Well the first coin that I've come across and invested in was dogecoin, so that puts me around 2013/2014.
What I really hope people to grasp is the complete change in paradigm made possible by the Blockchain technology, similar to how TCP/IP irreversibly changed society. Websites rise and fall but the internet is there to stay, just the same way as coins will come up and disappear if the fundament isn't sound. But the blockchain will be the foundation which future apps be built upon.
I am not fazed by price rise and fall because that is not where the attention should be put at. "stupid money" (as I like to call them) is doing exactly what stupid money did back in the dotcom boom.
For starters, almost everything we humans are doing that involves records and consensus can be migrated to the blockchain where it will. Be vastly superior to the current method of doing things. Money (duh), databases, shareholding, ownership, voting (no country's done it yet but we already have a living proof of concept alive and kicking), and 1001 other things people have not come up with.
"bitcoin is a fad" is technically true. Simply because the attention towards it is just so overrated. I'm not saying the price though, I'm saying the attention. People didn't go nuts for Swiss banks just because they were the best store of value prior to blockchain.
The best investment one can make during this "hype" is by understanding and learning how the God damn thing works. No stupid money can trump the value of understanding what the blockchain is. The true winners of dotcom aren't the stupid money that saw 10000% ROI, the true winner are the geeks that drop out of schools and start making shit with the internet. Even if well after the hype. Same for blockchain.
So yea, that's supposed to be the mindset of someone wanting to know more about blockchain. Not the potential investment profit. Because as soon as they only think money on table. They've lost.