3-4 laying around. By the time I moved back to the US in 2015, I remembered the wallet and was shocked to see that what was originally maybe $50 worth of coins had turned into something like $1500. I didn’t understand it, but that is when I started reading more about it. I would talk about it with friends and try to convince them to buy. I eventually built my stack up to about 7 bitcoins by late 2017. As the price soared, I kept imagining my life as a millionaire. When the crash happened, I forgot all about its cyclic nature and panicked, selling 4 of them around the $7K mark. I invested that $30K and left the 3 remaining bitcoins in my wallet. And they stayed there for 6 more years. In 2023, I sold another one for about $25K to help pay for my wedding. At that point I vowed to not sell my last 2 until it mooned. Today, my wife and I did something we never thought possible - we made an offer on an investment property. It was accepted tonight and I sold my last two remaining bitcoins, for just shy of $200K so that I had the funds for a down payment.

Maybe I played the game horribly. Maybe I would have $700K worth of bitcoin if I stuck to my original plan of keeping 7 bitcoins. I don’t know. Feels pretty good to turn a pretty small investment into a 25% down payment on an investment property though.

I’ll continue to occasionally buy bitcoin after this, but I recognize that I may never afford to ever get close to owning 1 BTC ever again, let alone multiple. But I’m ok with it. I got a debt-free wedding and an investment property out of it. I’m happy.

Just a little story to say that it’s ok to use your bitcoin to fund your life along the way. It’s likely part of the journey. Be well.

Edit: I’m blown away by all the responses! I honestly expected it to be 80% negative. So, thank you to those well wishers. I honestly get and understand the negative sentiment. I found myself in an unbelievably lucky position and squandered it all away (according to naysayers). I will continue to believe in and buy bitcoin. There’s still plenty of time to invest in it as a retirement option. I wanted passive income and diversification, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Cheers.

Edit 2: Lots of comments/questions about taxes. Yes, it’s all capital gains. Yes, we are covered. Long story short, my wife worked for a major tech company that paid her in stock as part of her salary. Instead of cashing her shares every month, she kept them and lived off just her salary. That stock tanked 3 years ago and has lost 70+% of its value. She finally sold yesterday so that we can write off her losses against my gains.