Yeah... I bought about $250 worth of bitcoins two years ago on an exchange. The exchange went bankrupt and the bitcoins are gone. At least with a stock broker your account is insured by the government up to a certain amount.
Yes, I know, run your own wallet, don't leave your bitcoins on the exchange... Except again, with stocks, you don't have to worry about that. I was personally hoping that a bitcoin exchange would have better security and backups than my home PC. As far as I'm concerned, storing bitcoins on your machine, with no insurance, is not much safer than storing gold bullion in your closet.
I'm just happy what I was wise enough not to put more money in bitcoin than I could afford to lose.
It would be wonderful to have a BTC bank account with an insurance policy denominated in BTC, but that doesn't exist yet (AFAIK). Until then... Not your keys not your coins.
Also, you don't need to store them on your PC. There are also paper wallets, hardware wallets, or you could put your wallet files on a flash drive.
> I'm just happy what I was wise enough not to put more money in bitcoin than I could afford to lose.
It is so much easier than stocks. In the US it is relatively easy but in most countries you can't just download an app and start trading. Anyone can buy a bitcoin with a credit card.