Bitcoin Forum

Hello all, I'm very excited to post for the first time ever on BitcoinTalk. I've been reading the Speculation forum for several months now, and today I'm sharing my story (as a non-technical unlikely Bitcoin enthusiast).

You can read my full story here: http://bitcoinmillionaires.org/blog/the-five-stages-of-bitcoin-acceptance/.

The summarized version is that I think there are several stages someone must go through before they become enthusiastic about Bitcoin. I've labeled them Dismissal, Skepticism, Curiosity, Epiphany, and Enthusiasm.

In order to proceed from the first stage to the last, you need to not only hear about Bitcoin several times (once is not enough), you also need to have a source you trust speak highly of Bitcoin. That part is crucial to getting you over the hump of inertia to actually invest some time in learning about Bitcoin. This is all explained more in the blog post above, but I'd love to hear others' thoughts on this conception of various stages of Bitcoin acceptance and what it means for Bitcoin's growth in the next 6-12 months.

Thanks in advance!

For the general public, I would say you're in the ballpark.
I heard about it and was mining it the same day. I was hooked quick, as too were many of the earlier bitcoiners because we were all computer geeks, so it was easy to get started. Once you're going in it, then you can learn as you go.

Yeah, that's actually an interesting aspect of this... the adoption speed (on an individual basis) will likely get slower as Bitcoin becomes more mainstream. Whereas people like you go through all the stages from skepticism to enthusiasm in one day, people like me need several months to get there - and that's still a lot faster than for other people I know. I'd be interested to hear how long it took other people on this forum to go through the stages.

We're at an interesting point in Bitcoin's growth, because the most technical-oriented people now know about it, but there is still the huge mass of non-technical people who may have only heard about it once (or never).

The question is, will there be a tipping point, or will it just continue growing gradually (or will it be blocked somehow)?

P.S. RyNinDaCleM, would you be open to being interviewed (via email or something) about what your experience has been like as a very early adopter? (for my blog)

Or anyone else for that matter! I'd love to get some stories from all you early adopters about what the journey has been like.

I personally do not see many people spend their coin. Most are hoarding in hope of higher price.

Hoarding behavior is clearly not the intended goal of a currency.

I think you may be right. However, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. If Bitcoin is a store of value, or an asset, then hoarding seems like a logical course of action.

Like you said, the question is whether it will take off as a currency in addition to being a store of value.

I took me one year to go through all of the stages - what an idiot I was  ;D

Maybe we should work on changing hoarding for saving. It's not a bad thing, it makes a lot of sense to have resources at your disposal and it makes little sense not to given the option.

Yeah, someone needs to explain why holding bitcoin is called "hoarding" and seen as a negative, but apparently holding gold and silver (and other stores of value like real estate, stock, art, etc.) is called "saving" or "investing" and seen as a positive.  ::)

I guess Tim Draper is considered a high net worth "hoarder" then.  So are the Winklevii for that matter.

I first read this idea from Risto, who (I paraphrase) said that it takes about 18 months form the time you first hear about bitcoin until you finally are ready to jump in.

I have to agree wholeheartedly. The waves we are seeing in adoption are first planted as seeds in people's minds about 18 months prior.

But hoarding gold or silver is commonplace, so is bitcoin more like a commodity or a fiat currency?

It probably took me more than a year and a half of hearing it being advertised/discussed on a nearly daily basis (Free Talk Live) for me to actually become serious enough to actually look into it further (here - didn't know this placed existed til then) and then find ways to purchase them about 16 months ago. Even though I've always been a libertarian type, my computer capabilities were limited to using the internet and drafting powerpoint and word documents. I'm more of an outdoor and weight lifting type by my nature so that's why it likely took so long for me to get past the dismissal stage into the curiosity stage which quickly led to fullblown excitement. I'm not gonna lie, the pricing had something to do w/ my interest but then it got me to research everything else that is great about Bitcoin. And, now I'm a fixture over here, like I had been and still am to a lesser extent, over on the Ron Paul forums.

I think it depends on what type of person you are. Your stages are completely wrong for me. I was curious right from the start and I never dismissed bitcoin because mining was sort of free, I had nothing to loose. I actually became enthusiastic before being skeptical. I started to read more because I was interested, and the more I know about bitcoin, the more I realise the difficulties and vulnerability.


I was into bitcoin the first day I heard about it and there was no one I know who have heard of it. As I said, adoption speed varies from person to person.

I've been waiting four years to get in since I hear of bitcoins the first time  :(

I saw a mention or two of bitcoin in early 2011 and dismissed it because I just assumed it had to be another thing like flooz, eGold, beenz, facebook-credits, etc... When I saw yet another mention (I think Slashdot's story about it hitting parity with the dollar), I read up on it and hit curiosity/epiphany/enthusiasm simultaneously (that day). The needle has been pegged on all three of those ever since.

I initially dismissed bitcoin as something that would never be actively traded because it was like fiat (not backed by gold or some other commodity) but even worse, because you didn't need it to pay your taxes. At best, some computer nerds might do a transaction just for fun but I predicted it would never get beyond that. When I learned that it was actively traded on MtGox, and the price had been steadily increasing over something like a year, I realized my prediction was wrong. And it can be exciting to be proven wrong; it means I'm about to learn something new! That was certainly a moment of epiphany for me.


I first bought some bitcoin in 2011 and what pushed me over the edge was reading about Gavin. I hadn't heard of him before but here was a Princeton-educated, apparently level headed, very un-crazy-sounding person who had decided to dedicate himself full time to its development. If he had done something crazy like rename it Fuck-The-Fed-Coin and get the FBI chasing him like another colorful character in alternative currency land, then my skepticism probably would have won out.

The first time I know about bitcoins was in early 2013 and after some reading in bitcointalk and other websites I was immediately involved in it.
Unlukily I bought some btc during the bubble burst of March/April 2013 and did so many awful trading that I want to forget it.

I stumbled upon Bitcoin in the year it was launched, briefly mined them on CPU power.
First tought: Neat!! But Banksters will kill this because it is capable of undermining their monopoly and power.

Long before BTC came on the scene I was convinced that our fiat money systems are simply unsustainable, and that banks ar a far cry from the thrustworthy institutions they would like to appear as. This is the kindest way I can clarify my view on banking & money.

Just after I discovered Bitcoin my life took a dramatic change, I chose a very different line of work which took me a couple of years to establisch myself in: wet contracting. Since 2010 I live on an operational tugboat and seldom step ashore. Learned things like navigating, geosurvey and operating cranes.

By the end of 2012 my career allowed time for some non work related stuff, like Bitcoin. By that time CPU mining was long gone, ASIC mining gear trickled into the network surpassing GPU farm efficiency. Bitcoin traded @ +-$30. I was ready to get in.

January 2013 I ordered mining gear @ BFL, by november 2013 it was still unclear when the gear would get shipped so I "upgraded" my order to a hosted mining contract. This order status remains "processing" up until today, that is 19 months after my initial order, almost 9 months after my "upgrade".  

I decided to buy some coins instead of investing further in BFL vaporware, bought coins @ $72 and after last december/january ATH some more @ €325 (may 15).
If I would have bought coins @ the time of the BFL order, that investment of nearly $3K would have been >$60K today w/o short term trading...

Today I have like 1K € @ Paymium (I know it's a "no go" to keep money @ an exchange but I do trust and like the way Paymium is complying with regulations) and a modest stash (<100) BTC's (all in cold storage).

I keep some fiat ready to buy extra BTC's should it flash-crash, any surplus fiat money (surplus is every € that exceeds my security savings treshold) is converted into BTC, I buy them by halves to keep fiat savings levelled sharp to a safe and comfortable minimum. My savings are divided like 10% in € and 90% in BTC @ today's $620/BTC  

I saw the enormous potential of BTC (more precise: the blockchain tech) immediatly but never ever expected that adoption would go this amazingly fast.

Should bitcoin reach $3K within the next 4 years (hopefully not too overly entousiastic expectations) then my life would again take a dramatic change for the better....

* Edited for typo's

yet it is done with every currency on earth..

Exactly, even tho bitcoin is believed to be created for adoption and common use, i would definetly like to see it in the future more like a store of value, and as privilege.
What we all hope is bigger price, so that seams like a logical way to go then, and not wide spread transactions.

where do you guys get the idea that people don't hoard currency? have you never heard of a savings account at a bank? everyone hoards currency,unless you're broke and living paycheck to paycheck and have to spend it all.

That explain.

I live paycheck to paycheck.

Hoarding, or saving, for shorter or longer time is the only purpose of money. There is no alternative use for it. Holding the money is the point. If nobody wants to hold it, it is not money.

Then again if it isn't traded them is no reason to be holding there needs to be a healthy balance and a reason for Bitcoin without traders and people who buy things for Bitcoin it would be totally useless to everyone and therefore holding because a useless act.

People have to buy and sell bitcoins if they want to speculate on alt coins, so that should help to counter the problems caused by hoarders.

This obsession with other people getting rid of their stash has to stop. Having some savings is a very sensible choice. It gives options that people without money don't have. Green is not your color, gentlemen.