Bitcoin Forum

Might as well ease the time a little while waiting to be released from the newbie section :)

Feel free to post more reasons below.

Mikan needs a new orange box to hide in ;D



<------- Mikan

I got in 'cause it's a cheap way to send and receive money accross the world.

Interest in technology. That's all =)

Because I'm a Libertarian and figured if the Federal Reserve is allowed to make money illegally why can't I!

Because being an adult means being civilised because you know the difference.  I do not need constant herding to be well-behaved.  And I resent being overruled by thugs that think that I am evil like them.

My "real reason" wasn't an option in the poll, but I voted the drugs thing. The article on Wired about Silk Road introduced me to the idea of it, then I looked it up in more detail myself. I liked the idea of a virtual currency that you can access anywhere and is given instantly to the other person, and I REALLY liked that there is no governing body for it.

But my real reason? Mining.

I have a powerful-ish PC, so if I keep it going for a month or so, I get about £20. Free cash, baby. :D

ROI

an early slashdot posting. feb 2010.
I was pretty excited about the premise of debasing the World Bank and the IMF.

I finally made an account here today after being kind of pissed off about Mt Gox taking double 0.65% on every trade I was making this weekend.

I had the original 50BTC generated, but now the trading bots, Mt Gox and the Lulzboat have took most of them from me.
I'm trying to slowly build back up, but, I'm not good at playing Terminator, yet.

this place can seem quite like the rats on wall street I would imagine, the second you turn your back, jab a knife in your back through proxy.
nice little simulation of how so called evolved people can be.


you want to give me monies:
1CRcJUNAPvHYd888jLiwRZacwSQDNSFPfh

I got in because of an article in New Scientist. There is also my love of all thing open source.
Then I heard about the GLBSE, and had to jump in there.

NOTA

It enables market anarchism, that is all. the future looks bright again...

I thought it seemed like a really cool idea. It piqued my curiosity.

I think I could sum it up with one word (aside from these of course  :D).


Choice.

What else am I suppose to do with all my card?? =D

I'm envisioning the need for untraceable currency...

Bitcoins aren't illegal  ;D

I just happened to buy a computer with a 5850 in it, and I figured I could regain some of my investment this way

My reason?  Because...

I reject your reality and substitute my own.

Because printing your own money is fun.

The architecture is very enlightenment, so I want to keep track of its development

I'm in it for the comics

http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmvszogYsm1qziwyso1_500.png

Idle curiosity

+1  ;D

And... it's interesting to see how bitcoins are evolving in comparison with established currencies.  :)

We need a better name for the smallest-unit-of-bitcoin. "Satoshis" doesn't cut it.

Great one! :)

Being on a revolutionary movement :)

It's fun and a very cyberpunk idea that could actually work.

make some extra cash with the hw i already have. maybe do a little low buying high selling

I do it for the ladies  ;D

Finally the hardware is no longer in idle mode.

Because i like colourfull rainbows. ;)

Curiosity. That's about it..

because ive lost faith in our govt to make good decisions ~_-,

Viva la Revolución!

Oh, yeah, it is indeed. Best. Reason. Ever.

And because everyone in the internet is doing that.

I hope you don't have to pay the electricity bill.

"You felt the need for a future movie line similar to "Hand over your wallet.dat! And be quick about it!""
That was funny  :D

In all seriousness though. I'm not the type of person who says no to money. So I  carefully lurked this topic on many various websites and concluded that it was trustworthy enough for me to join in.

Got a gaming rig sitting around, might as well see what all the fuzz is about.

Because I am a paranoic who is always planning for a life on the run from the law, underworld or shadowy agents of a global conspiracy. Bitcoins struck me as a good way to transfer assets untraceably to my new identies.

None... Just curiosity. I could argue that I will make money out of this, but most probably I won't. Neither mining nor trading seems really profitable unless you invest a lot of money. And investing a lot of money is risky...

I frequently use VirWox frequently to exchange my SLL and ACD earnings, and there was a update on the home page about how they accept Bitcoin deposits and withdrawals now, I assumed it was just some new payment system like PayPal so I disregarded it. Time went by and every time I went to login I would see that on the home page, after awhile I got curious and looked into it. It was then that I found http://www.weusecoins.com (http://www.weusecoins.com), after watching the video I was very interested and researched more. I was amazed, it was the perfect currency. I am now a Bitcoin miner and plan to be one of the last to shutdown.

Because I wanted to substitute one addiction (gaming) 4 another.

+1

Because I fall into the tine demographic of computer nerd and economics nerd.

Bitcoin is the most interesting thing evar.

LOL

+1

On a cold winter night in south detroit, I found the bitcoin app on the android market.

Because of general interest in monetary history and libertarian leanings. Even if the first bitcoin fails, another implementation won't. Its big, history books of the future will mention bitcoin in the next sentence after they mention internet.

I got interested for various reasons. For one, it's something really different and as a supporter of the Zeitgeist Movement I'm always on the lookout for anything different. I also happen to make a living mainly from online poker so I'm not the most normal person out there. Bitcoin looked promising for getting a bit of extra income from and perhaps the whole system could theoretically change the world, a little bit at least.

Right after I started with mining rigs and buying coins I've been really addicted on Bitcoin. In the future I hope to be able to spend more of them and I would also like to provide Bitcoin-related services in Finland, there seems to be demand for that here.

I got into it to pay off a fine for running a red light :P. It may take a few months but hey, long term investment!

I look at this as more of a hobby that could potentially pay for itself than an investment.  With the last difficulty increase, paying back my rigs is going to take a couple of months.  Also, I'm trying to learn more about networking in Linux, and I have definitely made gains in that regard.

I am just wasting time until Skyrim...

I was curious...

I want to rule the world and BTC will help me achieve this goal!

To contribute to global warming of course.  If everyone had a mining rig, think of how tropical the world would be.

Because it is the biggest invention since physical money, i.e. for the last 5000 years or so. Because it will change everything, everything.

It's sort of like making money without trying too much

   The funny thing is i thought this was going to be alot easier.......just use a debit card and go!!!!! Boy was i wrong, and I really only need about 10 bit coins. My second mistake was assuming that paypal was a god idea.....wow. Owell I will become a bitcoinier soon.......trial by fire i guess. ??? ???

I wanted to enter the matrix so I took the blue pill!

This is my main motivation, too.  It's thus depressing to me to see this development hijacked by quack economics.

I got in cause I found the whole bitcoin 'experiment' interesting. It's somewhat intriguing to see the growing pains a potential digital currency has to go through. Whether bitcoins actually makes it into the mainstream or not and the debates that go on are pretty entertaining.

I think I was hooked when I first saw the Mt Gox BC chart. I know a lot of people think that BC already had its pop and will die from here, and maybe they are right, but I think it may run quite a bit higher. I decided to mine rather than trade b/c I do so much stock trading as it is and wanted something different. I'm also interested in all the associated technology and see this as a learning opportunity (I already know a lot more about linux and building computers than I did a few weeks ago). Good poll - it is interesting to see how BC appeals to people on so many different levels.

I joined mostly because its the future of money.
It's also is a way to get some free cash ;p

I like your reasoning!  haha.  My reasons were similar...  call me a conspiracy theorist, but it won't be long before the US dollar is worthless...

And, in response to your sig, I too am mining at a ridiculously low pace... 3.0-3.5 Mh/s.  Thank God (or Slush) for pooled mining!

Bitcoin mining thrummed my geek chord more that anything in the last 10 years! Awesome!

A good laugh that pole is lol

I started so i could get some extra cash to do pc upgrades I wouldnt otherwise be able to afford. I only wish I had found out earlier when the difficulty wasnt so high :(

Cant be a true geek if your not on the bleeding edge.  Have to be 'that guy' that tells everyone about BitCoins first IRL.

 +1 8)

I actually like the technical side of them, it's pretty cool!

I did it for the Hookers.

this.

I think I was hooked when I first saw the Mt Gox BC chart. I know a lot of people think that BC already had its pop and will die from here, and maybe they are right, but I think it may run quite a bit higher. I decided to mine rather than trade b/c I do so much stock trading as it is and wanted something different. I'm also interested in all the associated technology and see this as a learning opportunity (I already know a lot more about linux and building computers than I did a few weeks ago). Good poll - it is interesting to see how BC appeals to people on so many different levels.
   

I wanted to get rich quick

To purchase stuff that I never would waste money on otherwise.

That is what the Internet is for.

I was cold. Mining bitcoins is the best way to stay warm.

My reasons:
-The idea of an anonymous, underground, hard-to-trace digital currency is sooo cyberpunk
-Bitcoin mining is the coolest thing ever
-I can't wait until Bitcoins get picked up in the mainstream media and it explodes in popularity
-I am fascinated by the math and crypto behind it all
-I envision bumper stickers in the future that say "Like my driving? Donate to 1fGkzEhyjtrfJ9EbBbkMgZuuRcSGT2rQ3!"
-I also envision cyber-hobos trolling the internet looking for spare bitcents

Just feel it is BIG. It brings a lot of potentials that only time will tell.

I had a feeling this will become the open source community currency. Open source community really need their own currency to encourage and evaluate different efforts among members.

If the deflation tendency of bitcoin can be avoid, for example keep 5% money supply growth every year, this could even become the world currency standard benchmark! ::)

1) it gave me a reason to pick up two Radeon video cards and finally stop being an Nvidia tool.
2) it gave me a reason to pick up TWO video cards so I could do CrossFire/SLI
3) it gives me a reason to replace my motherboard to fully take advantage of x8/x8 CrossFire (right now I can only do x16/x4 Crossfire which is okay, but not the greatest)
4) it gives me a reason to get into water cooling my GPUs over the course of the coming winter.  Sure, these dual 80C-90C heater units (Radeons) will come in handy in the winter, but next summer i would really like to cool them down as far as they will go and then get the most out of them.

"Mine" money using computers. What's not to like?
Also, as a webdeveloper, I see bitcoins as a great and new way to earn some cash by creating something the community can use.

+1  ;D

Because I wan to earn some moeny online (selling goods, service...) but paypal down't accept my country and there is too many restrictions to send money abroad so BTC are perfect for me! ::)

To use silk road :)

How is it illegal?

I got in because of the fun of mining bitcoins, such a hobby. :)

I got into Bitcoins because I believe it could very well be a definitive part of humanity's future.

this.  my first BTC was donated (http://blockexplorer.com/tx/035868311f7cab940d796ce9bf490e5c5a2d936b0a4e1fc4a6cfc713a006ee08) to Dark Shikari (http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=22705.0), lead developer of x264.  haven't spent any coins yet.  you guys should donate some coins to him if you like x264. ;) (his address is 1M97B78c7TBvuU8XRfwifP5yxBZdLRhjaP)

I got involved with BTC mining because I like to dabble in mathematical projects....

I've been with distributed.net (http://distributed.net) almost since the beginning My team page is here: http://stats.distributed.net/team/tmsummary.php?project_id=8&team=10621 (http://stats.distributed.net/team/tmsummary.php?project_id=8&team=10621).

I've also been involved with factoring large integers for ~3 years (http://www.mersenneforum.org/forumdisplay.php?f=66 (http://www.mersenneforum.org/forumdisplay.php?f=66))...

my username, free of charge. long before bf3

FREE VIDEO CARDS  ;D

BTC is the best idea I've seen in a long time.

The whole decentralized currency was an intriguing concept to me, I figured I'd check it out.

The easiest way to send and receive money worldwide

While it may be very simple to send Bitcoins to anyone anywhere (as long as they have a Bitcoin address AND you already have the Bitcoins in your wallet), it's a whole 'nother matter to start the process from cash in hand.

Cash in hand > bank > dwolla > MTG/TH > personal wallet > other person

A real big pain in the ass chain that can take as long as a week to get through and has several fees along the way. The entire process needs to become faster, cheaper, and more user friendly. Hell, just for the bank to dwolla part my bank wants:

- $3 to transfer in three business days
- $10 for next business day
- afraid to even list price for same business day

As long as the money is in my account, WTF should this even take more than a few hours? It's a routine, AUTOMATED transfer by the banks computers, no human even needed. No need to delay or charge high fees although you might end up with next day instead of same day if you transfer late in the day or after hours. Sending a money order directly to MTG/TH would both speed up the process and make it cheaper BUT that's a meatspace work-around to a digitalspace problem.

I'm starting to rant so I'll just stop here  :-\

Its an interesting concept that people all across the world can trade with one form of currency.

Its fun to be part of Bitcoin project because sometime in the near future we will find out if bitcoins become something greater or fade away in history.

So I would say Bitcoins is a hobby for me.

I wanted to code a trading bot for fun and profit, but i failed so now I'm the bot.

i am consistently amazed by the stupidity that is moving money in the US.

interac e-transfer - money moved in 30 minutes or less.

Just pure experiment, as GPU mining is non economical here
due to high electricity costs...

So I can buy things from normal people over the net without a middleman. Just that simple. all the speculation, arbitrage, etc. that came later. The real strength of bitcoin is simplicity. 

1.investment opportunity
2.Low fees (0?) transactions

Lower Fees/Known inflation risk

I do not think you know the inflation risk, until now it is still unpredictable.

If you are just referring to the daily new minted coins, you do not see the whole picture.
Although, right now there are more BTC in circulation (more than 6 mill) than at the beginning (0!) --apparent inflation

right now 1 BTC is worth more; in terms of products you can buy.

Remember: the 10000BTC one pizza.
so deflation

Is it predictable?

benchmarking my systems and getting paid for it :)

I happened across an article about it that piqued my interest, then found out I (as a gamer with AMD cards) was in the right place at the right time. Now I'm pumping out ~900 Mhash/s without having invested anything (yet) into hardware costs.

Video card upgrades that pay for themselves? May even turn a profit? Sign me up for that.

I got into bitcoin because it is AWESOME. viva la hash

I got introduced to bitcoin through betcoin (poker room), and then started reading up more about it, and then started mining, and the rest...

mine your own free money?
Hell Yeahz

It just feels so future. Like something out of Cryptonomicon.

The "real" reason was because I saw a great SPIDER! crawling on my wall. When I tried HITTING! it I accidentally went on google and somehow pushed enter and the first search on there was the wiki on bitcoin and started reading it and thought it sounded amazing. I was finally thinking we could save the world from papershortage!

Or.

A friend told me about it and was wondering if we could mine to keep our rented server up.

I got in because of greed. Is it good?

Depends on who you ask.

I'm a semiotician specializing in economic history, which means I'm interested in how people craft money and the specific forms that it takes. Bitcoin is very interesting to me from an academic standpoint.

I thought is was very interesting and maybe it would be the currency of the future !

+1 on all accounts. :)

40% Greed
10% Money I can "make" myself
10% Money I Control
10% A Globalized currency
10% Truly Decentralized
10% peer-to-peer
10% Its Digital

Just a camgirl looking to expand her business a little.

I see my bitcoin holdings as gambling for nerds. Acording to http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=21000000+%2F+world+population evenly distributed everyone would own 0.00309 bitcoins, so even owning one bitcoin gives you the theoretial buying power of 323 average people. I'm part of the 1%  ;D (of bitcoin)

*Real Reason*

My real reason comes from the sheer amount of monetary history that I have read and now understand what has happened here and where it is going.  My goal is to add as much legitimacy and trust to the Bitcoin Ecosystem.  The more of that we bring to Bitcoin, the more accepted, disruptive and farther it will go.    First step for me is to create a mining company so we can add more infrastructure to the network and produce capital so we can open more doors.

Down the line, there are some critical services that will need to be developed and those are some other companies I will be developing with my partner. 

Any questions, please send me messages direct or quote this post and ask away.  I'll do my best.


Dal

I'm interested to see how the economy develops. There's not currently many vendors in my area, and perhaps I'll work some to change that...

I'm really interested in getting tangible in-person goods and services (e.g. contracting, mechanic work, restaurants) to be exchanged for bitcoin.

As a necessary precursor we will need to make it easier (as in, trivial for a novice computer user) to use a secure two-wallet system.

In our current economy (= USD/EUR/etc credit/debit system economy) a lot of fraud prevention is built in after the fact, and laws and policing enforce a kind of loose cap on the maximum amount of fraud you can get away with. In the bitcoin system, the individual takes on all of that responsibility. We need to provide them with tools that keep the total conceptual overhead down to a minimum, but still has good resistance to the main threat models: (loss of wallet, and wallet stealing, both on disk and in-memory)

-s

This is true as in the risks users of this system are now taking on themselves and with that amount of control you have over you financial resources, you now have responsibility to treat them in the same way as if you have a bag of cash.  Not advertising you have large amounts of money and physical security are very important for your own well being.

Dal

"hand over your wallet.dat" - I want to see that line in a movie! Awesome!

I went here because of it's an interesting value free of fees
and also it is accepted on many sites

Meh, not so many :( There is still a long road ahead. After earning some BTC I went in search for something to buy, you know..anything just to see the thing actually working. Found nothing worth buying unfortunately, the market is still evolving I suppose?
Oh, the reason...free great video cards (that I can only dream about before) great hardware, cool weird looking rigs humming away while warming the house and making some money along the way...how can you resist that?

I want to make money! I'm a freshman in high school, and I want to get started early. I'm extremely tech-savvy - my friend and I are working on building a huge rig in his open garage with VNC to manage the computers.

I did it for the crypto. :-)

a combination of crypto, decentralization, (near) anonymity, and to help establish an decent, alternative currency.

This.  Not sure why all the options center around getting rich or getting a shot of adrenaline.

I had some friends tell me about Bitcoins in 2009, and at that point, I told them they were all stupid. Well, they finally convinced me to buy in at a few cents each, and I realized I was a supporter of BTC after a month when they jumped up to $17. Although I know that was a bubble, I can foresee this happening again due to natural causes in the future.

Well... I was bored. I dont pay for the electricity, and it was getting pretty cold in here.

bitcoin mining seemed to allieviate those issues.

I don't like being robbed, i.e. (attempting to) store my accumulated wealth in fiat.

The past half month you've been being robbed by storing your wealth in assets (other than bitcoin... it's held up while everything else is falling).  In my opinion, we'll see much more of the same before it's all over.  The dollar hasn't had this long of a winning streak since 1985, but that's a topic for another thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68655.0.

Developing a new universal currency and personally playing a role in its creation? Count me in.

I wanted to learn more about the new hype of internet currency.
Being able to earn money through pools, & making money while I sleep on a high powered rig :)

Also, it helps me learn more about technology :)

Just wanted to jump on the Bitcoin band wagon. Plus doing my bit to destroy the environment by using Gigawatt's of Electricity...

Mild interest in mining for play money.

" totally forgot about that mining tool running in the background until I found out that the 10k BTC it had accumulated were now worth a couple grand USD." I wish!

pay for a new video card! :D

+1

This, and I'm just a sucker for new technological toys. Playing with FPGAs is fun.

To get chicks, of course.

here you go!

http://www.demotivationalposters.org/image/demotivational-poster/1004/chicks-with-guns-feminist-demotivational-poster-1272120807.jpg

it's gettin hot in here

Here, but attention lower you speaker volume;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3MQDczjyQs

I currently use it as a fun/risky investment option. Though lately I have been thinking about creating a service for the bitcoin community.

Honestly I' using it as a hedge against USD inflation.

I'm just in it in hopes of becoming a future millionaire just by sitting on my ass doing nothing MWAHAHAHA

lol if they print more quantitative dollars, you could be on the right path with holding anything else

Got sucked in around the top - approx. 30 / BTC

Been dollar cost averaging ever since  :-\

That is if I ever get my coins back from Bitcoinica. 

Well its because of business thing. My clients do want to pay bitcoin so i researched about it and learn to understand this.

Lol I can't believe thats the most popular answer

I belong into the first category it seems... I heard about bitcoin on hacker news last june and sparked by interest, particularly the silk road.

Back then I remember bitcoins going for I think ~6.70 USD.

I need to send money to other countries WU is too expensive

To pay off power bills and get free heating for the winter ;D

I originally started back in June last year right before it hit $30USD/BTC and cashed out getting myself three new machines fully paid off.

I started reading about them in early 2011.  Installed a CPU miner at the time and managed to get 0.01 BTC.  I just wanted to see it work.  Once I got some, my curiosity grew about what else I could do. 

Even though I don't fully understand all of the crypto and math, it still fascinates me.

I enjoy anything that gets one over on the MAN!

It's a monetary system that doesn't horrify me.  :o

Quite simply how open the currency is, and the unique market it can provide my business.

I like the idea of being able to send/receive "money" worldwide in almost an instant and w/o huge fees :)

It is extremely interesting, innovative and the idea of being able to pay some one for services or goods in a matter of seconds anywhere in the world is what got our business involved. Over the years dealing with companies all around the globe we had lost tens of thousands of dollars in fee's and forex conversion fees from banks and institutions.

Bitcoin is simply an amazing tool

In the beginning it was for fun. I refreshed my linux skills and gain some valuable experience.

It's lucrative to those tired of being scammed by paypal. It is also more widely accepted merchant-wise when compared to LR.

since every dollar worth 9x on my country well bitcoin is heaven for me xD

I got into bitcoin because I'm a freelancer and want to offer clients as many payment options as possible.

Never thought this poll would generate comments still... cool!  :)

The *real* reason? 

To meet girls. 

 ;D

 ???

 :'(

Because I like the idea of being able to buy/sell things online with quick and irreversible transactions, and no fees!

For me seeing the rally from zero dot something to ~30 USD\BTC seemed like "hell yeah, this party will continue, I'll be filthy rich is no time!". So I bought for the first time at about $18 per btc AFTER the peak. Poor stupid old me.

As time was passing by I learned a lot of new things about all this stuff. Now I'm feeling calm like a stone and full of hope, looking for the bright future ;)

because is a pain send money to another country for a lot of fee's
because it takes days for it
because paypal sux's and they freezed my account
because the actual economy is a ponzi piramidal scheme
because bitcoin is anonnymouse
because i hate banks so strong
because i was looking for something like bitcoin for years
because we don't deserve such a corrupt state that makes richer the rich, and more poor the poor people

Rosetta stone to learn me some english :)

I'm into bitcoin to earn money, pure and simple. I consider myself a for-profit individual. ;)

Thoughts of getting rich, as most of us.

The first one, obviously...

just because it sounded kinda neat, and an interesting way to exchange funds

Love technology and the idea of having currency still worth something even after our economy and fiat currency becomes worthless..

Nope, first reason nailed it.

I want to try TSR, but the barrier to entry of dealing in BitCoin is pretty nutso.

I only need like, 6 or 7 BTC for my purposes, but MtGox has prohibitively high funds transfer rates, also sending money international from my bank costs like $35.

So yeah.

I also saw that BitCoinLocal thing where you can just pay cash and get coin, but meeting strangers for weird transactions, I may as well go and try to cop drugs.

Maybe you should try some other exchange.

Do you recommend any? I'd really just like to have it done through my debit card, but I guess with chargeback threat nobody deals in that way anymore.

I heard about Bitcoins when I was researching the Anonymous attacks on the US Chamber of Commerce (if I remember correctly).
I noticed a "Donate with Bitcoins" link and entered the BTC world.

Around that time I wanted to invest in Bitcoin, but due to the exchange I chose mucking up my deposit and not finding it for
2 weeks I lost out big time (this was the time of the bubble half-way through last year).

This POLL really needs the answer: "because it is simply practical"

I heard of it a while back. When I built my new computer, I thought "Why not?". Might as well mine when I'm asleep or something.
Oh, and I need money to blow off on TF2 keys and Mann Up tickets.

That depends on your country. Hard to say without knowing if you're in the US or EU.
I'm in Portugal and find Bitcoin-24 to suit my needs.
They also accept Credit Cards trough LiqPay. Their USD market is not as busy as the EUR market but you may find it suitable to your needs in case you deposit USD, given that all you want is 6 or 7 BTC.
They accept credit cards trough LiqPay.

I am just interested in new payment technoligies. Also when I realized that bitcoin community is quite big, but there are not many really usefull services (not mentioning silk road ;D), I decided that I have to create something here)

I was just interested in learning how to use BTC and maybe perform a couple of transactions as well as it looks a like a cool concept.

Seems like an incredibly cool concept, decentralized currency which isn't constantly being inflated and printed willy nilly by governments. Plus gives rise to anonymous purchases online.