well, fuck me then, lol

Normal? No, of course not, it's a completely new tech. Healthy? Yeah, if you know what you're doing. A continual trend up for over 10 years is, by definition, healthy, regardless of volatility. And at this point, it is normal, when it's been going this way for over 10 years. And with every media fear-porn "CRYPTO CRASH!!!!" article, you'll find there wasn't even a crash, and it's still up tens to hundreds of percent where the price was was earlier. In 2018, BTC dropped from 20k to ~6k, and everyone screamed DOOM/CRASH! When they failed to mention that it started that run a month earlier at a price just over $1,000. Is $1,000 to $6,000 a crash? Nope.

So for anyone that's been in the space for 10 years, or even 4-5, you can see these trends. They are patently obvious. And those large swings are MASSIVE opportunities. So massive, in fact, that me, when I was making only about $35k a year, DCAd about $8k in a few years ago. With basic knowledge of TA and following the charts and learning the trends that continually repeat, I was able to make trades that have netted me in 6 figures of profit. This is profit/taken off the table, and not even mentioning still having that initial investment in, and now being worth over 20x the initial investment.

But w/e, it doesn't hurt me when people doubt. I continue making 6 figures a year despite holding a job just barely at the average income in my state, hardly above the poverty line. So put your money in a mutual fund — completely normal, safe, and healthy — and enjoy your gains. I'll continue diversifying, and holding assets in traditional stocks, mutual funds, indexes, and yes, crypto, which has vastly outperformed everything else in the last 6 years that I've been in. Not here to shill, I don't care if you don't make money, but it's a great opportunity if you spend the time to educate yourself on the technology, spend time checking charts daily, because the trend is your friend (and surprisingly predictable). If it doesn't interest you, that's fine, but don't come in shitting on something when it's patently obvious you don't know what you're talking about (that's more towards OP/not you)

Cheers.

edit - and fwiw — that "massive drop" OP wrote about. Well, since then, we've seen more swings, it's up now, wiith ETH breaking its ATH yesterday (again), continuing to go up, and I made a few modest trades that made me ~$5k just in a few days, trading a small portion of my holdings. BTC was around $22k on 12/20; roughly a month later it's at ~33k. But wE jUsT hAd A hUgE cRaSh. Price discovery is also a thing, and in this sphere, yes, it leads to wild volatility when it's going parabolic. Unfortunately, people who don't know what they're doing buy in and FOMO during these major upswings and get burnt because they don't understand the incredibly basic idea of, ya know... not buying at an ATH. Then they panic selll and go on to write about what a scam and ponzi scheme with no inherent value it all is, despite literally being capable of ushering in internet 3.0