How did you buy Bitcoin back in 2010?

[pennywize]

Buying BTC is easy today with sites like Coinbase but what was it like in 2010 and 2011?
What wallet did people use?

[1715066523]

1715066523

[1715066523]

1715066523

[Xavofat]

Buying BTC is easy today with sites like Coinbase but what was it like in 2010 and 2011?

New Liberty Exchange was up in 2009.  Mt. Gox came up in mid-2010 and took up a lot of the market until its eventual collapse in 2014.

It was also more common for people to mine at home, because specialised hardware was not yet available nor required.

What wallet did people use?

Bitcoin Core.  The blockchain was tiny then so it wouldn't have taken much effort (not that it really takes that much effort now).

[HeRetiK]

Buying BTC is easy today with sites like Coinbase but what was it like in 2010 and 2011?
What wallet did people use?

In 2010 / 2011 you either had to find someone to trade on this forum or make an international bank transfer to this obscure Bitcoin exchange in Japan, called Mt.Gox. That is, if you wanted to sell Bitcoin or buy Bitcoin on top of what you were able to mine yourself.

Bitcoin Core was the only wallet available back then. Unless I'm mistaken alternative wallets didn't turn up until late 2011 / 2012. If I remember correctly the Bitcoin Core wallet was simply called "Bitcoin" until 2013 / 2014, but maybe I just never noticed the "Core" addendum.

[acquafredda]

Yeah, it was possible to sync with the blockchain very fast and also mining was fairly easy. Good old days when we were a bunch of people starting this revolution. I found a guy who was buying btc on Mt.Gox and selling them on Ebay. 20$ per coin in March 2011. I think is when I missed my best chance to buy a full load 

[bitjoin]

Buying BTC is easy today with sites like Coinbase but what was it like in 2010 and 2011?
What wallet did people use?

There are threads on this forum with people trading off of google spreadsheet market style. You will be shocked when you see how much they buy and sell at low prices.  I remember seeing a thread where forum members are talking about 1 guy having over 300k coins etc and someone should PM him and tell him bitcoin went over $1 and so he has $300k! lol

[Jelly0621]

Buying BTC is easy today with sites like Coinbase but what was it like in 2010 and 2011?
What wallet did people use?

There are threads on this forum with people trading off of google spreadsheet market style. You will be shocked when you see how much they buy and sell at low prices.  I remember seeing a thread where forum members are talking about 1 guy having over 300k coins etc and someone should PM him and tell him bitcoin went over $1 and so he has $300k! lol

Is it true ? If it is then that man is sulking now why did he sell his coins before at only $1. Hahhahaha
Having 300k coins is too much, how did he manage to have those coins..

The ones who hold their btc til now way back 2010-11 are now very rich.

[amacar2]

Buying BTC is easy today with sites like Coinbase but what was it like in 2010 and 2011?
What wallet did people use?

Its still not easy to buy/sell bitcoin in many countries where government is full of corrupt personals they are laundering million of $ every month to swiss bank while restricting others from using bitcoin in the name of possible money laundering and tax invasion.

Yes we can exchange bitcoin for fiat easily these days using trading platform but cashing out those fiat/bitcoin to local currency is still pain in the a##.

[Phoenixpple]

At the time, in 2011, some miners were interested in digging bitcoin. These were also sold, and the major transaction was direct hash transfers. Wallets were not popular at that time

[LTU_btc]

Mt. Gox exchange opened in 2010. And there was annother exchange bitcoinmarket.com, if I'm not mistaken. But in that times, it was simplier to mine bitcoins at home without having any special hardware, instead of spending money on exchange to buy btc. Difficulty was low and users were able to mine lot of btc.
And people used original Bitcoin client Core, I don't think that there was any alternatives for this wallet.

[panju1]

Buying BTC is easy today with sites like Coinbase but what was it like in 2010 and 2011?
What wallet did people use?

Mt Gox would have been the start all and end all of Bitcoin trading during the early days. It is amazing how much of the total bitcoin trading volume went through Mt Gox during those days. It has become progressively easier to trade bitcoins these dyas, but there are still some countries where it is difficult.

[hijacker83]

New Liberty Exchange was up in 2009.  Mt. Gox came up in mid-2010 and took up a lot of the market until its eventual collapse in 2014.

When Mt. Gox collapse in 2014 did people lose their bitcoins?

[GeorgeJohn]

That period not many people that know what is cryptocurrency and because bitcoin was only one year old, so therefore bitcoin method of purchasing it will not be difficult because it needed to be firm, shall I think they were buying bitcoin like hand to hand until it circulated to the grassroots, because btc was no orderly caused, I don't think Binance and other exchange platform's were existing.

[Lucius]

When Mt. Gox collapse in 2014 did people lose their bitcoins?

Of course, they lost their coins, the initial estimate was that about 850 000 BTC was stolen/lost, and then they found about 200 000 BTC which to this day have not been returned to their rightful owners. It is without a doubt the most tragic event in the short crypto history that set back progress and caused great distrust towards BTC and crypto exchanges.

It was also more common for people to mine at home, because specialised hardware was not yet available nor required.

That's right, anyone could mine BTC with a personal computer and earn hundreds of BTC every day, considering that the reward per found block was as much as 50 BTC. Those who then realized at least approximately the potential of Bitcoin, used their computers in the best possible way, and certainly far better than those who played games and downloaded torrents.

[DdmrDdmr]

Purchasing bitcoin off Mt. Gox was not an easy deal, if the quantities were largish. Over 10K$ (back then) required a KYC (see https://web.archive.org/web/20121009011724/https://mtgox.zendesk.com/entries/20490576-frequently-asked-questions). That is of course a large amount, but the point here is to highlight the procedure for those cases. I found interesting to read.

Additionally, this quote corresponds to a few years after its opening, but it highlights how the process was tedious and lengthly, at least with large amounts:

<…> So they would have to go directly to the Japanese-based exchange, open their own account, and become customers. Which meant new headaches; to wire that kind of money to Mt. Gox, there were hoops they’d have to jump through. First, they had to scan their passports and mail physical legal documents to Japan—actually, to a P.O. box in Shibuya. Once their information made it over the ocean, they would still have to wait weeks for it to be processed, because the onboarding queue at Mt. Gox was so backed up. <…>

Quote from "Bitcoin Billionaires"  - Ben Mezrich

Mt. Gox before selling bitcoin (card game trading):
https://web.archive.org/web/20090812073342/https://www.mtgox.com/

Mt. Gox selling bitcoins (2011 (not quite 2010, but near enough)– interesting to browse):
https://web.archive.org/web/20110203031942/https://www.mtgox.com/

They also had resellers that bought off Mt. Gox, and sold locally (i.e. BitInstant - 2011-2014).