Could you elaborate a bit the "very serious skill" needed to store your bitcoin in e.g. Bitfinex or CuadrigaCX?
Since it's apparently not obvious, long term holding your coins in a centralized exchange misses the entire point of crypto. Not understanding that takes some skill indeed.
Oh, neat. So misplacing your hardware wallet also requires lots of skill. Gotta love that rugged libertarian individualism that turns bad luck into stupidity and good luck into galaxy brains.
You mean to say you didn't make any backups?
Each time it doubled you would have been a fool not to sell it.
Holding is about the same thing as buying but with no transaction cost.