> Plus, these guys were (mentally) able to keep to those bitcoin for 100x of growth.
Given the time, I'd wager growth was completely fortuitous. They held it for the same reason I hold mine. Conversion requires either a source willing to exchange large amounts of cash for crypto, which tends to be impractical. Converting to cash through conventional sources (legal exchanges), necessarily involve either large bank deposits or, in cases like Coinbase or Kraken, conversions to cash are directly reported to IRS. I only say this because I'm in the same situation, except I didn't obtain it illegally.
Given the time, I'd wager growth was completely fortuitous. They held it for the same reason I hold mine. Conversion requires either a source willing to exchange large amounts of cash for crypto, which tends to be impractical. Converting to cash through conventional sources (legal exchanges), necessarily involve either large bank deposits or, in cases like Coinbase or Kraken, conversions to cash are directly reported to IRS. I only say this because I'm in the same situation, except I didn't obtain it illegally.