Bitcoin Forum

When I stumbled upon BTC in 2011, it was worth $14 or so bucks. Why didn't I just mine, or buy then? Why didn't I figure some way out then?

The year is now 2014, and I'm worn out on bitcoin. It almost feels like a joke. A bunch of people holding a ton of coins, while people like myself who are off and on about it, reaching up to grab for some, and it getting taken away by an older bigger bully.

I've had my share of heartache's in the past month, a grandmother who has 8 months to live (at best), my mother has breast cancer. My father has an auto immune disease that stripped him of his body mass/weight and has forced him to relearn how to walk, talk, and eat.

I just can't stand it. I got into bitcoin because I was excited about it, I felt it had promise, and now...

I can't.

I'm sorry guys, I'm just not in a good way right now.

seems like you lost some coins and are a bit upset/bitter about it. should have bought and hold, and hold however much you were comfortable with.

sorry to hear about what's going on in your life, but you are bummed out about bitcoin because it has lost you money.. and you weren't ballsy enough to hold onto your coins when the price started to go down. you have to own up to your responsibilities.. yeah, the market is rigged, but if you have a good head on your shoulders (you have control of this), then you'll still make out well.

No I never lost any coin, at the time when they were dirt cheap I didn't have any money then, and that's when cpu mining was becoming a thing of the past. I had a little netbook that could only pound out like maybe 10mh/s at most and I'd never heard of altcoins yet.

Trying to keep my head on while I'm going through all of this strife is really hard to do, especially when I need this money now to help the people I love the most.

omg man ... what are you telling about?
Instead of crying get yourself to do something to change life for better.
Nothing comes for free and if you will waste your time for crying around you will lose a chance to live your best life ever.

Think about it.

Sorry to hear about the troubles in your family. Could you explain the losing part a bit more? What is your goal with bitcoin and what is your plan to achieve your goal? I don't understand your statement above. Someone is stealing from you?

Basically a metaphor I guess, people who invested early are holding onto large amounts of coins and people like myself who really need it, but don't have the physical means to buy or mine for it are left standing in the dust.

Here's how I feel, everyone should be given a free shot at a decent amount of btc. Not just faucets, because you could spend 3 months at a faucet and earn a fraction of a bitcoin.

But that's just me, and especially for people in desperate need like myself it should be a -no brainer- that people come to the aid and rescue. I have 3 family members right now dealing with terminal to minor cancer, I have no way to get home to them and am unemployed. I am also disabled.

Sob story aside, I think for sure people should be able to help those in need.

That's how things are. In the real life economy, also. People really aren't entitled to anything. People should be happy with any amount they have. Saying something is M.I.A just because you don't have a high amount for it is like saying somebody is K.I.A when they're alive.

People who invested early spent time or/and money on it.

Listen, I'm not trying to claim that I should be "entitled" to anything, I know I should have done "x and y" back when but you know what? Now with stakes so high and the price and difficulty for anyone starting out it's almost like "you had your chance ha ha look us now" while you are diving in virtual money bins. I certainly didn't have the money and resources in 2011, and I don't now. I'm going through a very long and trying battle with disability, (aka: trying to receive it) and I am physically unable to work, I'm not looking for a "get rich" scheme but something to help leverage some of the costs of being unable to live at any comfortable lifestyle without having to sell everything I own (which I have) to decide whether or not I need medicine or food.

There you have your sob story.

Hey bud,

Sorry to hear about all the hardship you've gone through and are going through. Please don't lose focus though. Its in your best interest to trust your gut! Back in 2011 your gut told you something, it told you that BTC was the way of the future and it still is. This is just the calm before the storm. Back when btc crashed from 250 down to 50 it took about 5 months to start moving again.. We've been in a slump for sure, but the light at the end of the tunnel is growing brighter. The winkelvos ETF is going to NASDAK. Just that alone will allow every institutional investor to get in on BTC without actually holding or taking care or BTC. Once the ETF is out, I know mutual funds will start to include the ETF as well which will allow anyone in the world to invest in BTC through their bank.

To the moon we go. This is the last chance for many of us to get into BTC at a reasonable price.. next stop is 5K.

Are you ready?

My gut at the time was telling me "is this for real?"  ::)

But seriously, it seems like I probably should have done something then, this is true. But I could only cpu mine at the time. I do not have a fancy rig, and GPU mining was out of the question.

Am I ready? I don't know to be honest, it seems as if I just want to give up because of how far behind I am and how little resources I have available to make **** happen.

I understand your stress over all these issues. Perhaps I can help with some strategy on the bitcoin side? The first thing to consider is that your chances of profiting from bitcoin are not diminished by others holding coins. Remember, there are no coins. We are just slicing up a pie into ever smaller pieces. If you buy on BTC today and it goes up tomorrow it does not matter what the price was. Focus on the % of growth not the price.
Don't waste your time with faucets, alt coins, mining, derivatives, investments, etc. If you believe it will go up just buy btc at market cost. What I then do is wait for say a 20% increase then I spend my coins to buy stuff. After purchasing items for bitcoin I restock my wallet and repeat the whole thing over.
As far as others getting a better deal... It didn't happen. Those who bought coins early on took a much much greater risk than you. The same is true of Microsoft stock. Those who bought when home computing was a joke made big money. The miners who got rich took even more chances investing in hardware and burning electricity. Satoshi did not invent a system for people to get rich, he invented a system of rewards and constraints that reward hard work but does not give anything to anyone.
Hope this helps.

Look at me, I'm just starting. How depressing should this be for me? but I cheer up.  ;D

Just start collecting now, buy little amounts, work for some BTC, rent your signature and put whatever you earn onto a cold wallet. In 20 years from now when BTC is worth 1M each you'll be more then happy you did!

i've only been around for a year and know exactly how you feel. it's been a struggle, trying day in and day out to amass a little stash of bitcoins. such is life, i guess. :-\

I found out about Bitcoin about the same time as you, and I've got real-world money problems too. The only difference between us is that I made sacrifices (and continue to) so I could buy and hold.

Did you go out to eat, or go out to the movies in the last 3 years? Just giving away coins for free wouldn't be fair to people who see it for what it is and made a personal sacrifice to save money. No one with an internet connection complaining here is living on a subsistence wage.

I've got unemployed and disabled family members, massive student loans, and start my hazardous job at 4:00 in the fucking morning six days a week. If I were more bullish I'd retire on Bitcoin right now, but plan to work through a few more bubble cycles and keep saving money. Because excuses won't put my kids through college.

If life was easy I would have bought more in 2011 too. Sorry to be so harsh, but I honestly don't believe you couldn't have saved just a few bitcoins over three years, and acting like it's impossible is trivializing the efforts of everyone who did. Again, I apologize for this overly-emotional response.

I'm just like you.

My wrong move was buying hardware from BFL. It payed itself of and bought me a nice cellphone but I have very little BTC.

As far as bitcoin is concerned I think it's the future, of course it could go down the drain.

This is still a very risky investment Hell it can double in 6 months or it could go down to $100.... You still have the same choice you had then.

You could get a bunch of BTC and the price could go to 2k.... or to $200....

No-one can make decisions for you.

i'm starting the "Money from G-d site".

basically a free bank for everyone.  with 2800+ bitcoins in it (whatever you donate).  and anyone can withdrawal whatever amount of money they want for free.

as long as they study the koran

i think it's the most common bitcoin peril.. to enter the game for a get-rich scheme, only to find out you were too late. and then feeling down about it, and not owning the responsibility.

I don't really think I was in it for the "good rich scheme" at first, I thought it was genuinely interesting and hey, it's money that nobody can touch right? But when things started getting tougher monetary wise and I couldn't make ends meet and ended up with just the shirt on my back and a couple possessions facing foreclosure on my house I mean....

Anyways, yeah it's harsh and it's cruel but I just feel as if maybe newbies should be given more of a chance.

really wasn't harsh to be honest, but you have to admit what are the chances of some joe schmo like me just winding up with the equipment or money to invest in something that people have already had a head start on? and no, i really couldn't just come up with a few bitcoins when they were 15 or something back in 2011. i had no choice but to choose between having my lights turn on or eating, i made a habit of going to dollar general (in the states) and buying 20 dollar cereal. for a while i had episodes of blacking out because i wasn't eating enough. this isn't fiction it's truth, the hard reality is not everybody is equally blessed with the set aside resources, and not everybody can see what's coming in the future. in my case, such is life.

You first saw BTC at $14.. now it's at $580...  it went from hundreds using it to millions and it's a losing battle?!?!?

This is a good point. You can't say your loosing the battle if your not fighting.  ;)

i don't know what to say really.. sometimes you just have to look at your shitty life and say "fuck it, it doesn't even matter.. there's no point in being bummed out by my misfortunes."

It's a losing battle to me because I cannot in any way shape or form get bitcoin, I don't have the equipment to buy a device and I don't have the money to invest. I'm not entirely new to bitcoin, but I know that right now mining is a lost game. So what is there left to do?

Who says I'm not fighting? I'm giving up after a long fight, I got back into the game because I thought it would be a perfect time to, but after doing research I'm not doing it right, or I'm behind the 8-ball. I guess.

I try day in and day out to look at things that have happened to me since 2011 and earlier, and say there's a reason for that happening. 3 family members in a span of a couple months getting cancer, losing my house, etc these things happened for a reason. All I want is a piece of the pie, whether or not it be through BTC or other forms. I would like to see my grandmother before she passes (terminal cancer 6-8 months) and visit my other family members in ill health. There's no use in me trying to get a job where I'm at, it's literally a haul into town and with gas prices being as high as they are, what are the chances it's going to pay off? I can't work anyways, remember.

Trying not to be bummed out when you've got the world on your shoulders is easier said than done.

But none of us got our coins for free either. Try buying $10 worth today. It will always be a risk, but if you had done that just last week you would be profitable right now. There are no guarantees, but your going to kick yourself again if BTC hits $5K by the end of the year. Risk what you can afford to loose, then stop looking at prices for a year.
We are in the early adoption phase and one day you may be reading about how unfair it was that you only paid hundreds for your coins.

First of all let me answer your question. The chances are >99% that a joe shmo like both of us had at least ONE PENNY to trade in-person. In 2011 transaction fees were completely optional and you could have literally bought a single Satoshi. I attended a couple very small Bitcoin user meetings, and even a guy off the street with $1 of recycling money could have bought SOME and saved it with a library computer.

below is an optional personal anecdote that doesn't actually prove anything, but I'd like to include it

---

I realize I won't win a poverty contest with you, but I'd still like to explain what this has been like. I was extremely frustrated in 2011 that I couldn't buy more. I wasn't blessed with set aside resources, I was in debt and went deeper in debt to buy BTC. I was living paycheck-to-paycheck and spending 3+ hours a day sitting/standing in public transit and biking. I thought I was "helping" my friends and family by telling them about it years ago, but instead they have been urging me to sell the whole time. I can't really blame them - here's a guy who can't even handle his own finances, spending what little he's got on semi-legal imaginary internet money.
They told me that after the June 2011 rally, the April 2013 rally, and the most recent $1000 rally. (http://blockchain.info/charts/market-price?showDataPoints=false&show_header=true&daysAverageString=1&timespan=all&scale=1&address=)

So now here I am, still working hard every day. I've got even less to show for it than I would have if I had never heard about Bitcoin... except for a dusty cold wallet, encrypted and split up - which might not even be worth anything by the time I finally decrypt most of it. It's not even a particularly enormous amount of money (hence the 4am job) but at least now it's something I feel is "significant" or "worthwhile", not the pocket change I squeezed out in 2011. Yes I'm still saving most of it, because it's been a good idea all along and most people still fail to understand what it's capable of (decentralized crowdfunding, prediction markets, entire legal systems, etc).

---

/anecdote

Gavin's Bitcoin Faucet was giving out like 0.05ish BTC in early 2011, so each visit would be around $25 now. And right now $25 would be a smart amount of money for a broke person to save in Bitcoin. You can go to some faucets (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Free_Samples_and_Offers) and save at least some small amount for three years from now. Just don't choose to tell me you don't have choices - don't tell me it's more worth your time to argue with me.

Or you can draw me a nice color picture of an octopus riding an elephant while they are both holding balloons, and I'll send you 0.009 BTC. Offer valid only for skottiejay until 2014-05-31

short-sighted or not, i am planning on bitcoins being worth a lot of money someday. i'm talking six figures, if not seven. maybe that is off base. however, going on this assumption, i know that every effort i take to amassing bitcoin now will pay off hugely in the future. so while i was once bothered by not being able to get lots of btc (thousands for instance), i am now just doing the best i can to collect every mBit and bitcent i can, wherever i can.

But how can you dint had even 50 bucks?, maybe you dint imagine what it could be, my advice is that as bitcoin is only at the begin of a huge movement, buy some coins now, if not you would regret more in the future

How can I buy coin without any money.

That's the problem, I don't have anything to invest here. I can't sell my laptop, or any other cheap trinket because it won't net me any amount of BTC that I can put away and use for the future. The laptop I'm using isn't worth enough to sell on craigslist!

Anyways, maybe I should just close this thread, or maybe a mod can? I'm tired of seeing it honestly, I respect all of your opinions but I guess I'd have to go into detail of what has happened over the past several years and how I've ended up the way I am right now.

Thanks for the advice though.

It is possible that a few years from now maybe 1 Billion people will be using bitcoin. So 2.1 bitcents is a fair share.

So, do you have $12?

looks like you have an ad signature thing going on. why not post a little more on the forums? if you spend enough time, you can potentially earn .5 BTC in a month. all for posting.

Yes there are always ways to get some bitcoins, and the ways you can get them online are more easy than earning fiat. fiat online earning sites are most of them scams.

That's what I'm trying to do at least, I'm hoping it provides some kind of profit at least.

Not sure what you could had done different.  Finding out about Bitcoin at $14 was too late.  What kind of money could you had expect?   $1000 at $14 is only around $40,000 today - not enough money for a man in your predicament, who has to help two sick parents and save his home.  Now if you claimed you knew about Bitcoin when it was only a few cents then that would be something else.

There is some hope in alternates but that requires immense foresight.  People bought a share of NxT at 1.5 BTC back in October (which then was maybe $300) and now they have $2+ million each.  If you had invested $10,000 into Darkcoin a month ago, you would be a rich guy right now.

I don't see why you can't get involved in alternates.   You apparently have money for an internet connection and some kind of shelter arrangement.

Although all this stuff is equivalent to winning the lottery.  Bitcoin only created like maybe 500 millionaires (not counting sockpuppet wallets) and NxT only created maybe 5 (not counting sockpuppets).  This is compared to perhaps 2 million people who use Bitcoin around the world, so the distribution of wealth is worse than real world distribution.

what are you trying to tell us here

Shelter yes, I'm not paying for this internet. Remember I'm at my mothers.

Anyways, it's all a big deal of "too little too late" or "wrong place wrong time" and that's about it. I guess I just learned it the hard way, and that's unfortunate. I really wish I had invested or had the money to invest but I didn't, and that's that. It seems hard to believe but there are people living well below the poverty line that don't have money to spend without thinking about where their next shut off notice is going to be.

Must be some kind of roleplaying or fiction writer.  Apparently the guy has been on the poverty line for well over five years now.

If that were me, would had learned by maybe year #1 to either..

A.  Get a job
B.  If can't find a job, then learn to sell drugs or panhandle
C.  Relocate to North Dakota / Alberta and make $$$

Yes, some kind of roleplayer. Why are people so skeptical of honest to god stories? Here's the gist.

In 2007 I was involved in a major car accident that left me with severe panic and anxiety and PTSD, in 2008 I was admitted to the hospital because I wasn't eating at all and they found I had really bad gallstones and they needed to be removed immediately. From 2008 til now I've been dealing with the after effects of both, from raging panic to anxiety so deep and hard that I can barely get out of bed. I am fighting to get on SSI but they apparently don't feel I"m disabled enough yet I've displayed a level of anxiety that can only be described as SEVERE. The doctor even approved me for disability so I'm legal.

I don't have any money, I don't have any assets. I don't have anything but the laptop I'm typing on and some clothes stashed away.

Why is this so hard to understand, are people not allowed to suffer without skepticism?

have you tried meditation by the way? it can help - i've met countless people who suffer from one thing or another, and it can help. i've seen people make 180 degree turns on their life. you can do 10 day courses and if you don't have money, it's free.

if you are suffering, you should seek out to understand why you are suffering.

I'm suffering because everyone around me is suffering, I can't help everyone and I want to. I need to help myself, and I can't help anyone else because I don't have anything to help with.

Anyways enough of this.

Story of my life.

I hope the best for you and your family. Never give up!

I can't speak for everyone else, but I'm skeptical that you had EXACTLY enough money to survive this whole time. Not so little that you died, not enough that you could have saved literally anything at all. The odds of being within $0.01 of death for 3 years are so low that it's overwhelmingly more likely that you are lying.

There are people out there with no cars and no access to health care whatsoever. They don't just pass out from time to time, they are actually starving and dying of hunger. These people elicit much more sympathy than westerners with days to spend arguing on internet forums.

They don't even have a shitty ancient laptop with which to ignore $5 worth of BTC for 10 minutes labor like you just did. I'm offering you a better rate than I'm getting paid for my own time.

In the last 3 years:
Have you gone to a movie theater?
Have you been using public transit?
Have you cooked all your own meals?
Have you paid for an app?
Did you buy any soda or snacks at vending machines?

You had an early adopter advantage that many here are quite jealous of, and you squandered it.

Sorry to hear that sad story! Even the price jumped from $14 to $500, there are still many people who are losing money. Buying and holding is easy saying than doing. OP is not able to invest BTC and should get rid of it. he should pay more attention to his life and the people around him, do whatever he was able,bravely face the future .

Sorry to hear about your situation OP but you're only saying this because of your current situation. :(

I think it's pretty obvioush why the OP hates BTC.. if they spent that $100 they were going to they would be laughing right now.  People get really angry when the realise they missed the boat when they had a ticket, were on board and decided to get off.

Bitcoin is a losing battle, and we are on the winning side.