Bitcoin Forum

I've told quite a few people about bitcoin. I knew it was going to make a paradigm shift in the way payments are conducted online, and that it was going to be huge. Few people bothered to listen, even after the current growth, both in services and price increase, a lot of people seems to be totally unimpressed. One day it will be a normal thing to pay with btc, or a cryptocurrency that will overtake it. I'm sad for those not seeing the opportunity, both to invest, and to get 'early' in on something great like bitcoin. It's still early doors, and there will still be profits for those interested.

It's incredible though - how some people just doesn't seem to get it. Bitcoin is huge, it's beautiful, it's fantastic. It's the beauty of the free market. Banks and govts stealing money ? Banks operating in an old fashioned way ? The market has a solution - bitcoin.

For the past 2 years I tried many times to get every single one of my tech-savy friends to buy some BTC.  All of them manifested interest in conversation, but there was never any follow through.  Similar thing happened with precious metals in the early 00s.

As they say, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.  I have no animosity towards anyone who ignored my advice, but I also won't feel sad for people who basically had the greatest investment opportunity of their lives handed to them on a silver platter and couldn't be bothered to research it seriously.  Trace Mayer had the perfect quote in today's article: luck is when preparation meets opportunity.  Those without intellectual curiosity, are inevitably destined to lives of mediocrity, and none of us can really change that.

On that note, a great source of philosophy in one movie:

Most people are not ready for the information. The only thing left is to lead by example.

I told a friend of mine about it in summer 2011.  Not long afterward, he built a computer with 2x 6990's and mined nonstop (and is still mining on the same machine).  He never sold or used a single one, just held them all.  He's got 225 BTC now... worth $26,012.25.

Those $600 6990's were a good investment.  :D

I'm glad I was able to get at least one of my friends to listen to me!

I told a friend about Bitcoin early 2012 and offered him 5 BTC to get started with. He wouldn't take them. He then kept on about that he should have bought Apple stocks and have 15X return on the investment today. He did install a wallet.

Funny thing is that he was a former partner and programmer in a small company that developed Algo bots and trading platforms for several major banks.

On second thought, he might have invested in Bitcoin on my suggestion, he is just better at not rambling right and left about it :)

Great. Now, the interesting part for me is: Why did he not sell any bitcoins ? Did he anticipate them to grow in value in the future, or didn't he really not need the money, so he just went with the wind to see how it went ?

Now that, I really don't know.  He's been unemployed for almost that entire length of time as well, surviving on various contract side jobs.  It's not like he couldn't use the money, it's just that he didn't ever sell any.  *shrug*  He even kept them all on deepbit until I convinced him to move them away a few weeks back.

I'm absolutely dumbfounded to think back to all the people far smarter and more tech savvy than I who knew about bitcoin, or who I tried to explain it to, that just didn't care enough to do anything.

I'd like to think they just couldn't afford the financial risk, or were really busy with life and work, but some of them, bitcoin was almost tailored to catch their attention, but it just didn't click.

It was like trying to teach a pig to sing...

At least I know hope he knows how much it's worth ? And I guess he does not complain ? ;=) Is he planning on cashing out a little bit soon - perhaps buying something new for himself?

Yes, he absolutely does.  When BTC started it's move up from $15 or so, we both started watching the price more intently, giving each other updates to make sure the other knew how much his stash was worth now.  No complaints!  And he hasn't mentioned anything about cashing out soon.... yet.

I first heard these words back in the early 80's, and have shared the exact phrase 100's of times since.

And when Gage meets barn wood!

I should make this one for Josh.

http://img3.etsystatic.com/010/1/5611247/il_fullxfull.424048499_gbdj.jpg

And to stay on topic:

http://img2.etsystatic.com/004/0/6926254/il_fullxfull.359176886_5nsj.jpg