Definitely worth the lesson for someone keen to learn. I believe you win or you learn for the most part so your friend learned. Why not use that knowledge gained?
If someone said they were ready to learn and had money to sink into a horse to see if it would run, I would say wait for a 20% dip rather than buy at 60k. Has a chance of being the worst advice anyone has taken all year.
The things you can learn from blockchain are many.
If buying at 20 and it goes 50-100% up in six months, it will be a brilliant result - but how many are willing? We will see what the institutions will do now :)