The first time I heard about Bitcoin I was sitting in the Bloomberg lab at San Diego State University muddling around in the maze that is the Bloomberg terminal. This was about 2013 and I stumbled across a new article talking about this thing called Bitcoin. Whilst I don’t remember the detail of the article, I do recall the train of thought I had at the time, “This thing is done, wish I had seen this when it was a few cents.” At this stage, I believe BTC had broken into the price range of a few hundred dollars. After clicking around between articles for a while I remember finding myself at Mount Gox. Again, whilst I don’t remember what I was looking at, I do remember thinking this whole thing looks pretty janky.

Whilst I didn’t pursue or act on that initial curiosity, there was another event that I recall a few weeks later. I was again at SDSU university sitting in a hall waiting to take some tests administered by Bloomberg. There was a light bit of chatter filling the room before a comment broke the silence. I don’t remember the comment word for word, however, it went something like this. “Don’t worry about flunking this exam, we can just go and buy a bunch of Bitcoin and see what happens.”

Whilst I don’t know his name, I do think from time to time whether he acted on that comment and if he’s sitting pretty right now. From my own perspective being a student at the time I don’t hold any regret. If I had acted on my initial curiosity and brought in at the $300 or so price range, I know I wouldn’t have had the staying power to hodl through to the 2022 price range. I also suspect I would have found a way to lose the private keys long before the prices hit the peaks. In hindsight, I’m quite content to have had missed the oppoutunity than had brough in at that time just to lose it out of carelessness.

I’m a big beliver in learning from previous mistakes, which is useful, because I have a long list of mistakes to learn from. From this particular scenario the personal takeaway for me was to always be open to try new things and don’t be afraid to place a small bet if nothing else but to have some skin in the game to see how things play out. For me it’s not about avoiding losses, but, avoiding missing out by not taking that shot.