When and how did you find out about Bitcoin?

[N12]

I’ve read about it on an imageboard in February and was amazed how I could’ve missed this for two whole years.

[1713519920]

1713519920

[w128]

I’ve read about it on an imageboard in February and was amazed how I could’ve missed this for two whole years.

Reddit, last week.

I feel the same way.

I was actually looking for something like this for a long time, spending lots of time in various distributed computing projects and benchmarking/performance circles even dabbling in creative uses of OpenCL. I somehow missed on Bitcoin entirely.

I actually went back to see if I'd simply overlooked it in one of the feeds I regularly consume.

Nope.

Apparently, bitcoin discussion was pretty tightly confined. I think part of the problem is/was that a lot of people have an irrational hatred for it. In some forums, the mere mention is grounds for having your posts mocked or deleted prior to being banned.

It's fine to have the same daily, circular arguments around Intel/AMD, which Linux distribution is the most elite or spend hundreds of dollars on completely ridiculous liquid nitrogen overclocking experiments that produce nothing beyond bragging rights but talk about bitcoin and mining are completely unacceptable.

[mewantsbitcoins]

I learned about it when I was looking for a way to donate to Julian and Wikileaks.

[kjj]

Slashdot.  Terribly written story about 2 weeks ago.  Apparently I had missed the previous story a couple of months prior.  If I had seen it earlier I'd be fake-rich now.

[PLATO]

The Hidden Wiki in January, which was mentioned on The Rogan Boards

[N12]

Apparently, bitcoin discussion was pretty tightly confined. I think part of the problem is/was that a lot of people have an irrational hatred for it. In some forums, the mere mention is grounds for having your posts mocked or deleted prior to being banned.

I’ve experienced the exact same everytime I brought up Bitcoin myself. I don’t understand where all the hate comes from … When I first heard about Bitcoin, I thought of BitTorrent technology as money system and that seemed very positive to me, all technical details aside. Searching on Google for forum discussions showed pretty much the same thing everywhere. How come this happens?

Are people really offended by alternatives because they are so deeply entrenched in this system?

Ironically, later on, people complain about early adopters being rewarded – the same early adopters who were punished for trying to introduce people to Bitcoin.

[w128]

Slashdot.  Terribly written story about 2 weeks ago.  Apparently I had missed the previous story a couple of months prior.  If I had seen it earlier I'd be fake-rich now.

Fake-rich beats "not any kind of rich" =)

I'm actually more bothered by correctly predicting the rise or fall of a number of tech stocks like this one, this one, or this one and having cash to invest but never having the confidence to actually jump in than missing the boat on bitcoin.

[kinghajj]

I read about it in late March, probably on reddit. First I mined with my GTX 260, but soon upgraded to a 5870 and have been mining with it as much as possible (only stopping when either a damn pool or Comcrap goes down). I wish I had started with even my 260 in Feb 2010 when I got it, I would have so many more Bitcoin by now! Oh, well, some is better than none, right?

[w128]

Apparently, bitcoin discussion was pretty tightly confined. I think part of the problem is/was that a lot of people have an irrational hatred for it. In some forums, the mere mention is grounds for having your posts mocked or deleted prior to being banned.

I’ve experienced the exact same everytime I brought up Bitcoin myself. I don’t understand where all the hate comes from … When I first heard about Bitcoin, I thought of BitTorrent technology as money system and that seemed very positive to me, all technical details aside. Searching on Google for forum discussions showed pretty much the same thing everywhere. How come this happens?

Are people really offended by alternatives because they are so deeply entrenched in this system?

Ironically, later on, people complain about early adopters being rewarded – the same early adopters who were punished for trying to introduce people to Bitcoin.

I think It's a combination of many things with plain old misunderstanding and groupthink probably being the biggest contributors in the past. Right now there's probably a growing dose of jealousy and regret mixed in there too.

At some point in the future when the concept has been broken down into spoon-feedable chunks and repeated through enough sources you'll be able to go back to the same places and have by any number of Google-powered experts tell you just how much you don't know.

Last but not least there's the bitchiness of Internet culture in general. Being positive and genuine about anything is cause for ridicule while jaded sarcasm is normal.

[extracool]

the third week of April from @RKHilbertSpace on twitter.

[NicholasBell]

One of my friends must have seen the slashdot article in February. I dismissed it for a week because he didn't describe it thoroughly (I'm pretty sure I was under the impression that it was centralized and that mining was a way of cheating the system, based on his initial description). Eventually, he posted a blog post that was much more descriptive and piqued my interest. I spent an entire day reading about it and decided to get into it. Started mining a bit. Got lucky and bought 40 of them at nearly their lowest price since I was introduced to it (about 70 cents each). Holding most of it because of ridiculous deflation but trying to use it where convenient.

tl;dr: irl friend in February.

[Littleshop]

One of my friends must have seen the slashdot article in February. I dismissed it for a week because he didn't describe it thoroughly (I'm pretty sure I was under the impression that it was centralized and that mining was a way of cheating the system, based on his initial description). Eventually, he posted a blog post that was much more descriptive and piqued my interest. I spent an entire day reading about it and decided to get into it. Started mining a bit. Got lucky and bought 40 of them at nearly their lowest price since I was introduced to it (about 70 cents each). Holding most of it because of ridiculous deflation but trying to use it where convenient.

tl;dr: irl friend in February.

The slashdot article in Feb for me, I ordered my first Radeon 5830 that week. 

[proudhon]

Bad Philosophy podcast.  Listed to it on April 19th.  Was mining the next day.

[Gilboa]

I saw posts about it on an imageboard at first but never looked into it. It was an article on lifehacker that finally peeked my interest in Bitcoin.

[MoonShadow]

April 2010 slashdot article.

[MemoryDealers]

I heard about it on Free Talk Live around Dec of 2010.  (www.freetalklive.com)
I thought it was a great idea when I heard about it,  but was disappointed when it looked like almost no one was using them.
Then when I heard about the federal poker ban,  I knew that bitcoins had found their calling.
(Actually one of their many callings)

I've hardly been able to sleep since!

[billyjoeallen]

Besides Satoshi, There is another shadowy internet figure called Mencius Moldbug who writes the subversive reactionary blog Unqualified Reservations. http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/
He suggested buying a few hundred bitcoins months ago. Damn, I wish I had.

[Indemnified]

A few weeks ago on the Urban Survival Daily News Update

                   http://urbansurvival.com/week.htm
                 

[error]

I have long since forgotten where I heard about Bitcoin.

[spenvo]

I came in from the Security Now podcast and immediately shared Steve's enthusiasm.  His reaction to Bitcoin really encapsulated the way so many geeks feel about the topic:  total awesomeness.

twit.tv/sn287