Bitcoin Forum
March 28, 2024, 09:13:15 PM *
News: Latest Bitcoin Core release: 26.0 [Torrent]
 
   Home   Help Search Login Register More  
Pages: [1] 2  All
  Print  
Author Topic: Very early adopters (early 2009) and how much they made  (Read 793 times)
hoowata (OP)
Newbie
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 1
Merit: 0


View Profile
October 01, 2017, 08:02:04 AM
 #1

I keep reading about how some early adopters made 10K+ BTC and I would like to understand how exactly. I have been doing research on this forum and elsewhere about how much they made and how exactly they did it, but so far it has all been inconclusive. By very early adopters I mean those who got into Bitcoin between Feb 1st 2009 and July 1st 2009.

With that said, what would it have taken to mine some 10,000 to 100,000 BTC in that particular time period, in terms of time and processing power spent?

And if instead of mining them myself I decided to buy them from another person (I know there were no exchanges yet, but let's say I started looking for someone to perform a p2p transaction of 10k-100k), how much would I have spent? Or, to put things in another way, how many BTC could $20 have bought in early to mid 2009?

Lastly, how much time and effort did it take users like SmokeTooMuch and laszlo to break through their first 10,000 BTC? How were things back then?

In the first half of 2009, was it really that simple making more than 10,000 BTC? What kind of computer and how much time did that take?

I would like some data, numbers and facts, please.

Thank you.
"If you don't want people to know you're a scumbag then don't be a scumbag." -- margaritahuyan
Advertised sites are not endorsed by the Bitcoin Forum. They may be unsafe, untrustworthy, or illegal in your jurisdiction.
1711660395
Hero Member
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 1711660395

View Profile Personal Message (Offline)

Ignore
1711660395
Reply with quote  #2

1711660395
Report to moderator
1711660395
Hero Member
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 1711660395

View Profile Personal Message (Offline)

Ignore
1711660395
Reply with quote  #2

1711660395
Report to moderator
DannyHamilton
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 3346
Merit: 4505



View Profile
October 01, 2017, 08:39:17 AM
 #2

I keep reading about how some early adopters made 10K+ BTC and I would like to understand how exactly.

At that time, 10k bitcoin was very likely not even worth $10.  So, they made 10k BTC, but it wasn't any different than making less than 0.0025 BTC today.

I have been doing research on this forum and elsewhere about how much they made and how exactly they did it, but so far it has all been inconclusive. By very early adopters I mean those who got into Bitcoin between Feb 1st 2009 and July 1st 2009.

They installed the wallet software (Bitcoin-Qt) and let it run.  Back then, the mining difficulty was very low, so you could mine with a regular computer all by yourself without being in a mining pool (there were no pools yet).  You would get an entire block by yourself a few times per day.  Each block solved would result in 50 BTC.

With that said, what would it have taken to mine some 10,000 to 100,000 BTC in that particular time period, in terms of time and processing power spent?

Each block mined included 50 BTC.  So, to mine 10,000 BTC you would need to mine:
10,000 / 50 = 200 blocks.

There were about 144 blocks mined every day.  If you mined 5% of the blocks, you would get approximately 7 blocks per day. Therefore, it would take approximately 28 days to get 10,000 BTC if you had 5% of the global hash power at the time.

And if instead of mining them myself I decided to buy them from another person (I know there were no exchanges yet, but let's say I started looking for someone to perform a p2p transaction of 10k-100k), how much would I have spent? Or, to put things in another way, how many BTC could $20 have bought in early to mid 2009?

On May 22, 2010 laszlo purchased two pizzas for 10,000 BTC.  Those two pizzas cost a total of just a bit more than $40.  Therefore, one pizza would be $20.  That means in May 2010 $20 could get you about 5,000 BTC.

However, you are asking about early 2009.  I'm not sure if bitcoins had established any value yet at that time.  Initially people were sending them to each other for free, just to see how the system worked.  You could probably have gotten at least 20,000 BTC for $20 in July 2009.  You might have been able to get 20,000 BTC for $1 in February 2009.

Lastly, how much time and effort did it take users like SmokeTooMuch and laszlo to break through their first 10,000 BTC? How were things back then?

I'm not sure, but I don't think laszlo got involved in bitcoin until 2010? 

In the first half of 2009, was it really that simple making more than 10,000 BTC?

Yes.  This is why they were free.  They weren't worth anything because anyone could just make their own.  Why pay for something you could create so cheaply that it seemed free?

What kind of computer and how much time did that take?

In January and February of 2009?  Pretty much any computer that was capable of running the Bitcoin-Qt wallet would have been capable of earning you 50 BTC or more per week.
TheQuin
Hero Member
*****
Offline Offline

Activity: 2562
Merit: 882


Freebitco.in Support https://bit.ly/2I9BVS2


View Profile WWW
October 01, 2017, 08:59:08 AM
 #3

The thing I'm always curious about this is how many of those that were solo mining on PC back in 2009/10 when the price was a few cents have still got the coins they mined. It would have been so tempting to sell them when the price reached $10 or $100 or even $1000. How many are still holding?

freebitcoin.TO WIN A  LAMBORGHINI!..

.
                                ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄███████████▄▄▄▄▄
                    ▄▄▄▄▄██████████████████████████████████▄▄▄▄
                    ▀██████████████████████████████████████████████▄▄▄
                    ▄▄████▄█████▄████████████████████████████▄█████▄████▄▄
                    ▀████████▀▀▀████████████████████████████████▀▀▀██████████▄
                      ▀▀▀████▄▄▄███████████████████████████████▄▄▄██████████
                           ▀█████▀  ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀  ▀█████▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
                   ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
DannyHamilton
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 3346
Merit: 4505



View Profile
October 01, 2017, 09:11:17 AM
 #4

The thing I'm always curious about this is how many of those that were solo mining on PC back in 2009/10 when the price was a few cents have still got the coins they mined. It would have been so tempting to sell them when the price reached $10 or $100 or even $1000. How many are still holding?

From January 2009 until February 2011, 1 BTC was worth less than $1.

It seemed extremely amazing that Bitcoin would reach the 1 BTC = $1 level, and MANY that were involved early would have sold at that price thinking they made a great decision.

SM23031997
Hero Member
*****
Offline Offline

Activity: 1092
Merit: 582


View Profile
October 01, 2017, 08:23:32 PM
 #5

Many Early adopters still have BTC in their bitcoin wallet and they are rich now but the problem with all of them is that either they never stored anything or the machine is not with them or they forget the password of their wallet. Although they are trying every possible step to make it possible to get their coins back it looks impossible as of now.
tigaasayosa
Newbie
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 56
Merit: 0


View Profile
October 01, 2017, 10:23:59 PM
 #6

Many Early adopters still have BTC in their bitcoin wallet and they are rich now but the problem with all of them is that either they never stored anything or the machine is not with them or they forget the password of their wallet. Although they are trying every possible step to make it possible to get their coins back it looks impossible as of now.

and just like that a million maybe more bitcoin dissapear xD
but yeah there nothing we can do about it
LTU_btc
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 3010
Merit: 1323


Slava Ukraini!


View Profile WWW
October 01, 2017, 10:46:07 PM
 #7

Many Early adopters still have BTC in their bitcoin wallet and they are rich now but the problem with all of them is that either they never stored anything or the machine is not with them or they forget the password of their wallet. Although they are trying every possible step to make it possible to get their coins back it looks impossible as of now.
Are you sure that many of early adopters still have BTC? Because as said in previous DannyHamilton posts, many of these early Bitcoin users sold their BTC on the first more meaningful price increase. Some sold for few dollars, more patiently people sold it for few hundreds and only small part of early users is still hodling.

squatz1
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 1666
Merit: 1285


Flying Hellfish is a Commie


View Profile
October 01, 2017, 11:01:47 PM
 #8

The thing I'm always curious about this is how many of those that were solo mining on PC back in 2009/10 when the price was a few cents have still got the coins they mined. It would have been so tempting to sell them when the price reached $10 or $100 or even $1000. How many are still holding?

From January 2009 until February 2011, 1 BTC was worth less than $1.

It seemed extremely amazing that Bitcoin would reach the 1 BTC = $1 level, and MANY that were involved early would have sold at that price thinking they made a great decision.



Sadly, this is the sort of thing with anyone else. One of the biggest thing that bothers me is that people are like 'WOAH WHAT IF I BOUGHT FOR .23 CENTS BACK IN THE DAY'

Well with that same thinking, what would probably happen is that you'd buy at that price and then buy when it doubles, or MAYBE IF YOU'RE CRAZY $1-2

You would never even dream of those Bitcoin(s) you bought coming to an astonishing price of 4k years later. This same sort of thing happens in Stocks all the time.




▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄    ▄▄▄▄                  ▄▄▄   ▄▄▄▄▄        ▄▄▄▄▄   ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄    ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄   ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄   ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄
 ▀████████████████▄  ████                 █████   ▀████▄    ▄████▀  ▄██████████████   ████████████▀  ▄█████████████▀  ▄█████████████▄
              ▀████  ████               ▄███▀███▄   ▀████▄▄████▀               ████   ████                ████                   ▀████
   ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄█████  ████              ████   ████    ▀██████▀      ██████████████▄   ████████████▀       ████       ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄████▀
   ██████████████▀   ████            ▄███▀     ▀███▄    ████        ████        ████  ████                ████       ██████████████▀
   ████              ████████████▀  ████   ██████████   ████        ████████████████  █████████████▀      ████       ████      ▀████▄
   ▀▀▀▀              ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀   ▀▀▀▀   ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀  ▀▀▀▀        ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀   ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀        ▀▀▀▀       ▀▀▀▀        ▀▀▀▀▀

#1 CRYPTO CASINO & SPORTSBOOK
  WELCOME
BONUS
.INSTANT & FAST.
.TRANSACTION.....
.PROVABLY FAIR.
......& SECURE......
.24/7 CUSTOMER.
............SUPPORT.
BTC      |      ETH      |      LTC      |      XRP      |      XMR      |      BNB      |     more
TheQuin
Hero Member
*****
Offline Offline

Activity: 2562
Merit: 882


Freebitco.in Support https://bit.ly/2I9BVS2


View Profile WWW
October 02, 2017, 07:55:31 AM
 #9

From January 2009 until February 2011, 1 BTC was worth less than $1.

It seemed extremely amazing that Bitcoin would reach the 1 BTC = $1 level, and MANY that were involved early would have sold at that price thinking they made a great decision.

I tend to think that's most likely the case. Most people would sell to take a profit if something reached 10x what they paid for it let alone 100x.
I did a bit of digging around and in another thread, I came across this Tx from 28th August this year moving 3000BTC that was mined in January 2010.

https://blockchain.info/tx/4b60dc9cd051f4489420018bf52ead4f1f1377b0e0b4f2bc552f31b2649230ab

So someone has been able to avoid the temptation up until now.

freebitcoin.TO WIN A  LAMBORGHINI!..

.
                                ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄███████████▄▄▄▄▄
                    ▄▄▄▄▄██████████████████████████████████▄▄▄▄
                    ▀██████████████████████████████████████████████▄▄▄
                    ▄▄████▄█████▄████████████████████████████▄█████▄████▄▄
                    ▀████████▀▀▀████████████████████████████████▀▀▀██████████▄
                      ▀▀▀████▄▄▄███████████████████████████████▄▄▄██████████
                           ▀█████▀  ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀  ▀█████▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
                   ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
Pursuer
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 1638
Merit: 1163


Where is my ring of blades...


View Profile
October 02, 2017, 08:09:10 AM
 #10

It seemed extremely amazing that Bitcoin would reach the 1 BTC = $1 level, and MANY that were involved early would have sold at that price thinking they made a great decision.

this is exactly what most people forget when they are talking about "early adopters". they think everybody who were involved with bitcoin MUST be a multi millionaire by now.

but in fact things have not changed at all. right now you don't see bitcoin be worth $200,000 so when it goes up to $5000 you think it is a great deal to sell. what will people in 2020 tell about us who sold at $5000 Cool

Only Bitcoin
TheUltraElite
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 2828
Merit: 1213


Dont be a ShitcoInfluencer for quick bux, it sucks


View Profile WWW
October 02, 2017, 08:16:33 AM
 #11

Early in the days of bitcoin not much adopter were there but those who did so did make a lot of profit. There was a time when the mining reward per block was also very high. Those who bought bitcoin in that time were much speculative and not hoping the price to go from 10$/BTC to 5000$/BTC and also for that they would have to wait a very long time.

So in this process many investors did sell away much of the assets the first time bitcoin reached 1000USD mark and there was a huge crash after that due to this.

R


▀▀▀▀▀▀▀██████▄▄
████████████████
▀▀▀▀█████▀▀▀█████
████████▌███▐████
▄▄▄▄█████▄▄▄█████
████████████████
▄▄▄▄▄▄▄██████▀▀
LLBIT
  CRYPTO   
FUTURES
 1,000x 
LEVERAGE
COMPETITIVE
    FEES    
 INSTANT 
EXECUTION
.
   TRADE NOW   
popolite11
Sr. Member
****
Offline Offline

Activity: 882
Merit: 250



View Profile
October 02, 2017, 08:19:35 AM
 #12

DannyHamilton thanks for you curious answer!

Yes of course I think there are almost nobody who have still bitcoins from 2009.

For example I have many ethereum and happily sold it about 30-40$ but now it is 300$...  Cry  Grin
domgamer
Newbie
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 40
Merit: 0


View Profile
October 02, 2017, 08:19:56 AM
 #13

I think only few of the early adopters of bitcoin are holding it or sold at a high level right now.
LuanX3
Hero Member
*****
Offline Offline

Activity: 756
Merit: 505



View Profile
October 02, 2017, 08:23:01 AM
 #14

Millions of percent! And also, "IT'S OVER 9000!" just for the exaggeration.
Back when it started the price was about $0.0001 and now it's $4,400 as of today. So that mean it has grew by 44,000,000 times or 4,400,000,000%!
If you were an early adopted and bought a few dollars or even just a dollar, then you're already a millionaire by now.
alfstep
Full Member
***
Offline Offline

Activity: 308
Merit: 128


Here I come! Again!


View Profile
October 02, 2017, 08:27:24 AM
 #15

Many Early adopters still have BTC in their bitcoin wallet and they are rich now but the problem with all of them is that either they never stored anything or the machine is not with them or they forget the password of their wallet. Although they are trying every possible step to make it possible to get their coins back it looks impossible as of now.

The more I read it the creepier it gets  Huh
As wise man said, the most destructive things in the world is something we called regret

And for other adopters I doubt they are even still holding it since they purchased it. Perhaps the re-bought it after knowing it has more value, but holding it this long to me is kinda not make sense

Marileno
Full Member
***
Offline Offline

Activity: 215
Merit: 101


✔ Crypto portfolio | ✔ Telegram/APP


View Profile
October 02, 2017, 08:27:52 AM
 #16

These numbers are all great, however the fact is that most people who were involved in the early days would have cashed out and used a lot of their gains over time. I enjoy reading the "I had $1K bitcoins in 2010 and now its worth 83 trillion" articles as well, but lets be honest and accept that most people would have sold a bunch along the way.

It's likely there is a couple of people though who are sitting on silly silly amounts of money. Good on them.
bitjoin
Hero Member
*****
Offline Offline

Activity: 1372
Merit: 500



View Profile
October 02, 2017, 08:29:49 AM
 #17

Millions of percent! And also, "IT'S OVER 9000!" just for the exaggeration.
Back when it started the price was about $0.0001 and now it's $4,400 as of today. So that mean it has grew by 44,000,000 times or 4,400,000,000%!
If you were an early adopted and bought a few dollars or even just a dollar, then you're already a millionaire by now.

Its pretty insane, but from what i saw there wasn't much trading taking place when the price was well under $1, mostly peer to peer stuff. As soon as we got some decent exchanges the price started going mental.  Would have been nice to mine a few k coin back then though.

THE BEST IN SPACE
AUTO-COMPOUNDING DEFI 3.0
PROTOCOL ON BSC
▀█▄▄▄                                                                      ▄▄▄█▀
▀██
████▄▄▄                                                          ▄▄▄██████▀
▀▀███
██████▄▄▄                                              ▄▄▄█████████▀▀
▀▀████
████████▄▄▄                                ▄▄▄████████████▀▀
▀████████████████▄ ▄▄                  ▄▄ ▄████████████████▀
████████████████████▄▄          ▄▄████████████████████
▀█████████████████████        █████████████████████▀
▀████
███████████████▌      ▐███████████████
████▀
▀▀█████████
██████████████████
█████████▀▀
▀████████████████████████████████▀

▀███████████████████████████▀

▀██
█████ ███    ███ ███████▀
▀▀███   ██    ██   ███▀▀
.....5 0 1 , 6 5 2 %   A P Y......
.
|     TWITTER     |    TELEGRAM    |     DISCORD     |
.
....JOIN NOW....
LuanX3
Hero Member
*****
Offline Offline

Activity: 756
Merit: 505



View Profile
October 02, 2017, 02:01:27 PM
 #18

Millions of percent! And also, "IT'S OVER 9000!" just for the exaggeration.
Back when it started the price was about $0.0001 and now it's $4,400 as of today. So that mean it has grew by 44,000,000 times or 4,400,000,000%!
If you were an early adopted and bought a few dollars or even just a dollar, then you're already a millionaire by now.

Its pretty insane, but from what i saw there wasn't much trading taking place when the price was well under $1, mostly peer to peer stuff. As soon as we got some decent exchanges the price started going mental.  Would have been nice to mine a few k coin back then though.

Well, no one ever heard about it really till before the crash of mt. gox. The bitcoin scene was just for enthusiasts of the cryptography scene. Those cyberpunks were the first ones to really adopt it as this was principally what they wanted. A money that is anonymous, decentralized, ruled by cryptography and just works. That was achieved by bitcoins.
joseafonso123az
Sr. Member
****
Offline Offline

Activity: 476
Merit: 250


View Profile
October 02, 2017, 02:06:13 PM
 #19

That's true, people had a lot of coins before, but just forgot passwords, dont have the wallets now and the list continues. I had one teacher that told me he had gathered a bunch of coins in the early years of it, but then, he sold the computer with the hard drive and lost all the coins that would no give him some financial support. It's also one of the reasons why BTC's value is high, BTC is in demand, those who lost somehow managed to decrease the number of the BTC's that exist, so the value is getting high.
Also I don't think early adopters might have thought the value to rise so much, and it really began to rise since last year or two.
thebanker28
Sr. Member
****
Offline Offline

Activity: 303
Merit: 250


View Profile
October 02, 2017, 02:10:27 PM
 #20

I am not sure whether they are urban legends or not, but I have heard plenty of stories of early adopters who had bitcoin wallets on PC's that died and couldnt have been bothered at the time recovering them. They simply wasn't the value in them, and nobody apparently foresaw the dizzy heights the price was going to climb to.

I can certainly sympathise with that as I have lost a few hard drives to failures and carelessness over the years.

Who knows?

            ▄▄████▄▄
        ▄▄██████████████▄▄
      ███████████████████████▄▄
      ▀▀█████████████████████████
██▄▄       ▀▀█████████████████████
██████▄▄        ▀█████████████████
███████████▄▄       ▀▀████████████
███████████████▄▄        ▀████████
████████████████████▄▄       ▀▀███
 ▀▀██████████████████████▄▄
     ▀▀██████████████████████▄▄
▄▄        ▀██████████████████████▄
████▄▄        ▀▀██████████████████
█████████▄▄        ▀▀█████████████
█████████████▄▄        ▀▀█████████
██████████████████▄▄        ▀▀████
▀██████████████████████▄▄
  ▀▀████████████████████████
      ▀▀█████████████████▀▀
           ▀▀███████▀▀



.SEMUX
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
  Semux uses 100% original codebase
  Superfast with 30 seconds instant finality
  Tested 5000 tx per block on open network
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █
Pages: [1] 2  All
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.19 | SMF © 2006-2009, Simple Machines Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!