Well, my 'old school' way from 2013 onward to earn BTC w/o investment ....is convoluted..in the sense I had to buy the right equipment for mining at the right time.
Thus, I mined my way out. I got MORE BTC out of the mining then I put into the equipment. Thus once the equip was paid off and of course HODL from 2013 till now,
I have NO $$$ into crypto ...but what I mined after paying the equip off and of course HODL!
Thus, whatever BTC you have after the above..is CLEAR AND FREE of any debt. Whereas, if you invested in BTC at 150 usd, and it goes to 5,000 usd, you will
always have 150 bucks INVESTED on that return.
Anyway, in my mind, it does not work that way with BUYING crypto and taking that off your profits...as a way out of the hole of debt to get started accumulating coin, but that is likely just me justifying mining and a hobby and justifying, buying miner toys

But, mentally, and to get an accumulation of some real numbers in crypto or BTC this is the only 'mind game' you can play, imho to make the OP's point on this thread.
Otherwise, if buying cypto, you always will have a fixed cost of what you paid. With mining coin, you have a fixed cost after the equip ROI's or in my view 'mines its way
out of debt"
again, I'm odd but how I look at my hoard now

Nice story, but if someone invested at 150 and sells enough bitcoin to recover that 150 and still got bitcoin left then he has effectively got back his investment and everything else he gets out of that is nothing but profits, that is what I plan to do eventually but since I invested at a much higher price I will need to sell most of my bitcoin to get my money back, so Im going to wait until the price of bitcoin hits a much higher price.