hodling forevah
From 2012? My guess is sailing around the world on a yacht right now
Nah. Coins weren't *that* cheap, unless you were already wealthy. Assume "sailing around world on yacht" level of wealth is $1mil (perhaps an underestimate), assume you sold at $1000, and call the 2012 price $5. You would have still needed to have purchased 1000 BTC and spent $5000 on them.
So to have become a millionaire from Bitcoin, you would have to have:
- had several thousand $ of disposable income, and the willingness to throw it away on worthless magical internet money that all mainstream media and economists are mocking
- been lucky enough to sell exactly at the peak
- been willing to sell *all* your bitcoins at that point (ignoring greed to go higher or actual belief in Bitcoin as the currency of the future to HODL)
Let's try some more realistic numbers:
- idealistic tech nerd in college or recent grad in low paid job with maybe $1000 spare cash, decides to blow a whole $200 on bitcoins
- 40 BTC
- gets excited by huge increases and sells 50% at $500 (or more likely, spends it at multiple points on the way up on videogames and computer hardware)
- $10K!! The most money that kid has ever had.
- (optional greedy idiot addendum: then loses most of it on altcoins trying to replicate the previous success, spends next few years hating all crypto and trolling bitcointalk)
Yeah, that's nice. But not quite yacht level monies.
The only people who are early retirement level rich are those who (A) got in in 2010 or earlier, and still had the great foresight to hold for years or (B) Were already in a position where they could risk many 10s of thousands.
And I think it's fairly obvious who these people are if you read Bitcoin related news. (Think: key developers who work on crypto projects without other sources of funding, guys like Roger Ver and others splashing money around on Bitcoin startups and bounties, and a few peripheral types who seem to do nothing but give interviews about Bitcoin)
