Well the answer is that I underperform what could have been optimal. That means I sold most of my bitcoins between $200 and $1000 USD. Sure it hurts, but I still have some.

I got out of the stock market in 2006 because I thought it was overpriced too. I'm the type of person that looks at fundamentals / physics and I get in and out early. Bitcoin might be going to $50k a coin, but I bought at $3 USD and I still have a small amount. I still think the governments are going to ban it, but having a bit of exposure is averaging the risk.

I believe your assessment of "government ban" is a good bet. People forget that governments always want to control the money; I believe they'll let bitcoin go for a while to gain national acceptance - and then outlaw it in favor of a self created currency. Then, since having all money be digital and tracked is useful to a govt, they'll introduce a country wide one.

Why do you think it’ll make it as far as governments banning it? I suppose it depends on whether it’s a reaction to laundering or tax losses, with the former meriting attention a lot sooner than the latter.

Getting out of the stock market in 2006 is not bad as far as market timing goes.

True, but staying out as the market continued to rise into 2007 was probably really hard.