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.