Like I said, the long enough timeline is all of like 4 years, assuming we speak specifically of bitcoin. If you held at least that long, no matter when you bought in, you turned a profit.

How is it not just a pyramid scheme?

Bitcoin seeks to fulfill the role of a currency, but currencies are just as or more strongly ruled by the network effect than things like social media. It's almost impossible to see the usage it's capable of before it hits a critical mass of popularity. Even in spite of that, there are communities of people who make and sell things exclusively in cryptocurrency, typically bitcoin. They don't buy it and hold it as an investment. They actually use it as a routine, daily currency where they have complete freedom to transact with anyone, anywhere with no concern for processor fees, credit cards censoring their products, banks holding the money for days, authoritarian controls most people in here don't have to even think of, etc. I understand that the value proposition may not make sense to you, but there are people out there absolutely loving what it does for them and using it every single day as the currency people here think it will never be.