GREAT USDT

It was a normal Saturday. I was deep in a cleaning frenzy, tackling a dusty old box of junk from a move years ago. Tucked inside an old textbook, I found a small, laminated card with a date from 2013 and a list of 12 random words.
At first, I was just confused. "What is this? An old password?" Then I saw the word "Bitcoin" scribbled in the corner, and a faint memory sparked. I remembered buying some of this weird "magic internet money" as a fun, nerdy experiment and completely forgetting about it.
Out of pure curiosity, I pulled out my phone. "What's the price of Bitcoin?" The number I saw made my hands shake. I opened my calculator.
100× [90,000] = $9M
The result was a number with so many commas it looked fake. A multi-million dollar fortune. I had to sit down on the floor, right there amidst the dust, my heart pounding. This wasn't just a winning lottery ticket; it was a life-altering event.
The next week was a blur of paranoia and meticulous planning. I told no one. I bought a brand new laptop and hardware wallets, learning about "air-gapped" security. I was determined to move the 100 BTC from the old, forgotten wallet to modern, secure cold storage without ever exposing the secret phrase to the internet.
Today was the day. The air-gapped laptop was on. With trembling hands, I typed the final word of the secret phrase and hit "Restore."
Success! A wave of pure ecstasy washed over me. For a few glorious seconds, I was a multi-millionaire. My mind raced with plans: paying off the mortgage, setting up my family for life, quitting my job, the incredible freedom.
Then the wallet dashboard loaded.
Balance: 0.00008 BTC
My heart sank. A cold spike of anxiety shot through me. I refreshed. The number didn't change. I clicked the transaction history. There were two entries:

1. IN: +100.00 BTC (Date: Mid-2013)
2. OUT: -99.999... BTC (Date: Early 2014)

Seeing that second transaction was like a physical blow. The date—2014—triggered the memory. It all came rushing back with sickening clarity.
I remembered the Mt. Gox collapse. The news was filled with stories of people losing everything. The price was crashing. I remember thinking, "I need to get out while I still can." I had bought the 100 BTC for maybe $500 total. The price had doubled to $1,000. I sold it all, feeling like a genius for cashing out a $500 profit before it went to zero.
The $500 I made in 2014 just cost me a potential fortune. The feeling wasn't disappointment; it was a deep, hollow, soul-crushing despair. I let out a deflated groan and sank into my chair, staring blankly at the screen. The new laptop and hardware wallets were now cruel, mocking monuments to my foolishness.
The emotional fallout was intense. I went through the five stages of financial grief: denying it was real, being furious at my past self for selling for pocket change, torturing myself with "what-ifs," and sinking into a deep sadness for the life I had already started living in my head.
Eventually, acceptance came. I didn't lose millions today. I made $500 in 2014. My life is exactly the same as it was before I found that paper. Nothing was actually taken from me. I was just a kid making a rational decision with the (very poor) information available at the time.
Now, it's just the ultimate story of "the one that got away." A painful, but incredible, tale of cosmic irony.
I packed up the new laptop, put the now-useless hardware wallets in a drawer, and went back to cleaning the house. The task, which had been interrupted by a dream, was now the thing that grounded me back in the reality I actually have.
Have you ever had a close call like this? What would you have done?

$BTC