The very first time someone mentioned "Bitcoin" to me, I had absolutely no idea what it was and in the first 15 minutes or so felt like I ended up in a masterclass that simultaneously covered economics, advanced math and IT all at once. We were talking about governments and (illegitimate) sanctions that cut off banks from the global connection and consequent devastating effects it has to millions of people all around the world, which some that follow these posts frequently already know is a huge personal interest of mine. I was in school at the time and the friend in question was in his late 30's, so it wasn't by definition someone I could relate to all that much, do school projects with or even a very close or good friend and I can't think of any other reason as to why he would mention it to me other than being at ease around me and the conversations we could have based on our shared interest. This led to us frequently exchanging knowledge and recommending interesting books or documentaries, till one faithful day in 2013 as we were discussing banks, SWIFT and sanctions he suddenly said "Have you ever heard of Bitcoin?" At the end of the conversation I basically identified it to myself as something like self-custody digital money like what you have on a bank account except that now, instead of needing multiple separate branches scattered all across the globe to communicate with each other about send/received funds in order to update the balance sheets, now you were actually sending something instead of a system that was merely communicating sums, which wasn't that bad of an understanding about Bitcoin for someone who had never heard of it before, so I give myself a pass: 6.5 out of 10🤓

Now as much as I was impressed by it, I did however think that for me it was unfortunately "too late". Yes I kid you not I listened to the adaptation growth and price movements he told me Bitcoin went through over the past years to prove it's history and success, and the first thing that came into my mind was: "Wow it really sounds solid and amazing, too bad though that I'm too late". This is why I know for a fact this "too late" mentality that exists around Bitcoin truly is the biggest hurdle we have to overcome and as if that wasn't bad enough, we now have a gazillion shady cryptos and shameless scam artists who all very, very cleverly try to take advantage of that defective "too late" mentality people have regarding Bitcoin when seeing that charts. But coming back to me, it may sound stupid to think that in 2013, well it was stupid, but it really is a lot more difficult and complicated than you think. You see, he told me how it was 2 Euro when his friend first heard of it and started mining/accumulating, and he himself started at 20 Euro and at the time of the conversation Bitcoin was around 80 Euro so the overly careful and cold calculating half of my mind naturally began to pessimistically conclude that I would be the one exposed to the most risk of losing the most if it started to go downwards, while they had a very soft and fluffy cushion to soften any possible crash. So upon my initial discovery of Bitcoin I was being held back by myself and didn't do anything with it. Then came a price crash, just the excuse the other half of my brain was waiting for to fool the too calculating/careful/pessimistic half. We could now get Bitcoin for almost 50 Euro per coin and I said those magic words for the first time ever: I want some Bitcoin! For those that are now wondering all sort of things about me, no I am not a Bitcoin whale nor am I rich.😂 Remember that part about me being a student at the time? Yeah, that seriously hampered my position back then. Financially I couldn't afford to do all that much, especially with monthly expenses and the yearly tuition fees I had to save up for throughout the year, so in total I could barely afford 400 Euro and I still had no idea on how it all worked in practice. All this is why me and my friend both started a new wallet together, he already held Bitcoin somewhere, so he started this one for us to hold together as he himself also wanted to get more coins due to the recent crash, and I myself really wasn't too comfortable to do it all solo. You see, before we actually send the Bitcoin there he told me something I'll never forget and this is ringing in my head ever since and I think is why I try to avoid centralized places as much as possible: "There's no such thing as customer service, if you get locked out it's gone forever". This really got to me, I wouldn't want it to one day be 10.000 Euro per Bitcoin and me not being able to access it. The rage would be insane😡 Seriously, I read these horror stories every now and then and really feel bad for the people involved. So we both put in an equal share and he paid for it at first, with me sending the Euros to his bank account when I was at home later. Yes I didn't even have an internet capable phone at the time, but I had me some Bitcoin. We sometimes talked about some news and updates on Bitcoin, but we never really touched the wallet or the coins and before the year ended I decided to call it quits. Why? I don't know. I guess I never had such an amount at my disposal before and honesty still didn't know or understand all that much about Bitcoin at the time. Being a student didn't help either as I was too busy with exams to focus on making money, so taking this amount sitting there just seemed to make sense, so I told him the time had come to sell and I trusted his experience and advice to not do so at once and leave the profit maximizing and cost-averaging to him. Back then it wasn't all as easy as it is now and he managed to get a decent extra profit out before our wallet was completely empty and converted it to fiat. He send me my half and we called it a great success as the price started to move downwards into a bear zone for well over one year after that. He still kept his Bitcoins he had separate though and often joked about how he too should have pulled everything out as well so he could now buy it back with huge profits and still have exactly the same number of Bitcoins. After the self-custody lesson regarding the wallet, it was here that I learned my 2nd most important lessen regarding Bitcoin: There will always be another chance to either rejoice or regret, the choice is yours in which you decide to opt for. Just think about it and look at the charts, it'll make sense.😉 But I have no idea for how long he eventually held on to it all or whatever happened to him, after graduating and starting work I never saw him again. This along with my mentality of 'once it's over, move on', completely isolated me from any Bitcoin news and put my mind at ease as I literally never checked in on Bitcoin, it's development or price ever since I got out. But it was just a few short years later in 2017 that for the first time since my exit, news regarding Bitcoin reached me as it was breaking global news this time around: Bitcoin was at 10.000 euro per coin.🧐

What was the feeling I had you ask when I was at work and opened up the web browser and saw this breaking Bitcoin news headline? "Kill me now".😂 No I really didn't care. Well, maybe a little. OK I cared. This was exactly the Bitcoin price I predicted to not want to miss out on, and here it was with me holding exactly 0.0 Bitcoin. Whenever I honestly tell people in my private circles about this most take the easy route and go like "what bro, you should have taken a loan, quit school, asked your family for money, I would have sold my....." and that's where I stop them and humorously reply: "You wouldn't have done sh!t. You know why, because here we are in 2022 and your stupid face is in Safemoon". Well, not everyone I know is, so that name at the end varies in these type of conversations, sometimes it's Cardano or Doge, and sometimes it's the more trustworthy alts like Ethereum or Uniswap but the bottom line is the same. You haven't taken out a loan to buy Cardano or whatever now have you? And you even have little to no Bitcoin as we speak, so on what exactly are you basing your hindsight excellence that "I should have" done X or Y?

But coming back to 2017 and the sequence of events, it was in this period that more and more people I knew started to invest and exchange crytpos. People that used to go "huh Bitwhat?" Now talked about EOS, Ethereum and Litecoin, with me being the one to ask "huh what's dat"? At this point in time I had more money at my fingertips than I did in 2013, but didn't invest a single cent. Why? Scroll back to lesson two my friends, lesson two✌️. I didn't tell a single person what they should or shouldn't do in 2017/8, other than the well known "don't invest what you can't afford to lose" line. Then, all I did was wait. Yes I waited a solid year all the way till the December 2018 crash came and I officially once again had me some Bitcoin in January 2019. But I didn't know how perfectly I timed it though, December 2018/January 2019 was the optimal time to jump fully back aboard the Bitcoin train, but due to the huge price swings at the time, major changes/new cryptos, the fact I now had to do it all solo and still rather high Bitcoin price (which of course despite the huge crash was still a lot higher than when I left Bitcoin in 2013) I decided to not get crazy. So after seriously considering it, I eventually decided to not invest everything I could afford to lose all at once, but rather a large portion and see how things would develop from there on out. The experiences I had from this point on and how I eventually did invest everything I could afford to lose I shared before in some random posts about my personal experiences.

I guess that pretty much sums it al up except for one last important Bitcoin characteristic I never fully understood back then but really do now: You are never "too late" to any existing currency, whether crypto or fiat. Repeat that over and over again till everyone around you also hears and starts understanding it, you are never too late for Bitcoin or Ethereum or any other active cryptocurrency. Get it, send it, stake it, mine it, use it, accept it and above all understand it. Stop thinking solely about the value in relation to Euros, Rubles, Dollars or any other fiat currency which you are also not "too late" for today. Would you refuse to buy Pesos if you were going to Mexico tomorrow because the price increased too much the past months and just go over and try to survive there with whatever currency is in your wallet? The only currencies you are "too late" for is the Deutsche Mark, the French Franc, the Dutch Gulden and Bitconnect.