I was freshly unemployed and upskilling myself at a tertiary institute when I first came across bitcoin. It was 2013, and I wanted some drugs, cos a) I had a problem and b) I could sell them to fund my problem. This bitcoin shit was what I needed, the hoops to jump through to get some seemed wild to me. Long story short, my druggy ass at the time couldn't be fucked. I sourced locally rather than silk road, not long after Ross Ulbricht got taken down. I counted myself lucky and didn't think about bitcoin again until 2020/21 during covid.
Finally I looked into bitcoin, I found a dearth of information, didn't know what was good info and what was not. I bought Bitcoin, I bought Ethereum, I bought Solana, hell I even bought XRP (diversification baby).
What I didn't know was I was listening and reading articles from shitcoiners, shit seemed good, things were pumping, I made fiat gains. I didn't get the bitcoin ethos though. I just knew that it was the "big boy" and the others would probably run faster. Because I didn't appreciate the ethos, I piled most of the BTC into Celsius, 5% seemed great, and it's gonna keep appreciating. Sweet. Well we all know how that ended. I needed to decide if I wanted to jump back in, so actual STUDY began, luckily I was able to deploy more at the bear market lows.
I say all that to say, not many people have a smooth intro to BTC or heaven forbid crypto. Some of us got punched in the face multiple times before actually learning the ethos, before actually gaining the conviction and steering clear of the flashing lights at the shitcoin casino. I think for many this is a process, and it's not that people don't listen when you say bitcoin not shitcoins, they just can't discern good info from bad in the early stages, there's so much noise. I know "bitcoin maxis" just seemed arrogant to me at the time. I try to keep that in the back of my mind when engaging with the crypto folk now.
I'm not sure who this message is for to be honest, I just started writing and here we are.
PS I'm actually pretty glad I didn't buy some of the most expensive drugs ever in 2013.🤣