I went from early bitcoin adopter to early bitcoin skeptic and despite missing most of the gains I have no regrets.
During the early days the crypto space was concentrated to small online communities. People were mostly interested about the technology and the talk of price was limited, in the context "mass adoption". Nowadays it's about the price and the memes. Add to that the money laundering, energy waste and these abductions. Too many smart people work on these pointless projects instead of useful tech that benefits society.