[edited out]
Wow I read your
story post story and later I saw this video from VICE News and for a second I thought is that you JJG?
What Happened When Bitcoin Made People Rich Quickly?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hZ-Q9QTL2sThat conference of 2013 was in May 2013, and I got into bitcoin around November 2013.. ... but then if you were wondering, was that you? I wonder which one of the May 2013 peeps you would have thought that I would have been? Just like many people getting into bitcoin, it took me a bit of time to become more familiar with why I was investing into it, even though it seemed that I understood some of the basic reasons to be a hedge against the dollar and a possible better version of gold.. but I was also researching into those kinds of questions - especially for my first 6 months into bitcoin - my initial investment into bitcoin, and likely I felt more comfortable by the end of the 1st six months (which would have been about May 2014) because at that time, I had decided to continue another 6 months with a similar amount of funding for my investing into bitcoin as I had authorized for my first six months into bitcoin.
In 2013, one of the earliest Bitcoin conferences was held in San Jose, when one Bitcoin was worth $118. Now, 1 BTC goes for nearly $40,000, and the cryptocurrency industry has minted a new class of millionaires and billionaires with grand aspirations for the industry and the power it wields.
So in 2013 BTC was worth $118 I guess that was the point when you entered too.
I bought my very first bitcoin in a peer to peer transaction that was maybe 8-9% higher than market price, even though maybe I was not getting caught upon the particulars. I bought right around 1.24 bitcoin for $1,500 which would have been $1,200 per coin. I bought some more bitcoin throughout 2014, and likely by the end of 2014, my average cost per BTC was around $580, and by the end of 2015, my average cost per BTC was going below $500, but I made some mistakes thereafter, so these days I like to suggest that my average cost per BTC is likely around $1,000, even though arguments could be made that it is a wee bit lower than that.. but $1k is just a nice round number to work with..
To be fair, all these Bitcoin conferences these days are just using the "bitcoin" name for sake of attention, otherwise no link or any valuable discussion related to bitcoin. That bitcoin conference in 2013 in San Jose was one of a kind.
I don't have any gripes about conferences, and sure some of them likely do have more shitcoins, but some of them do attempt to be more bitcoin focused.. but sure, if they are really BIG, then it is might be difficult to maintain some of the cosy small town feel of the matter, and I am not even really opposed to any of the actualities that bitcoin ends up being for everyone as it develops, so I doubt I am really caught upon any kind of nostalgia in regards towards having a tighter bitcoin community... and in my earlier post, it seems that one of the points that I was attempting to make is that I have never really been very price sensitive in regards to whatever message that I had been attempting to share with folks in terms of getting the fuck started, and sure we may well end up having ups and downs with BTC price, so there can be quite a bit of variance regarding how newbies into bitcoin strategize their BTC accumulation, including that many might feel disgruntled and fucked over by the whole bitcoin matter because they bought way more bitcoin above our currently seemingly depressed bitcoin prices, and for sure each of us need to attempt to figure out some kind of a system for us to both get into bitcoin, and get started buying it and figuring out ways to deal with possibilities that BTC prices might end up going down from whatever we had thought to be our great entry price(s).
It's a long video over 30 minutes but you will enjoy it and it's worth watching and must listen to the words of "Charlie Shrem" from 5:20 - 10:00, man who hosted the 2013 San Jose conference.
At one point he said "I came to bitcoin to find friends"... wow that's many of us too? right?
I did watch the video, and I doubt that coming to bitcoin to find friends is necessarily any kind of unifying force.. People come to bitcoin for all kinds of reasons, and even the 10-15 minute debate in the end seemed to fail to really get to the heart of anything in regards to their seeming to have difficulties figure out some purpose in bitcoin, and surely Meltem Demirors has some great bitcoin experiences, and even if she was not intending to speak on behalf of bitcoin, she allowed those bitcoin naysayer guys to push her in the direction of trying to put some kinds of responsibilities on bitcoin advocates, or even to admit that bitcoin advocates are "meming bitcoin" into existence - which not even a true statement, even if there may well be some truth to it..
Some times the political discussions or the suggestions that bitcoin has some kind of moral responsibility will bother me when they get into the realm of suggesting that as a bitcoin community "we have to do this" blah blah blah.. We even get some of that in this thread from time to time.. and sure maybe bitcoin has some morality to it by not having any morality.. it's for enemies and friends.. and it is likely going to make the world a better place and we do not have to do anything...even though many of us do end up doing stuff for bitcoin and things seem to just work out... like a free marketing team.. even though some people invest into "giving back" too... participation in this forum can be like that.. we can benefit and give back, but we do not need to participate.. and sure some members receive money for signature campaigns, too..
And another brilliant answer he gives to the famous question "Who is Satoshi?" which he answers by saying "I stopped asking my self that few years ago, I think what makes bitcoin great is that there's not Satoshi" let that sink in... man true bitcoiner don't talk about Satoshi any more... you will see newbies still discussing asking this question every day."Satoshi's probably alien or time traveler"
newbies get caught up upon all kinds of quasi-irrelevant and/or narrow questions in regards to bitcoin, but sometimes their narrow focus will end up focusing in upon some interesting angles on certain topics that seemed to have been irrelevant when they first brought them up.. well that's true as long as they are somewhat genuine.. but trolls are not genuine, so sometimes trolls will ask a bunch of mostly irrelevant questions and continue to ask them even when they have been answered... so yeah, sometimes the question of Satoshi might come up, and how big of an issue it is, might depend upon what is happening. Are Satoshi's coins moving? Is Craig Wright suing someone else or claiming a patent / copyright over the white paper or some other nonsense? Some questions that had been answered do end up coming up again, and whether they are more important or relevant the second time around may well depend upon context... but Lindy effect does continue to support ideas that tick tock, the next block has some value too.. and there can be all kinds of debates, but blocks keep coming every 10 minutes too... so those who want to debate about various bitcoin matters might be possibly advantaged by at least taking some kind of a position/stake in bitcoin while they are debating rather than debating as a no coiner or as a low coiner.