Great article JR. I enjoyed the video you shared on the Lightning Network too. Bitcoin may have been the forerunner, but it sure is becoming something that doesn't represent the goals of blockchain technology. I'm avoiding use of BTC entirely, sticking to LTC when I need to transfer funds to exchanges, etc. When buying other coins you have to go _through_ BTC, but you're paying exchange fees and not BTC fees. I've been trying to explain that to people interested in crypto, and they don't really understand why I strongly recommend they don't buy Bitcoin for their first crypto... and when that's what they hear about all the time, they don't understand why I'm saying not to buy it.

Anyways, I had even thought if I just want to be happy with the gains I've got from BTC and sell all of my holdings, because it's hard to not feel that 2018 could be the year Bitcoin's shortcomings catch up with it. The summer of 2017 being such a boom with ICOs and altcoins, blockchains that do things much better are growing. When you're transacting in different exchanges and using different wallets, it quickly becomes obvious that BTC sucks! 5 hour transaction confirmation wait with a $30 fee is crippling, so I started using LTC to go from fiat to alts; low fees, maybe 10 minute confirmation wait.

TL;DR - You said _"BTC is no longer what I 'bought into' "_ and that's exactly it. BTC is becoming very corporatized and centralized, and the moment they're going to improve it with something off-chain is when you lose the whole point of a blockchain.