Bitcoin Forum

Just have a few questions for those who bought/mined BTC early in the days when things weren't this crowded.

1. How long did it take for a transaction to be confirmed?

2. What were the other issues experienced apart from Hardware complications and energy requirements?

I still need some help with the topic. Trying to see how much has changed, not just depending on statistical data alone but a lot more on real life experiences.

Transaction is a lot more faster these days compared to the initial days of bitcoin. Depending on the platform of exchange you are using.

the transactions confirmation of mining btc is not like a turtle... some of the transaction of mining platform are to very slow of confirmations :( just like my miming sites :( 2 month for verification  :'(

Transactions before were so quick that it won't take 2 minutes IIRC and I was able to catch up those days that there's no fee when you send bitcoin. It is because there were few users unlike today.
Can't say on this matter but before the earliest time, you can mine even with your laptop.

I was in to bitcoin when it was at sub $700. Transactions were super quick, with pretty much almost-free fees. Transactions so fast and so so cheap that I was playing around with some sats(that I've collected using faucets), moving them between multiple wallets multiple times without even caring about the transaction fees.

Transaction times haven't slowed down compared to how fast they are currently. Bitcoin is designed to have a new block found once every 10 minutes. With transaction volume today being where it was in 2015/2016 usually the mempool can get cleaned out in one single block. Because of this transaction times arepretty much the same.

True. But comparing the speed in conjunction with the fees in the past? That's a different story. Bitcoin transactions are definitely a lot cheaper now compared to fees last December, but the fees are still significantly more expensive now compared to the fees before(though also taking note that bitcoin was also significantly cheaper back then)

bitcoin fees in early days were something like 0.01000000BTC at some point. nowadays you are paying 0.00000180BTC for the same transaction.
in USD terms it was pretty much the same considering the price of early days was very low.
and since we are talking about bitcoin i'd say the fees were super expensive back then.

This:

Seems logical since fees are somewhat pegged to the USD value (in a way) and not actual percentages of bitcoin transacted or the number of bitcoin transactions performed per time. I think it has something to do with the difficulty.

Not sure about this, but anyone with a critical but explicit explanation should help out. My thoughts are:

So relatively, fees should be like tolls and not relative to the number of traffic. However, when BTC started its bull run in fall of 2017 through early 2018, fees were also increased and this was due to traffic. I think it was just an unusual anomaly. But is there a specific calculation for fees?

From My experience, not much have changed between the time I got into bitcoin. Transaction time has not changed so much either. But there has been more ways to transact on bitcoin with so many exchanges and BTC pairs. Back then,  blockchain.info and coinbase wallet held sway. Now it is different. Also, bitcoin was the predominant cryptocurrency but now you have several altcoins that you can conveniently trade.

fees have nothing to do with "traffic" or "high USD value" of bitcoin. it has not changed ever since fees were introduced to bitcoin. fees are there to prevent spam attacks, practically to prevent them from being able to go on forever since it makes them more and more expensive to attack bitcoin.

obviously the amount of fee you pay first depends on the size of your transaction. if your tx size is 180 bytes you will pay a lot less fee than if your tx size is 100000 bytes (~100 kilo bytes).
also you can think of fee as a competition for a place in the block. there is always going to be a limited block size whether it is 1 MB or 100MB. when it is empty you can pay the minimal amount or even 0 and get that space. but when that space is full you will have to compete with others and pay a higher fee to be able to get that space.

the reason why fees sometimes go up during bull runs is that there are more transactions being made on chain so the blocks are full since there is more transactions. you can call this "traffic" but it is a traffic that is higher than capacity. which is why there is more competition and the fees go up. this can increase both on rises and falls as people make more transactions in both cases.
however in 2017 alongside that competition we had a serious case of spam attack which made everything 10 times worse.

Without a doubt a good number of the people that originally got into bitcoin for the tech, aren't people that care about the price. They're in it for the long haul to see bitcoin thrive as a currency, not to see some sort of FIAT gains. These are the same people that hate fiat and want to see it fall -- do you really think they're going to be fine with going back to fiat for some fiat? (While this may sound confusing, people aren't going to forget about WHY they joined for some cash)

So yes, these people got in for the tech and most likely are going to stay here for it.

hmm i think most of early adopter of bitcoin was selling their coin when it the price spiking some years ago.
Or there are some early adopters that have a balance in their wallet, but they forget their key or lost their wallet file.
Only few of them are lucky because they are still holding it now.

1. don't know.
2. sound problem( you can't here your voice if you use asicminer), Electricity cost is too much.

Many of the people who are great supporters of bitcoin are the early adopters. These guys are made, judging from the price of Bitcoin in the past. As a matter of fact, they cannot sell in a hurry and they can HODL for as long as possible because they have nothing to lose.

Majority of them most have sold it..too many piza lovers in cryptosystem. The very few hodlers must be living comfortably in their mansions now

I did not mine in the early days, but it is likely the transactions were faster as there were less traffic and you could actually mine with just your computer.

I think most early adopters would have probably sold off and pulled profits during any of the uptrends. Most might have bought back I'm when the price went down, waiting for another bull.

It's a lot faster thanks to SegWit and SegWit2x coming soon, not to mention the Lightning Network. There have been spikes where a large number of people are sending Bitcoins at one time where transactions may be slow, but it doesn't seem like it will be a major problem over the coming years. Just keep holding because it will probably be used as a store of value rather than cash.

I think around 90% of early investors sold or forgot about bitcoin, or lost access to their bitcoin for sure.

I think not many people hold it for years with full belief, when it was $100, $200 btc was very valuable and high, and now just like that. I don't think there are a lot of true hodlers.

1. How long does it take for the transaction to be confirmed?
I always send my Bitcoin from the local Exchange to bitrex around 0.1 Bitcoin and it needs confirmation about 10 minutes, if I send more than 0.1 I have never.

2. What other problems are experienced apart from hardware complications and energy needs?
the electricity supply must be stable, don't get too much electricity so as not to make damage to your mining hardware.

I think the time needed depends on how fast when the miner finds a valid block.

there is no other problem except the ware of minim device, and large electricity usage. I think ASIC will be the solution for every problem.

Transactions were more faster and got confirmed within minutes as there was no congestion in the network.

Another big issue was that Chinese dominated the bitcoin market and they manipulated the price easily as they wished.We all would keenly watch China's bitcoin market before taking any decisions of buying and selling bitcoins.They had such a huge influence over the bitcoin market.

I have a friend that bought bitcoin recently. He bought bitcoin around 6k. So I told him to just hodl it, if he see that the price suddenly increased 1k it is just normal. The best time to sell if it really happen is when you double your capital.

Not sure how early you mean, but in late 2011 my friend brought over 4 gpu's and we built a crappy miner out of a milk crate. I dont remember the specific confirm times, but it was quick and never seemed to be an issue.

Regarding point 2 we stopped mining btc about a year later due to the algo diff increase and the formation/competition of many pools/miners winning the blocks. We never considered the power costs back then, so we then switched over to mining litecoin for a year or so after that.

There have been spikes where a large number of people are sending Bitcoins at one time where transactions may be slow, but it doesn't seem like it will be a major problem over the coming years.

Lol... really good times I suppose (the milk crates), know of any low rating crypto in this age I could mine using such a setup?

when i join in the 2015 i use bitcoin and send my bitcoin fast and not slow like now, the fee is very cheap, in a day i think i can send 4 - 5 transaction and i right now if i send 4 - 5 transaction i think i will get some deficit from my balance

Did you keep those early mined coins ( both BTC & LTC) or did you sell before the prices got so high?

It is even faster if you take into account that some people are using the Lightning Network now and it was not around back then.  ;D I was using Bitcoin before the whole spam attack thing happened with Bitcoin XT rivals and what not and the tx confirmation was not that big issue before that.  ::)

Once rival forks came on the scene, butthurt coiners started to spam the Bitcoin network and everything went to shit. Now, with SegWit, these attacks became too expensive and they backed off.  ;D ;D ;D

The LN made these spam attacks virtually impossible, so scaling is not an issue anymore.  :P 

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For what reason that you badly needed help just about this questions?i think this has nothing tp do with your trading or holding strategy

But for my experience since i have been here for year now,transaction is more fast ans cheap wayback not like what happen when the tome you posted this,but i am sure that if the lightning network done and released things will changed for good

I was doing a research and needed some more information about BTC mining since 2009. I'm still looking for more insider 

I find it very weird how many people are convinced almost everyone who dabbled in Bitcoin in the early days lost it.

I have totally irrelevant photos of someone else's garden from over a decade ago still perfectly safe in hard drives somewhere not to mention .txt files pertaining to that day's details that are long forgotten.

People seem to find it impossible to wrap their heads around someone holding for a few years. It's the easiest thing in the world. You sit there and do nothing. Other people seem to project the idea that if you continue holding steam starts to pour out of your eyes and your head eventually explodes.  

I am very optimistic about seeing the right and  correct answer to this question. I think it won't be something hard as confirmation time back then might take maybe minutes to confirm. I hope to know the perfect answer to this question

I think these people were just having fun of their money and not having serious target on for the assets they had. Most of them were panic sellers and day traders who used to play buy and sell during those green days of btc. Good thing for those who are silent btc hodlers, still keep their btc grow even if it's not gaining that fast. Patience is their strategy and nothing else, because if they will follow the foot steps of those weak handed people nothing will happen and situations will become worst at all.

I guess the most of those who dabbled with Bitcoin in early times have already sold their bought/mined coins for about 2000$ in March of 2017 when the first pump came to the crypto-exchange markets. Now the huge piece of BTC is in the hands of those investors who want to manipulate the price of Bitcoin. Of course, some early BTC adopters still keep their private keys on the hard drives or USB-sticks in encrypted format but I think they are the minority of the Bitcoin owners.

no idea mate. My friend was the tech guy,  he traveled a lot so we set up the rig at my place and split the coins. it was more of a hobby and a lot of fun. I consider it a lucky fluke that the value went were it did.


Regarding btc I have kept about half of them, moved to paper wallets and kept in a safe place. We were done with mining btc before the price skyrocketed so yeah we still had most of our coins when it did. I did sell a few btc close to the ATH, for reinvesting purposes etc..In late 2012 We did give 20btc each to some friends and family and told them to hold until 2020 lol, I think only 1 of them has kept the coins until now.
As for litecoin, most coins were held until the introduction of segwit and many were sold at about 75% of the ATH.

These days, my strategy in general is to sell 10% every time the price doubles, that way I dont dump everything while maintaining a good cash injection every now and then. Sadly 2018 hasn't seen any doubling in prices yet lol.

 :o Wow!! 20 Btc each! Everybody needs a friend like you.  ;) Yes, 2018 has been brutal but you've been holding so long now so another 2-3 years makes no difference right?

After reading this answer, before the transcation is very quick and no fee because not many user but low price.
So now many users, all crowded and high fee but good price. So what do you choose now? I think its difficult decision.

It's a strategy I believe works well. Most people just want to sell at the ATHs or as the popular meme goes: buy low and sell high - risky if you ask me.

Transaction confirmation time varies, it depends on the network congestion and the few you pay for it. Expect something like 10 minutes on the average day

This is absolutely true. Adopters today would be termed as early adopters in 10 years time. But the trueth remains that most guys who mined or bought bitcoin in the early didn't have the patience to hodl till now and the reason isn't farfetched, they didn't see the future, they didn't know it would become this big. Some people were just playing around with it and it was nothing serious

I think the wealthy ones are still holding a lot of bitcoins. But I am also sure that they have cashed out and then bought more bitcoin and altcoins when this crash happened. If those guys are not holding up to this moment then the coinmarketcap should have been wiped out at the early months.

Of course they should hold BTC because they are still longing for another profit. As we all know that this is not for the early BTC adopters instead it is for all. Strategy may apply here in getting the maximum profit if you want to because you can take advantage on its volatility. And taking advantage of crypto or bitcoin high volatility will make you as a day trader. Day trading nowadays is good and it could be easy to determine if you have some time to see how market price moves in coinmarketcap.com

But I also make sure they have withdrawn money and then buy more bitcoin and altcoins when this accident occurs. As we all know that this is not for those who first accept BTC instead it is for for everything. The strategy can be applied here to get the maximum profit if you want because you can take advantage of its volatility. And taking advantage of high crossover or bitcoin fluctuations will make you a trader for the day.

hmm, I think most of the early adopters of bitcoins sold their coins when that price was a few years ago .. At that time, the power dominated the block block and the coaxial wallet. Now everything is different. In addition, bitkoyn was the prevailing crypto currency, but now you have several altcones that you can conveniently trade with. there are some early adopters who have a balance in their wallet, but they forget their key or lose their wallet file.

Those that adopted BTC at the onsets should be holding by now. There is no point selling off even if they want to sell of, it should be a little fraction of BTC they are holding. They got the first opportunity to buy very cheap and they can't just sell off like that.

Not only the early adopters but all those buy bitcoin still holding because the piece is very low and waiting for the best price.

I think most of the early adopters are holding their Bitcoin. For example Tim Draper and Charlie sheen and many others. They believe in long term success of Bitcoin irrespective of short term hurdles and price dumps.

But I heard that Silk road who is holding more than 1 million Bitcoin moving in small parts.

If it was too early HODL means nothing for them i guess.. Imagine that you bought bitcoin from $10?? They have already made their fortune and no need for wait or hodl. They are rich people right now and don't think they will open coinmarket cap for prices :)

bitcoin has a lot of problems that have not been solved since the very beginning of its existence and it seems to me that this should be done much more actively

As for me, I am also still studying and researching for the good trading sites, and its process. I think those who are older here in crypto are so knowledgeable that they can help us with this matter. I will just read their posts, they are so helpful.

i think the confirmation time depends with your fee and the queue in the bacon transaction, if there is no queue I think you will get the fast confirmation time and if there are many queue the confirmation time will be longer than usually

I'm sure of that many early adopters are still holding it and just enjoying to see on how the value of their portfolio goes. The transactions before are cheaper and faster than today. And there are some transactions before through blockchain.info wallet that didn't charged any fee before but the confirmation only goes by minutes. But as the demand's increasing there are a lot of adjustments that we've been and still the fees are cheaper today and justifiable.

Bitcoin transactions then was a slower compare to this present time. Transactions fees too was cheap then until towards the end last year when the transfer fees skyrocket but I can say its moderate now both in terms of transaction and transfer fees.

Yeah, early could be subjective. But at this point early should mean those who bought BTC within a year of its emergence. This is early enough because prices then were ridiculously low.

I don't think so, because on December 2017 BTC reached its highest price, and therefore a lot of HODLers have probably gained a lot of profit because of that, so I think that these BTC early adopters, pronably 90% of them have taken this chance to probably seize the moment while it lasted, so I think that the remaining 10% are still hodling.  ;D

The 50k/BTC prophecy-like drive for buying more BTC or hodling the ones you have could still put that percentage for sold to still hodling at a fair 65%:35%. However, if that value is unbalanced, well there must be a central entity holding a large percentage of the coin in circulation - though, just a theory.

I can quite remember in the early months of 2012 , buying bitcoins was very hard to come by in my locality and the transaction speed could take about an hour to 3 hours before confirmation of 2x on the blockchain.

I think there's no changing to adopters of bitcoin also the transaction time has not changed so much either and some early adopters was selling coins when the price spiking and some adopters balanced their wallets and hold the coins and wait for the right time to sell.

The strategy can be applied here to get the maximum profit if you want because you can take advantage of its volatility. Day trading today is good and it can be easy to determine if you have some time to see how the market price moves in coinmarketcap.com.

Electricity should not be a problem back in the early days because as most here say's, bitcoin before can be mined even on a laptop. And plus, the fact that the network is not that crowded. There will be so little or few transactions to handle.

A lot has definitely changed when compared to how it was at the onset and this can be practically seen with transaction fees and speed of transactions. I also think that lots have also changed as regards mining and it's rewards. It has become much more expensive to mine because of energy cost and many more miners available and so many miners now use sophisticated machines dedicated to mining farms