When was your first "awareness" of Bitcoin/How were you made aware?

[crypt2k9]

Back in 2008, 2009, 2010 I was a standard irc user and would always type /list to see all channels on a given irc network.
I would sort by most populated channels first.  This was my weird OCD process, to see what projects, and technologies people were interested in on Undernet, Dalnet, eventually freenode.

Before bitcoin related channels existed on freenode, I used this method on some irc server(the network I long forget), and saw #bitcoin with about 130 people in it.
I joined, and as soon as I joined everyone was spamming their wallet addresses.  I asked why, and I was told people were sending 10, 50, 100,300, and other random amounts to BTC to each other when they were worthless, in turn strengthening the network.  This was late 2009.  This is when Bitcoin had no value.

I promptly asked what Bitcoin was about, and after getting the explanation from a few, I said: "Why would I use Bitcoin, when I can use debit cards online", and/or cash in person?
Then the person that responded said: Do you want to take part in global financial disruption, and become the new elite?

I promptly laughed, and said to myself, "wtf is this sh**", and left the channel.

Fast forward to mid to end 2010, is when I finally started taking it seriously after seeing early applications being shaped, and the beginning undertones of organized crime being interested in it.
When you know the darkside gives something a serious look, you know the early adoption means it has value.

Setting that 'dark notion' aside, I saw it for what it was.  I got in early, but not early as I could of.

Does anyone have any stories similar to the irc scenario?

[Parazyd]

Heard about it in late 2009, started mining in 2010. somewhere.

Heard about it through, well you could say, underground news. It's was a pretty weird thing back then, and not many people trusted it will grow up to the size it is today. Luckily, Bitcoin had a great core community and eventually it got huge.

[crypt2k9]

I'm just thinking back to late 2009 when I joined the channel and saw a little over a hundred people sending each other BTC when they were worthless.
I instantly assumed it was a botnet channel with infected clients communicating through encrypted/hashed communications.


While riding that assumption, imagine someone telling you: "What these people are doing is securing the network, and if you participate you will be part of the new elite in the future".
Back then, I thought it was some nut job, maybe it was Satoshi.  Who knows, the person seemed calm and methodical with their tempered words.

But, this should be a lessen to anyone to always remain pragmatic, and keep a wide eye open looking for new opportunities.
Awareness is everything, remember that almost all individuals have a unique frame of reference, and you can learn a lot listening to people as long as it is filled with pragmatism.

Weed out the chafe, and listen to your instinct.
I'm sure there will be many new technology based opportunities in the future which will enable people to increase their net worth.

[zimmah]

Someone mentioned it at school in 2012 or so, I really wish I heard from it sooner.

[lolgato]

Saw it online back in early 2010 ignored it and thought it was a scam got into it in late 2011 and been with it since.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

I thought there was another topic just like this one that I posted in, but whatever.  I don't watch any news or TV, but I do look at business news online and I must have heard about it that way around 2012 or so.  I honestly can't remember how I became aware of it, but I followed the price during 2013 when it scraped $1200 and the subsequent dive, Mt. Gox and all that.  It wasn't an earth-shattering experience for me.

[tobacco123]

Only less than a year ago. The price was dropping but I was really interested in the technology and the "trustless" system.

[karakhan]

14-15 months ago when was playing some stupid games i saw it

[Yakamoto]

The first time I saw Bitcoin was back in 2013, when the news was reporting that Bitcoin had exceeded $1,000 in value. Then I started working with faucets, and eventually I had found I had made about $0.03 in 3 months. So I started looking for more forums to just talk about it, start doing some writing for Bitcoin, the usual sort of work.

[bitbaby]

Back in 2008, 2009, 2010 I was a standard irc user and would always type /list to see all channels on a given irc network.
I would sort by most populated channels first.  This was my weird OCD process, to see what projects, and technologies people were interested in on Undernet, Dalnet, eventually freenode.

Before bitcoin related channels existed on freenode, I used this method on some irc server(the network I long forget), and saw #bitcoin with about 130 people in it.
I joined, and as soon as I joined everyone was spamming their wallet addresses.  I asked why, and I was told people were sending 10, 50, 100,300, and other random amounts to BTC to each other when they were worthless, in turn strengthening the network.  This was late 2009.  This is when Bitcoin had no value.

I promptly asked what Bitcoin was about, and after getting the explanation from a few, I said: "Why would I use Bitcoin, when I can use debit cards online", and/or cash in person?
Then the person that responded said: Do you want to take part in global financial disruption, and become the new elite?

I promptly laughed, and said to myself, "wtf is this sh**", and left the channel.

Fast forward to mid to end 2010, is when I finally started taking it seriously after seeing early applications being shaped, and the beginning undertones of organized crime being interested in it.
When you know the darkside gives something a serious look, you know the early adoption means it has value.

Setting that 'dark notion' aside, I saw it for what it was.  I got in early, but not early as I could of.

Does anyone have any stories similar to the irc scenario?

I wish I was lucky enough to get to know about it then and the sad part is I was online actively everyday and yet I completely missed it, if I hadn't the story would have been a lot different for me, from what it is now. I learned about it last year, right before I joined this forum and I saw a program about it on Discovery/National Geographic channel I think and it was about a guy who had a lot of bitcoins but has lost its private key and it showed how bitcoins are still sitting there but no one can claim them and they're most probably lost forever.

It made me curious and I started googling stuff and that's when I learned I was quite late but still I joined here, learned about various things and here I am.

[BayAreaCoins]

Silk Road and drugs. Duh...  

[bearex]

First knew about it on hackforums, but unfortunately too late - after the 1200 rise

[MyBTT]

It was around late 2012 and I was searching up "How to make money online".

I read this article about how you could make money off bitcoin mining, obviously difficulty was pretty manageable at the time, even with a PC.

That’s how i came to know BTC

[crazyivan]

Probably somewhere in 2011, there were a few posts on make money online forums which I didnt take seriously. Went in late 2012.

[ShawnCart]

Around 2011 when the raise happened.

[NorrisK]

Around 2012 I think. Atleast the price was at 10-20 USD.
It was featured on a Dutch tv show that showed how you could buy hard drugs easily using TOR, silk road and bitcoin.

I got interested in it, but thought 20 usd was too much for the coins so I didn't look back, unfortunately.

[LiquidGamerX]

Hashing SHA256 since around 2001 or 2002, way back when I used to mod on the Quake 2 engine Half-Life variant for various development teams. ( The Half-Life modding community, and Valve software has a space in my heart forever. ) Muddled with some programs like the fold@home I think it was called, and other openSource software. My memory is a little vague but I remember solving blocks(? don't think it was blocks like today but solving the keys) on an old 400Mhz P2 PC in the early 2000's.  Wish I still had all my hardware from the past, but thanks to the mindlessly, paranoid, aggressive, ignorant, vindictive state of mind my father had after divorce I have nothing of my past. (Positive note: Did learn a unique lesson on the illusion of ownership, possessions, and value of inanimate objects. ---  When you lose everything of sentimental/trade value, you would think you become empty, worthless, and sad... Quite the opposite happens)

At any rate, I was intrigued by the ability to utilize my computer processing resources as a collective rather than individually.  Effectively turning a couple of old Pentium 75Mhz Packard Bell computers into a unified-processing platform.

Got into open source because I couldn't afford a license for professional software "boxed" for tools needed to develop/modify a complex 3D game engine.   Which had your computer solve complex math problems received from a separate server, then submit the results. Learned a little on programming, intermediate C++, animation, 2d texture, 3D modeling, world mapping, scripting, sound modification, pretty much the whole gambit.

[n2004al]

Back in 2008, 2009, 2010 I was a standard irc user and would always type /list to see all channels on a given irc network.
I would sort by most populated channels first.  This was my weird OCD process, to see what projects, and technologies people were interested in on Undernet, Dalnet, eventually freenode.

Before bitcoin related channels existed on freenode, I used this method on some irc server(the network I long forget), and saw #bitcoin with about 130 people in it.
I joined, and as soon as I joined everyone was spamming their wallet addresses.  I asked why, and I was told people were sending 10, 50, 100,300, and other random amounts to BTC to each other when they were worthless, in turn strengthening the network.  This was late 2009.  This is when Bitcoin had no value.

I promptly asked what Bitcoin was about, and after getting the explanation from a few, I said: "Why would I use Bitcoin, when I can use debit cards online", and/or cash in person?
Then the person that responded said: Do you want to take part in global financial disruption, and become the new elite?

I promptly laughed, and said to myself, "wtf is this sh**", and left the channel.

Fast forward to mid to end 2010, is when I finally started taking it seriously after seeing early applications being shaped, and the beginning undertones of organized crime being interested in it.
When you know the darkside gives something a serious look, you know the early adoption means it has value.

Setting that 'dark notion' aside, I saw it for what it was.  I got in early, but not early as I could of.

Does anyone have any stories similar to the irc scenario?

If you were in contact and become involved with bitcoin to the end of 2010 and then write that "I got in early, but not early as I could of" what must to write me which was in first contact with it only at February-March 2013 (so three years later). I am truly a belated. Even I was attracted immediately by him reading various thing about the technology in which in based this invention. But my problem was to have lost most of my bitcoins due to wrong investments with it. Then slowly begin to buy but my resources are limited. So every day become more hard to have new ones. I don't know what to do if the price goes high. To be happy because of the verification of my hopes about it or to be sad that I cannot had or have as i want from it. 

[krunox123]

Heard about Bitcoin in the year 2012 from other forum for the first time, and then I accidentally found this forum on Google. But I never take seriously about Bitcoin when I found out about it though. Silly me.

[leonix007]

Heard of it last April on the news, citing negative reports to be avoided, until my female colleague introduce this to me and tried it out last month.