Bitcoin Forum

Ive been doing a lot of reading about bitcoins and Ive come to find the concept incredible and especially so because of the time we live in. Im about to jump into this world, regardless of profit, and I ask of you all how you acquired your first bitcoin and at what cost?

Another question: where do you find yourself with bitcoins, an enthusiast, a trader, an exchanger, or a service/ good provider?   

Thank you for your insight, Im just trying to find were I belong in this niche! 

I'm an enthusiast. I haven't bought a thing, have less value in bitcoins than I do in solidcoin, and have lost more through trading than earned. 100% of my bitcoins were freebies which I unfortunately lost a lot of - because I don't have any "useful" good or service to provide and don't want to invest in bitcoin, which looks like is continuing to lose value. The technology facinates me though, and with improvements I truly believe Bitcoin or one of its derivatives will change the world.

In short, I'm here because Nakamoto is the next Einstein.

I just recently get my first Bitcoin.  ;D
I wan a jackpot on the pool that i participate. :)
My ash rate is very low. :P

Mining. When difficulty was right around 100,000 or so, so the cost was low!

I'm an enthusiast.

I bought 3 Casascius physical bitcoins that were delivered last week from memorydealers.com.  I did so not for profit but for the novelty as with shipping and markup I paid 30USD for them but it was the only place I could buy using CC.  I used one at btcsports.com and wagered it on the NY Jets with points today.  Now I'm 1.01BTC richer!  I still have 2 unspent Casascius coins in which I will save and put into mylar holders for protection.  Eventually I'll buy the 25BTC Casasius coin but I will make this a pure BTC transaction.

I just got Dwolla set up and plan to put 50USD a month into bitcoins.  I'll mainly use it to wager on sporting events and whatever other services come into being that would be useful to me.

I started mining when the difficulty was over 1.8M. :o
I bought a 6970, but didn't have time to get it running, so I put a 6570 I already had in an XP system to work at Deepbit in the meantime.  After earning 0.01BTC I transferred it to my wallet.  Then I transferred 0.09 to my wallet(to make a cool, clean, 0.1BTC :P).  Another week and 0.9BTC later, I ordered coffee from Bitbrew, and renamed the first PC CoffeeGrinder.

Fast forward to October: While most of the pools were being DDoSed, I set my 5 GPus to run solo to give them something to do.  The next day, I discovered that one of my GPUs......<wait for it>.......solved a #@^&@ing block!  Feeling bold, I left them on solo.  Well, I haven't seen anything since, but I'm in this for the long haul.  :)

Other than a test transaction from the Bitcoin Faucet (https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/), my first serious coins were from an auction through BiddingPond (https://www.biddingpond.com/). My first exchange was at about $0.29 per coin. Of course spent almost all of it when it was around $0.4. :) My highest buy was @ $11. Almost never exchanged BTC for another currency, I usually buy regardless of the price when my wallet gets too thin.

I'm an enthusiast and also accept Bitcoin for services. I sincerely think that the world will be a better place with technologies like Bitcoin and was already hoping someone invented such a thing long before it came along.

I bought my first bitcoins through a now defunct site using Paypal back when they first hit the $2 mark - February? March? I honestly can't remember.


All of the above!

buy some firstly,
mine some secondly,
spend some recently.

Won my first bitcents playing poker (freerolls :) ). I had just began mining but not found any blocks yet. Now Im getting my coins from mining (rather minor amounts with just 3 videocards), by selling stuff for bitcoins, playing poker.. I tend to spend most of what I earn, its like that with euro's and no different with bitcoins lol.

My wife was right to think I was crazy when I bought my first bitcoins. I sent cash to the P.O. box of a guy in another country, known to me only by his screen name. I think I was paying about $.74 / coin.  Her opinion changed when I sold/spent at about $20.00.

BTCPlus scamsite is still owning my first bitcents... :(

When they were worth 0.79 USD each... I mined 3 over the course of a week on my Nvidia GTX 260..  then I turned off the computer and sat on the bitcoins until my buddy called me up and said they were now worth $30 a peice...  They had dropped to $26 or so by the time I sold the first 3.

I traded my buddy on steam some hats in TF2 for some bitcoins.

I bought it on an exchange.

I mined my first coins on CPU when it was not profitable, so I guess I'm an enthusiast. My first purchase was 10 BTC @ $0.8 from CoinPal.

i sold a kilo pack of Greek beans to a guy at uk. Hard earn money :)
beanbit market blogspot if you want to buy some

I mined for a couple days on my GeForce 550 ti. The hash rate was only 30 something, but it got me a couple bitcents. Then, in an IRC room, some generous guy gave me 2 BTC, which I have now.   ;D

Mined some around Feburary just to buy some stuff in Minethings.com

I mined 1 BTC, and that's all I ever mined.
I ponzied all the way to about 500 BTC now using Bitcoinduit. :)

I mined my first bitcoin in December last year when one coin ŵas worth 0.25$.
From my first coins I purchased a "I bought this with bitcoin" T-Shirt. :)

I Bought it on Mt. Gox.

A combination of every single faucet-like "get free BTC" deal I could find. ::)

I used to skeptical of bitcoin, mainly because I couldn't see any way of getting some in the UK. Then along came Intersango, who I've got all my bitcoins through so far. I live in the UK and as far as I can determine there aren't any other ways of doing it that aren't risky, expensive or complicated. Unless someone can enlighten me otherwise, that is?   :)

MtGox accepts local UK deposits...

got my first bitcents from a bitcoin faucet. after that i just started using mt. gox to buy my bitcoins

got first bitcents from dailybitcoin and then start mining  ;D

Just bought some from get-bitcom.  Nice and easy.

I mined my first Bitcoin :D

I got my first coins by mining when the difficulty was around 12. Took me less than a day. :)

I knew you could deposit to MtGox via international wire transfer, although I don't think I can do that online and I live out in the sticks. Also I think the bank fees are sizable for international transfers? I might sign up and give it a go anyway.

Well, only 2 hours 15 minutes online and 6 posts to go I guess.  :-\

Bought my first coins at 24¢ from a listener to my podcast by bank transfer as an alternative to paypal for moving money from Australia to US to pay my college loans.

I'm an enthusiast. :)

I now help others in Australia get there first (and subsequent) coins easily at http://au.spendbitcoins.com.

I set up a machine to mine. A couple of weeks later got a payout of 2 shiny bitcoins.

By watching videos and doing surveys. :)

Not sure. But definitely less than 30-40 minutes of actual work.
Only did one survey, the rest I got from videos.

Well I signed up with Mt.Gox as well and it looks as though it's not as complicated as I first thought.

Every video gives you 0.01 bitcoins. Surveys give you around 0.10-0.30 bitcoins.
Surveys you can usually only do once per day. You can watch how many videos you'd like, but only one time per video, per address.
http://www.freedigitalmoney.com/en/Home (http://www.freedigitalmoney.com/en/Home) is where I got it from.

memorydealrs.com hooked me up!

I got mine from the Faucet!  8)

from here https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/   0.005btc

My first coins were from them faucets and such.  I think total I only got .007BTC,  I know crazy right!  As for the rest I sold a guy that I play Half Life with one of my PS3's for 40BTC.  I am just an enthusiast.  I will keep like 10BTC in a wallet I won't touch until the price sky rockets and the rest are to be bartered.  I plan on upgrading some of the Home Theater gear I have and will probably sell that for bitcoin and trade it to a giftcard or something unless I find a suitable merchant for my upgrades.

i got mine for free  ;D ;D

from an auction on mokimarket

Ha ha ha, Vasili I wish I coul do the same. Fasolada 4 ever!

i havent got my first coin yet but i got so far .002 saved.

That makes me jealous. Wish I could go back in time. :)

I bought by first BitCoins from a friend (when the price was $16/BTC!).  But I've since been dollar-cost-averaging by buying either on MtGox, or Bitcoinica (using leverage!).  So I've got my average cost per BTC down to $3.50 or so...still underwater, but I'm generally "bullish" on the valuation about $2.50.

Mike Koss
CoinLab.com
Seattle, WA

I didn't.

my first one was from bitcoin faucet... a whole .005  :D

I was desperate to get in around the time of that mania. The bitcoin faucet site wasn't working at that time and I struggled to find an exchange selling for New Zealand dollars or UK pounds.

Eventually I got my first fractions of a bitcoin by joining a mining pool. Left my computer running for days and managed to earn some satoshis or whatever, almost nothing. Quickly realised the difficulty of mining was way too much for my hardware. Gave up on that eventually got my first whole bitcoin through the 'britcoin' exchange which later became intersango.

I've mined my first bitcoin somewhere in April 2011 using a single 5770 which I've had in my PC back then.
I was infected instantly, and still haven't found no cure :) .

Im still worling on that one, i dont have the best pc to do this just a Radeon HD 4850.
I mine when i can.

My first bitcoin was earned in CoinWorker.com.  :)

About an year ago I mined some coins with my 9500 GT and later bought Radeon 6950 which I've been mining with. Was nice price of btc last summer..

Bitcoin auctions mostly

I've also done some mining, but have only been able to net about .1-.15 from that(I only have a laptop, with a nVidia card in it), as well as things such as CoinWorker and the faucet(not recently, the last time I got something from the faucet was a while ago).

I got mine from the Faucet and Free Bitcoins.
 

I deposited money for my first bitcoin......not too exciting :(

I bought it to a miner.

I just started with the BTC scene about 5 hours ago :P
I'm loving learning it so far and think I have a long way to go, It's nearly my bedtime, hah, but I'll be up again in the morning to study some more.
BTCs are interesting and I can't wait to start earning, I want to replace my actual cash for BTC, it all seems a little expensive now though. :-X

I tried mining in a pool earlier, but my hash rates are horrendous on this low powered CPU laptop of mine. I'm going to build a rig soon.
I've earned a few small amounts of BTC on free websites so far, and entered into some "prize" BTC sites :)

I'm rather excited about all this to be honest :)

I found out about Bitcoin by randomly going to http://c.cc/ in november 2010 :P
I thought nothing of it then, and carried on.

I started mining (40mh/s on a nVidia GTX 260) in march of 2011 when the boom happened, and I really regretted not having started mining right when I found out about Bitcoin...

Now, after expanding my mining operation, I have plenty of coins :)

I get mine visiting the bitcoin faucet every day for several weeks in those times when the faucet gave you not so little amounts.

My first fraction of a bitcoin came from one of the "free coins" sites - bitcoinfaucet or coinad or something.

My first whole bitcoin was purchased.

right now, I don't have 1 BTC, about 0,046  :'(
but 7 more weeks (or more) waiting for my BFL single

I mined my first bitcoins.

Our site Gold Game Land (http://goldgameland.com) gives out 0.10 BTC for all registered accounts.

I payed way too much on eBay for my first coins.

mined on my old ATI Card.. (which i changed after the first block found to a newer one..)

Unfortunately, I purchased it. Ever since then, I have been mining them, but I am fiesty for more!

Mined it in the slushpool off a $50 craigslist special video card.
The memory of it almost makes me hear dial-up modems.

worked and got paid in btc

freaking virwox

I CPU mined on 4 AMD cpu's on bitcoinplus.com for months before I finally got my first

Got my first tiny amt of bitcoins from mining, first significant purchase from a trade on #bitcoin-otc

Won my first bitcoin playing online game - MMO and poker :D

Have not yet reached the marvelous amount of 1 BTC... still plafoning at 0.1 (...)

But I plan to post an artistic project soon in order to fix this and do something for the community ;)

I got mine off of eBay.  $6.50 or $7 per coin, but I didn't have to wait 30 days for my dwolla account to allow me to send money to MtGox.

I won a few 50 bitmill freerolls on Seals With Clubs and then played cash games for a while.  Before then, I had nothing but what I first got from the Bitcoin Faucet and then dailybitcoins, while they still gave a whole bitmill.

My first Bitcoin transaction was 0.001 BTC coming from the Bitcoin faucet hosted on appspot. After that, and for a long time, all I earned came from faucets and free offers. Last December, I found an advertising network that pays in Bitcoins and decided to put up ads on my (previously non-profit) websites, because even if my servers were sponsored I like to have a little money should I need to move a server paid by myself. After that, all the little money I earn came mainly from showing ads on my websites.

I only wish I had discovered this thing of Bitcoin earlier when the mining difficulty was still low... when I started using Bitcoin, getting profit mining with a nVidia graphics card, was already nearly impossible (I got more from faucets in one month than I'd get from mining in the same period of time).

Got it by sending money via psc to vendor. About year ago.

i got mine from freedigitalmoney

great site with good payouts and plenty of choice

I mined it, and got it deposited after about a month of figuring out my igfx wasn't powerful enough to mine effectively. Then I bought a 6870 and now I get one btc every 4 or 5 days in a pool!

Bitcoin Faucet, like so many others. And then I mined and mined for about a month until I had maybe BTC0.50 tops... 'cause I was on a Radeon 4550. lol Maybe once you could turn a profit with that much, but I think I wound up donating it all to the EFF before I got out of mining.

I got my willy out on cam4btc and now I'm fascinated by the whole concept of bitcoin. Stay classy.

My first came from the bitfaucet in 2011.

Got it first from mining at Slush's pool. I think I got 0.2 / day and after several days passed I got my first full 1.0 bitcoin.

My first coin came from mining with a very cheap GPU. Since then got some better GPU's but I still only consider myself a part time miner.

Why I stole it from Mt.Gox of course. :D

j/k - My real answer is on like page 2.

My first partial bitcoin was from the faucet. As for a whole one, I got my first one from an exchange.

I was given two by someone when i made an enquiry about where to get them  :P Good times!

I mined my first coin   :)

mined my first ~.2, got my first full coin with some audio work for BTC on forbitcoin.com

The first Bitcoin I got was from a guy at another forum, he was giving a very small amount of Bitcoins to people who completed some offers for him.

I bought 43 BTC two weeks ago, just before the prices started to go up.

I mined my first Bitcoin! It was a great feeling, I only have one good graphics card, I'm going to wait for the ASIC's so I get about .1 BTC a day from mining

Solo mined my first bitcoins, and 'em an enthusiast bordering fanaticism.

The zorgberg is an enthusiast and wannabe miner/trader.  Still working to achieve some bitcoins and waiting for a better graphics card.

I mined it back when you could still mine bitcoins with lousy hardware. Too bad I lost interest shortly after.

Yeah like many others here I mined my first one.

mtgox via bitinstant anon cash deposit

I still haven't gotten my first coin. I'm hoping to get some via person-to-person trade, since buying them via Dwolla -> other service now takes 30 days; I don't have 30 days!

I might just start mining them with a computer lab  ::)

mtgox via aurumxchange, deposited 130$ via Wire. Like their service...

#bitcoin-otc

bitsent

Dailybitcoins, I was like thats impossible when first hearing about no central checking for double spends in bitcoin, bitcoincharts was offline some time before if I remember correctly, but when I finally saw slow price descend instead of fast crash I knew it sorta works, so free money why not.

I scammed some sucker by reversing a PayPal transaction after they sent me the coins.

If you are serious, this warrants a scammer tag. Prevention is the key to a solution.

+1
No scammer is needed here

Yeah not the smartest thing ever to come on here saying that stuff.

joke?  ???  :o

I mined my first ones. The rest have been from sales and investments.

Set up a couple GPU's and started mining.

I've yet to acquire my first bitcoin.  My money is stuck in Dwolla and I'm waiting on the 30 day transaction restriction to be up.  I think this technology is amazing, but I don't see it being widely adopted until the ease of transfer is made simpler so that your average user can get their hands on bitcoins easily.  I'd imagine that in a few years, it will be easy enough for my mother to do it, but right now, it's a bit confusing for people who aren't as tech savvy as us :)

My first bitcent was after dabbling in some CPU/GPU mining...

But soon after, my very first bitcoin was from a fellow Canadian brother offering the convenience of eInterac (EMT) $CAD for $BTC at $5/BTC. Sounds like a great rate by average rates these days ($9/BTC) eh!

Purchased my first BTC, but got into mining very shortly after. Went from maybe 150 mhash/s to 1300 mhash/s in about a month, and in a week I'll be closer to 1600-1700 mhash/s.

Also dabbling in LTC as well!

CPU mining on deepbit.  No GPUs at that time  :-\

Got Mine at Dailybitcoin.org
its not worth it based on how little it gives you

I got mine by mining with my desktop a few months back, but I decided to stop because I felt like the payout wasn't worth the time and energy spent.

I bought a guy a phonecard who was rated on bitcoin-otc. So indirectly I bought it with my credit card.

My first full bitcoin was earned thru CoinWorker.  First fraction was from the bitcoin faucet.  So far, I haven't purchased any with fiat (I don't have the fiat to spare right now).  I'm constantly looking for more ways to earn bitcoin.

Mine first coin was :hardly: earned with cgminer+HD6950:)

mining with 6790

Mined with my beloved 5970 :D

A pal I golf with gave me a lovely gold coin with Bitcoins stored on it. He told me it was the future. Now here I am figuring this gizmo out and looking for some more to play with.

Good work, casascius :)

i got my first bitcoins from Bitvisitor (0.00088 BTC).

Mining in deepbit with 5830 and 5850.

They came in a chunk of 50 ;).

GPU mining in deepbit when my friend first introduced me to bitcoin mining a week ago. Now looking for the best pool for me.

I bought

Mining with two 9600 gt's. Difficultly was much lower but it took me over month! Now I have two 6870's to replace the gt's.

I mined some BTC with my own GPU. I made my first BTC cents with CPU... I did dont know the difference between the two.

I got mine through a lot of free BTC sites.

mining GPU

Mined for almost a month with my single 6770 with slush's pool.

GPU Mining.. took about a week...

Didn't make a whole bitcoin yet, more like 0.2 ::)
I've tried mining Slush's pool at 120MHash/s for BTC0.013 per day and a couple of websites (if you'd like I can post the links but you pros most likely know them all  ;D) which give away small amounts of bitcoin in regular intervals. Hope to support the use of bitcoin, based on its principles.

forum uses bbcode, so you need a url tag (bbcode tags are surrounded by [])

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBCode

i think i earned a few hundred satoshis taking surveys in march 2011 but i had no money to invest at the time.  sucks

finally bought first btc via bitinstant to bank of america method in august 2012 (RIP bank deposit)

I did at MtGox!

Mining ftw.

I made an exchange on a forum. The forum currency for 0.2BTC.

I was gifted it as a joke actually, absolutely did not know what to do with it, where to get and where to spend. Afterwards decided to look deeper into it, bought cool video card and so on. Now happy and like this!

I have never got >=1 BTC. Newbie restriction is preventing me from participating in bitcointalk.org.

Im currently in the process of GPU mining my first coin. Long way to go, but im getting there :P .1 coins soon enough

Keep going,it all adds up!!

When I started mining 18 months ago, people told me that I've missed the boat. only mined 1.9 Bitcoin / day Surveys gave like 2.5 Bitcent.

In hind sight I feel very lucky now, and you might too, even if you have the feeling now that you are too late.

Got my first by cpumining,, i guess it was a while ago.

Just plain old Mt.Gox

Ya im working my way to it. I feel as if im to late to make much of a difference now, but even with that im still having fun learning and tuning my system to get even more out of it. :)

i bought my first bitcoins with a bank transfer from a site

I bought my first 5BTC with a paypal transaction done w/ person I know in real life, who had a few to sell at the time below market rate. then she showed me Bitinstant & how to go pay cash at walmart & get them myself & not get ripped off by scammers.

I think I sold cellphone insurance for btc :D

Re subject
I honestly can't remember. It was only 3 monts ago.

Bought a few with Bitinstant.

buy on virwox (( payover 30% from mtgox price

I got my first bitcoins from a faucet.

Well, i got it thru CoinAd.

I consider myself a merchant and a buyer at the same time.

First from a faucet, then gradually increasing transactions with coinucopia, virvox, therock, coinbase, CBX, and one or two others. Tried small amounts ($10-$20) with each, chose the smoothest operations. Then tried those chosen with larger amounts ($100-$500) and chose smoothest of those. Have narrowed it down to CBX or mtGox (USD deposits via Dwolla).

I bought mine with Coinbase.

Prospecting for free stuff on the Internet, though it takes work so in a sense not free.

I got my first 0.1 via btctip ;D

Bitfaucet! Read about bitcoins and how it worked and was directed towards bitfaucet for my first coins.

got my first coin as successfully as a lure... they got me when I thought I found a trusted vendor.

Very slowly (300MH/s) and I have no idea of cost (but don't care because I pay very very little for power)
I'm an enthusiast due to not having enough disposable income to justify or supporting being anything else

mine

I actually got my first bitcoin from BitInstant, it was a magical moment.

BitInstant has been the easiest transaction for me. Just tried Coinbase for the first time a couple days ago, still making up my mind.

I've heard bad things about Bitinstant lately, I suggest you stay away for now. People claim they are selective scamming.

It seems that one, maybe two, newbies are having some issues. Why the FUD?

I got my first piece of bitcoin through one of those faucets. Started rocking with BitInstant shortly thereafter, then flipped a couple btcs betting on college football at btcsportsbet.com Coins were going for $10.70ish around that time I believe. Price was pretty stable for a while.

After that I flipped my first coin on ebay for $22 and the rest is history.

bang bang

The FUD..? ??? ???

I've purchased twice on coinbase.  It took a couple days, but it was pretty easy.  Price you purchase at doesn't get adjusted after the transaction happens, so no worries about the slightly slow approval process.

Me, I am just going to start mining

mining it for first BTC

I've acquired them through bitstamp.net with a SEPA transfer. the deposit was free. the EUR to BTC exchange fee was 0.5%. so this is pretty cheap IMO.

Mined litecoins then sold them for bitcoins :P

Good question!
My bro has been mining for a while now, he's a computer scientist, I'm a digital artist. A few month ago he links me to the block chain site and tells me I should get a wallet so people can donate bitcoins to me via my website - its super easy and if I do, he'll donate 1 bitcoin. Well it was super easy so I did and sent him my "wallet address", within a couple of seconds my computer went "ding" and there is 1 bitcoin in my wallet.
Wow, so fast and easy! Whats more, it said it was worth $11.40. The next day $11.80. Today, worth over $16 and still rising!!! Amazing!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt

I had followed BTC for a while before stumbling across some long forgotten Liberty Reserve USD which I duly exchanged for BTC.

Unfortunately though, my 0.97BTC was not enough for the purchase I had planned on making.. So did I put it to one side while I waited for my (fiat)payday?

:D Like hell I did, I went to Bitzino and within a matter of minutes turned it to 3.1BTC before losing it all again! :D

Oh well, twas fun, and the experience has left me both interested and excited at the future for our favourite currency. Look forward to getting involved.

Cheers,

From an auction on mokimarket

Started long time ago in mid 2010. Very small scale mining operation back then. Weather here is perfect for mining 10/12 months of the year.

Started mining in 2011, good times ...

Forgot about the whole thing for a while, and here I am again :)

I bought my first (and only) Bitcoin about 3 weeks ago.

I wanted to upgrade my account on NZBsRus.com to a VIP account and they only take Bitcoins, so I opened an account with Coinbase and bought a Bitcoin with money from my bank.  Then I sent the Bitcoin to NZBsRus and got my VIP account.

Now I am exploring the prospect of trading Bitcoins for UK PaySafeCards, which I need to maintain my subscription to a Usenet server in the Netherlands.

Simply a means to an end.

Bought 20 off EBay about 2 months ago. Definitely an expensive way to get started.

My first coin was a gift from a fellow miner who wanted me to get involved... it certainly worked as I soon started investing via coinbase :)

Earned BTC10 for a web design project  8)

I mined it with a friend lol

I buyed my first bitcoin(s)

Referrals :D

A five-day-newbie here, and I haven't yet obtained my first bitcoin.  I've a few fractions of one though! :)

Why I'm here is simple - this is a very unique "experiment" (and I use the word in quotes, because I can't think of the right word).  When you consider all of the various traditional payment systems we use - credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, fiat currency in general, they all fit into a paradigm we're comfortable with - even though we shouldn't be.  And we shouldn't be, because these systems are outside of our control, the rules can be changed at will, and not by us.  And the powers that be can (and have) decided to erode the value of these currencies with their continual printing of more fiat.

This is *almost* like growing up knowing the world is flat, and then having the opportunity to take part in a voyage that will prove it isn't so.

Here we have, with Bitcoin, a non-inflationary currency system, with clearly defined rules, and a decentralised control system that no "powers that be" can change for their own advantage.

The more you stop and think about it - the more incredible and brilliant the design and outcomes of the design become.

I'm not here to make a few shekels of fiat, I'm sad I didn't discover this a long time ago, but glad I have now.  Call this silly if you will, but I grabbed an ATI 6xxx card second hand today, just to set up a mining client on a box in the corner to eke out a few bitcoins just to be part of the whole thing, and perhaps one day, to be able to actually spend a few coins on something, knowing I *earned* those coins.

Yes, I know about ASIC's etc - this isn't a money making thing for me, it's a participation thing :D

GPU mining is still reasonable if you can put the heat to use.  When it warms up outside, my mining cards will be shut off until next winter though.

Hi there...

I got my first Bitcoin about a year ago when a friend that mined sold it to me sow i could buy something with BTC

after that i mined with six 5750 cards

And know I pre-orderd the Single Sc and some Jalepeno just for the fun

And i'm still earning Bitcoins on my Website where i sell a pretty large amount of marijuana seeds

I got my first bitcoin through payed traffic. Shortly thereafter bought them directly through an exchange.

Walmart wire transfer to Mt Gox.

Just Mined it yesterday. x1 7970 670mh/s took 2 weeks  :'(

I just learned about LiteCoin. I guess the newbie forum was a good place for me  :)

I got my first 6 coins at from a Dutch guy at localbitcoin.com via SEPA transfer. The site offers an escrow service and you can check the seller's ratings in order to decide about his trustworthyness.

Bitcoin Faucet site.

I mined them with my home server Atom cpu.

Mined them!

Tried to mined them with a cheap graphics card. Got as far as BTC0.02 then paid for a Casascius coin from ebay!

Blockchain.info

Nice site. Used the Bank Transfer. Worked very well, and was quick to boot.

I got my first couple of bit cence from the Bit coin faucet.  :)

I got some from the Faucet, and then I joined deepbit's pool and endured ambient temperatures 20*F higher than normal, for a week, mining away on my Desktop, to get one little coin!

btc exchange platform    ::)

I mined my first million :D

I got my first BTC  through an exchange platform.

I mined it, of course, like every good plebeian  ;D