The marketcap for CryptoCurrency was $11b at this time last year. It's currently $153b as of today and growing fast. If you put $1000 into Ethereum in January you'd have over $30k today for example.

Making $150k/200k a few $1k investments shouldn't break the bank too much. If you are good at Internet research, finding new crypto's with groundbreaking tech before the masses can get you some good return. It may not last forever, but I think it's here to stay and the best ones will remain just like the dot-com bubble era.