That's like saying the gold I bought on August 6th is down... if the price isn't at its all time high, there is a chance you could be down had you bought the all time high. What matters is your overall cost basis. Irregardless of that, every trend that exists since bitcoin was created points to it being higher than where-ever your highest buy was in early 2018.

There are inflation hedging instruments out there that work better than gold at protecting you from inflation, such as TIPS (TIP or SCHP are ETFs that could be used).

So, if not a protection against inflation what is the purpose of gold exactly?

It works as a quazi inflation protection as well as a speculative asset that produces no cash flows. For that purpose I'd much rather put those dollars in bitcoin.