Looking back
In 2008 I was 19 years old, enjoying life and working hard to achieve my goals and fulfill my dreams. I was an engineering student working full-time, so you can imagine that my time was very limited. Whenever I had the opportunity to get my hands on some free time, I would hit the gym, ride my bike and go out with my peers in pursuit of pleasure and instant gratification. Besides university classes and my job, the only things I cared about were muscles and the ladies, so I would spend most of my spare time involved in activities that had nothing to do with my future financial safety. I was too young and thirsty for life, and it's reasonable.
However, there is a price to pay for that, and so 13 years later I can't even begin to describe how badly I feel like kicking myself for not paying attention to BTC since it came out. I was by no means too young to know, and considering my interests I have absolutely no excuse as to why I never heard about BTC back then. The only explanation is that I wasn't very worried about the future back then; I was a young guy living for today and looking to discover new experiences. Of course there is no point in wasting your time feeling bad about the past, because well, there is absolutely nothing you can do to ever change it. However, in my humble opinion, it pays to think about the mistakes of the past, because there is always a new lesson to be learned for your older, much more experienced self.
For some reason, when we are younger we tend to feel invincible and think we will be around forever, but as we grow older we realize that time flies. This is also due to the fact that as we grow older a year feels a lot less as it becomes a smaller percentage of the total time lived this far, giving us the illusion that the years go by faster. This is the very same reason why people tend to adopt a more conservative lifestyle as they grow older, and also why some special moments of the distant past feel like they happened yesterday. But this is material for another blog post. In today's blog post we are talking about missed trains of the past, and the following chart is all you need to look at to begin.
Image Source: bitcoin.zorinaq.com
Can't go back now
In the image above you can see the most accurate all-time Bitcoin price history chart I could find on the internet. Do I really need to explain? Looking at this chart makes me feel like I missed one hell of a train, and probably the chance of a lifetime to achieve big things with little to no effort. I mean what would it take to purchase 1000 BTC back in 2010? One dollar. That's right, during January 2010 one dollar was enough to buy you more than 1000 BTC. Of course this translates into roughly 32 million USD today, but let's be honest, nobody would have held their entire bags all the way from 2010. Would be absolutely moronic to not take such massive profits by selling a small part of your bulk even at the $500 mark.
The truth is that even if I had invested in BTC back in 2010, I would have probably sold most of my holdings somewhere below the $3k mark, and therefore, I would still feel like I missed the chance of a lifetime today. That's because nobody has a crystal ball, so it's absolutely reasonable to make wrong decisions down the road, but they obviously hurt a lot less when you have managed to grab massive profits regardless. Can you say the same about missed opportunities that could translate into hundreds of millions of USD and didn't even bring in a thousand bucks? But the money is not the only reason why BTC is a pain.
All about information
One of the reasons why it still hurts is the fact that I was an internet person when it wasn't the norm where I live. I remember having to buy credit cards from a nearby store in order to connect to the worldwide web in 2007, and using PSTN connections which were slower than millennials living in developed countries of the western world could ever imagine. I literally had to wait for at least 5 minutes for my computer to connect to the internet, and needed more than 2 minutes to download a megabyte of information. You may think this is a bad joke, but it's the truth. As you can imagine, back then computers weren't very popular here. Only a few had a desktop at home.
And I was one of them. And no, it wasn't about the cost, it was just that the people didn't even know about the internet back then, so they didn't even care. Computers were only useful for businesses, and as you can imagine, the level of knowledge of the masses regarding computers and the worldwide web was very low. Literally only a few of the people I knew in person were into computers back then, and none of us ever heard a thing about Bitcoin until 2014, which wasn't too late, but sure felt like it was. I know a hundred people who would rush to buy BTC at the $1000 mark today, but back in 2014 it felt like an absolutely terrible decision, as BTC had already grown by a staggering 100,000,000.00%. Yup, that's a hundred million.
Game over
And even though BTC wasn't a train I had missed back then, it sure is now. You never know what the future holds, and thus BTC could probably continue to demonstrate such dramatic growth in the next two decades. However, times are changing, and even though it will take time for another crypto to dethrone the king, I believe that it will inevitably happen at some point. BTC is the flagship of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, and the vast majority of internet users still have no clue about the crypto game and think all cryptocurrencies are 'bitcoins'. As I've said in one of my previous posts, it's still too early in the game for the technical details behind a project to matter that much to the masses, and until we collectively reach the level of technological literacy needed to appreciate better and more reliable blockchain projects, BTC will remain in the top spot.
However, living in the digital era comes with benefits, one of the most important of which is the increasing rate at which information regarding anything and everything is accessible. The amount of technical information produced every year is growing exponentially, and the number of internet users is increasing every day. The world is now developing at a much higher pace, and the cryptocurrency ecosystem is here to change our lives for the better in many ways. This will act as a catalyst for change, and it will not be long until the people running the show start to look for better alternatives to BTC.
Image Source: coinmarketcap.com
All aboard the BCH train
As I have explained in a previous post of mine, Bitcoin Cash is much more reliable and flexible than Bitcoin. BCH is what BTC was meant to be, and can support a wide range of real life use cases that BTC just can't. You can check the aforementioned posts of mine if you would like to delve into the technicalities, as the real reason I am sharing today's post is to highlight the fact that buying Bitcoin Cash in 2021 is equivalent to buying Bitcoin in 2013. Bitcoin Cash is the time machine you can use to take advantage of the missed opportunity and do today what you didn't do 8 years ago. They say we all deserve a second chance, and that's exactly what Bitcoin Cash is to me. The second chance I have been asking for. The train still waiting at the station.
Of course this is just speculation, so you should never take my word for your investment choices, and always make sure to do your own research regarding any moves you decide to make with your hard-earned funds. This post is by no means financial advice, and I am just sharing my personal thoughts on the matter. However, it sure is what I am thinking and planning to do for now. I really do believe that the cryptocurrency ecosystem is here to stay; mass adoption is inevitable in my opinion, and reliable, well-known, tested cryptocurrencies that can support microtransaction systems will shine. And it looks like BCH combines those attributes, which means that the green flavour of Bitcoin is the best candidate for the job. But that's just me.
If you made it this far, you rock, and I'm thankful you took the time to read those lines. I hope you enjoyed this read, and am looking forward to reading your thoughts in the comments below. What is your favourite project and why? Which one do you think is the right train still waiting at the station? Do you believe there are still opportunities to make extremely huge profits, or is it just a thing of the past in your opinion? Have a good one.
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