Not all early adopters can rich. They either lost their Bitcoin or sold it with very cheap price. From one of early adopters, we have
Laszlo Hanyecz who wanted pizza and sold 10,000 Bitcoin to get 2 pizzas. He made history for Bitcoin community as his trade is a first time, people can sell Bitcoin and get something in life.
That historic trade caused a better belief in future of Bitcoin. If you can not sell Bitcoin for Coke, gold, fiat, you can sell it for pizzas. After more than 10 years, today you can exchange Bitcoin for many things: fiat, other cryptocurrency (altcoins), giftcard, voucher and more