Bitcoin Forum

Were there exchanges back then and did these exchanges accept buyers' money from around the world? How was the process like on Mt. Gox? I'm trying to come up with reasons for why I couldn't buy Bitcoin when they were dirt cheap to make myself feel better for missing out on making a lot of money. Because I read about Bitcoin in 2011 but I didn't pay anymore attention to it and didn't think people would start speculating with it and blow up the way it did  :'(

I don't know much about 2011, but in 2010 it was extremely easy to buy Bitcoins. Because the most important exchange at that time (New Liberty Standard) accepted both Paypal and CC (Visa / Master). And you won't believe the exchange rates. It was 1$ = BTC1,309.03.  ;D

It was easy to buy small amounts on Gox without going through AML/KYC back then. I think the limit for unverified accounts was around $1000 USD/day.

BitInstant was around near the end of 2011, right? That made buying Bitcoin pretty easy.

If you were into Bitcoin back in 2010-11, you didn't even NEED to buy them because they were so easy to mine. It was like, "run your computer for free money that isn't really worth anything.... yet."

Thats quite the exchange rate, wow.

http://thoughtcatalog.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/bluevalentine-ryangosling-portable.gif?w=640&h=380

yes your right people from the start knew how valuable bitcoins would eventually become though it was still easy to obtain them well into last

year for a very decent price

I wish I had more bitcoin from 2011 and 2012

You probably didn't even need an exchange, you could just buy them or trade them on here.

Theres a guy who selling for paypal name coinpal or something .

at this time, virwox allow 1000 euros per day with paypal or CC ... limited to 10 000 euros per month (ID required = Level 4 after xxx months).
but fees are ...  ::)

I was able to buy bitcoin easily from other users and bitinstant. Its much harder for me to buy bitcoin in smaller amounts now, and Im more likely to borrow at interest from a user than go through an exchange or any other method at this moment. If I needed a large amount I would use J socal, Ive dont several cash trades with him

You didnt have to buy it back then, just log into MtGox and take it.

It was much easier then because most exchanges didn't deal with AML procedures, they just took your word as to who you are. There were also a lot less scammers back then so most exchanges would accept reversible payment methods.

Wasn't it the year when some of the now bigger exchanges like bitstamp emerged? Of course the biggest one operating back then was Mt. Gox. Still functional but even back then riddled with the occasional outage and bigger and bigger incidents...
On the positive side, bitcoin was still small enough so no one cared about KYC and AML laws. Positive for the customers, at least!

I still don't understand why exchanges have to make it very difficult to buy Bitcoin. I would love to just create an account and buy directly with my visa card at market rates. Can't that be done and still be in accordance with AML procedures? All this personal id verification nonsense and directly connecting your bank account is what is holding back bitcoin and putting off a lot of people.

Many people saw the potential right away.

There were discussion threads during the 2011 bubble that people would be buying mansions and islands for their Bitcoin soon. While that may not have not happened yet, were are still on track for that.

I'm pretty much sure it's happening already. If not happeining that at least there are some ppl that CAN buy Islands and stuff like that with amount of BTC they have (or better say, with par of BTC they have). Some of them out there are filthy rich.

This tread made look up when i got my first bitcoin.

It was very easy to get the 2.6 BTC on June 2011 and then a total of 111 over the next 3 weeks all paid with paypal.
I lost every single one of them. Most on the scamy exchange i left them on, no not gox i got goxxed before the word existed.
0.6 of a bitcoin is stuck until this day on a doggy phone app.

Bitcoin in 2011 was the best thing ever.

Looking back at my first transactions they were 20-30 bitcoin each. I deposited almost 1k bitcoins in less than a year. At todays value thats over half a mil lol..

I remember hearing of bitcoin in 2011, getting excited about it, wanted to buy with paypal..couldn't. Decided I'd wire the money to an exchange to purchase 1000 of them. Then learned that the exchange was some shady looking website named after Magic the Gathering cards. I felt like an idiot for even getting excited about it and went on to forget about it for a long while.

You were at least correct about Mt Gox, it was a scam.

If it actually makes you feel better, there might've been a chance that you left your BTC on that very exchange and well, who knows if that cryptic exchange even exists anymore :)

it was fairly straight forward in 2011. i wired money to mt gox and got my coins at what would be the bottom. (~$2.5/btc)

from what i could tell from others around me at the time, the hard part was actually making up your mind to go through with it. personally, it was an easy decision since i was buying them to play online poker again, after being told i couldn't play for dollars in the usa.

So I don't know if it was exactly what you would call difficult but it was a uncomfortable process.

I don't know, it's not exactly hassle-free nowadays. I mean there are quite a number of exchanges that are rather trustworthy, as in 'they most likely won't go bust while you purchase your coins and won't run away with your money in the meantime' but you have to comply with all the KYC and AML regulations. I totally understand why they exist and don't mean to debate their usefulness, but they're and additional hurdle for people wanting to buy BTC.

2012

In 2011, the only exchanges available were mtgox as the largest, and tradehill was a runner up. There was not AML or any verification for accounts, so it was super easy to deposit and withdraw both btc and fiat. It was nearly free too. They had dwolla back in the days, which only cost 25cents to deposit and withdraw fiat.

It was a lot easier to mine back then, so I didn't purchase a single btc. I did use my mined btc to day-trade on mtgox though, but never purchased additional btc with new incoming fiat.

That was what my first purchase of bitcoin was for. I bought a few...put them on sealswithclubs, made some more and lost some.
Then, started playing around with the alt scene.
Fun times.

In fact, in 2011 I had several accounts on Mt.Gox under different pseudonyms. Later on, they forced me to merge all my accounts into a single account when they started requiring linking an SSN or EIN to all US accounts.

Yeah this was my experience as well. Some hours later that day I realized "fuck!! I have 400 euro *in this computer*, gotta make a backup *now*" :D.

It's nice to read these varying memories.

I keep searching my memory regarding when I first heard about bitcoin - maybe 2013?   I did NOT research into it, until November 2013. 

It is very hypothetical what I would have done in 2011, if I had researched into BTC, yet my thinking is that I would NOT have invested into it - even though once I started to look into it, I thought that it was great, even at $1,200 per BTC. 

Currently, I believe that BTC is a good value, while it remains under $1,000 per BTC.

I never really bought any bitcoins BUT in 2011-2012 it was quite easy to buy Casascius coins from your local ebay (or whatever you have).

I bought 7 from someone local in New Zealand for the MtGOX USD->BTC spot price, from memory it was about $7.

Neil

kill me

I have 0.001  :'(

We are not prophets

Each of us have our own budgets and means, and .001 is the equivalent of $.62, which seems insufficient to accomplish anything in the BTC space.

If you currently, know about BTC, then you should attempt to acquire as many BTC as you deem practical 10 to 20 BTC would be a decent goal, especially, if we consider where BTC will be in about 5 years... I'm speculating possibly in the $100K range per each BTC?

Yah i would like to onw at least 10, but i dont know how.

How high do they expect bitcoin to go up?

I'm pretty sure early 2011 you could still purchase Bitcoin with paypal because there wasn't many people aware with the chargeback issue.

.001 is a pretty slow start.  I do NOT expect BTC prices to go down much more... possibly BTC prices could lower into the $500s, but no one really knows.  

If you bought 10BTC at today's prices, it would cost you around $6300.  

Accordingly, probably, it is best for a person with a limited budget to buy some bitcoin every week... earn some extra money, and buy $20 to $100 worth of BTC per week, and if you get your hands on additional money or additional work, then increase the amount of BTC that you buy on a weekly basis.

Of course, how someone invests depends upon his/her risk tolerance, his/her means and his/her chosen lifestyle and the extent to which s/he has other investments.  Diversification of investments is also good;however, BTC seems to be a fairly decent investment and seems to be under valued at the moment.

It wasnt as hard as one may assume. I traded liberty reserve dollars for bitcoin, and many various virtual items.
There was allways a way of obtaining btc, for those who bothered to try.

cheers

It was much easier as you didn't have to deal with AML issues that you deal with now

My grandpa told me that back in 2011 Bitcoin was only available on these little brass coins with holograms on side, they were made by this mythical person called Casascius. Psych.

I'm glad it's significantly easier to buy BTC now than it was two years ago. It's great to see this system evolve and grow and succeed.

Everyone has their version of this story. Don't kick yourself for it and be happy that you got involved as early as 2014!

(At least that's what I tell myself)

And not in late 2013, when BTC was going for over $1,000.

I wouldn't be surprised if people who bought at those prices turn out to be early adopters, still. Time will tell.

Looks like you are pretty bullish on the bitcoin price, expecting it to go well beyond $1000. So am I. :D

Thing is, I'm long-term bullish or at least believe the risk/reward ratio is acceptable. Right now, it could go either way, but we've been at this point before. A couple of times. That being said, I repeat... I wouldn't be surprised if it increased by another 500%-1000% again. I'm not certain, though :)

I would be surprised if bitcoin won't increase at least of 4x in the next year :)
The adoption is increasing and we had some good news, there's no reason why it won't grow like in the past years.

I expect it to go down. Once all have been mined it may grow in value some. What percentage have been mined so far?

I`m planning to buy btc, and it seems a lot harder since theres so much verifications, esp coinbase.

And linking to bank account etc.

You can buy some with localbitcoins, this way you don't have to worry about banks, just contact your seller and pay him.

13.1/21  = 62.4% of all BTC have already been mined

I was going to use localbitcoins when I first got involved, but the person selling wanted an extra 10% on top of btc price. I figured it was worth it to go ahead and set up an account with coinbase and not have to pay that ridiculous extra charge.

I just buy mine from my friend, since hes a miner lol.

More than the amount which has been mined, the rate at which bitcoins are being mined will have an effect.
So I expect a spike next time the block reward is halved.

Well not sure if it was easy to buy a bitcoin back then but at least they were cheap

It was somewhat easier to buy when Mt Gox didn't have any ID requirements but that's also when SHTF.  Bitcoin went from $33 to $2.  Imagine if $33 was like the $1200 last year, the $2 (Jan 2012) would be $72 now.  If BTC started tanking from $500 to $72 over a 5 month period would you have the guts to buy in at $72?

Everything is easier in hindsight.  I didn't sell on the way down to $2, but I did sell on the way back up to $7 lol. Damn that wife.

You can check https://btc.blockr.io/ for that. At this moment, the figure is 62.23% :)

10%? That is pretty bad.
I can find a few traders on localbitcoins in my city with over 100+ good feedback selling bitcoin at about 3-5% premium. :)

Sold it at $7? Hope it wasn't a significant portion of your holding.  :)

I don't think any of the exchanges really had Id or KYC requirements, but MyGox was by far the larggest exchange and didn't have any major competition.

Yes it was a large part of my holding but I was mining and the wife wanted me to break even on the little monsters that invaded her office and made it unbearably hot  :D

Well Tradehill was there - and they died in a fiery mess with Dwolla.  Then there was Zhou Tong and his lovely options platform that people lost a lot in.

MtGox asked for documents in 2012 after Tradehill went down and Dwolla started giving them trouble.  People had to wait up to 3 months for a Dwolla transfer even with ID.

I used nanaimogold to get bitcoin at that time. Buy it with Liberty reserve.

Aah... For miners, somehow I feel it is different.  :)

wao i used nanaimogold once they are good but the best in rates is www.mybitcoinsusa.com even till now they are the best their btc rate now is 555 usd. they have best support also.

It's never too late to get into Bitcoin. Bitcoin is on an exponential curve. That means you only have to wait somewhat longer than others.

There was a time when you could get several bitcoins by fauceting and with giveaways.

Better than buy.

Entirely speculative though, the faucets were still giving away the same value they are now, maybe slightly more cos of the ease of mining back then. I'd say it hasn't really changed too much, localbitcoins has been around for ages and has mostly been a rip-off but is the easiest way to buy BTC for most people.

Back then, there are only few people believes in Bitcoin, most of the people thinks that bit coin is another way to scam money. I wonders what they think about Bitcoin now  ;D

Holly cow, I was 13 y.o. I just didn't know about BTC. I knew some people who get a huge profit because they were smart to note the BTC trend and invest a few cents in BTC. But I guess it's not too late...

I am not sure, but back then there were not many Bitcoin exchanges around. And it was not easy to deposit fiat currency in exchanges such as Mt Gox and BTC-e. The easiest option was Localbitcoins, where you could purchase Bitcoins by bank transfer.

lol, sold her as well?

I was once buy 1 btc using liberty reserve and it was quite easy
Stupidly didn't know anything about bitcoin as investment, probability of increasing price, etc.  :-\
Now it seems skyrocketing!

2011.. Such a good time for BTC. Unfortunatelly, I wasn't such a big fan of BTC at that moment.

I think the first time I actually bought BTC I had to go buy Linden
dollars, and then convert that to BTC. Jumping in and out of
Second Life to use their in-world ATMs in order to make the deal
go through. Losing what would now be hundreds of dollars in the
process. Yeah, maybe it's slightly easier now. I haven't actually bought
BTC in a couple years at this point. Nowadays I find it easier to buy Doge
then convert to BTC, saves a bundle on the stupid fees.

Remember when we thought we wouldn't have to pay fees?

I know. Who would expect that it could go like this? I bet all those  people who bought it cheap already sold theirs with just a small pump.

Internet connection is very limited here in our country back in 2011. You guys are lucky enough to heard btc. If only I lived there.