Depressed that I was not an early adopter

[Johnny Bitcoinseed]

"Coulda Shoulda Woulda"

The lament of the ages.

Look - early adopters are more often burned than rewarded.  Hindsight is 20/20.  Chances are if you invested when BTC was just pennies, you would have lost it all.  That is why few people did so.

Currently Bitcoin is successful but NOBODY knew it would be back then when it was first starting out.  Which is why few people took it seriously and invested heavily.

Here is what you do now: PROVIDE SOMETHING OF VALUE in exchange for BitCoins.  Yes, its true - you too can do it.  This is just the beginning, the business opportunities are tremendous.  Grab the golden ring while it is put out there for you!

Now if all the ambition you have is to spend a few bucks to get a few bitcoins and then sit back to become a millionaire, forget about it.  That train has left the station and to be honest you don't deserve it.  But if you have a go-getter attitude and provide value to the world, the world can be your oyster.

The choice is yours.  It always has been: cry in your milk or create your own success.  There is nobody to blame or take credit but yourself.

[jdbtracker]

Considering what Bitcoin does, does what Gold does, Functions as Cash, is insanely programmable... this thing is a game changer... final absolute Valuation.  15 Trillion dollars... it does everything that other systems do, better.

current market valuation 9 Billion dollars... Don't worry you guys are still early adopters.

I just saw the post, thought I'd reply to the OP.

[beetcoin]

Considering what Bitcoin does, does what Gold does, Functions as Cash, is insanely programmable... this thing is a game changer... final absolute Valuation.  15 Trillion dollars... it does everything that other systems do, better.

current market valuation 9 Billion dollars... Don't worry you guys are still early adopters.

I just saw the post, thought I'd reply to the OP.

so it does instant transactions too, but only better?

[Conqueror]

Considering what Bitcoin does, does what Gold does, Functions as Cash, is insanely programmable... this thing is a game changer... final absolute Valuation.  15 Trillion dollars... it does everything that other systems do, better.

current market valuation 9 Billion dollars... Don't worry you guys are still early adopters.

I just saw the post, thought I'd reply to the OP.

You are right...hold long term (years) and be happy...

[Exdeus]

This will make you happy in 2011 i had a few hundred BTC today I have 2.5 (cold) I bought them at $20 i sold them for $30.

I even formatted my pc with 40 BTC on it. 

[coretechs]

My regret is that I changed jobs.  In 2009 I was in a dead-end IT job with nothing to do, so I spent my time doing folding / seti / etc. distributed computing projects with as much hardware I could utilize.  Then I made the brilliant decision to get all career-focused and change jobs to a fancy big-name consulting company that demanded all my time with on-call rotations and all-weekend data center upgrades and software installations.  If only I stayed at my dead-end job, I would have surely discovered bitcoin earlier and mined the crap out of it, but noooo I had to go an advance my career.  Stupid rational choices.    

[jdbtracker]

Considering what Bitcoin does, does what Gold does, Functions as Cash, is insanely programmable... this thing is a game changer... final absolute Valuation.  15 Trillion dollars... it does everything that other systems do, better.

current market valuation 9 Billion dollars... Don't worry you guys are still early adopters.

I just saw the post, thought I'd reply to the OP.

so it does instant transactions too, but only better?

Yes, instant transfers, when is the last time you waited more than 10 seconds to see a transaction in your wallet? Instant confirmation of security you mean? not alone but it does it... I've only been studying Bitcoin for a year now, but with other systems it will do the impossible I am sure of it.

BitTorrent: Secure downloadable blockchain.
BitMessage: secure anonymous communication with no location data possible.
Alt-coins/Microcoins: Provide different vectors for Cryptocoin adoption, new functionalities and test beds for features.
Hadoop YARN: Secure Distributed blockchain/ Distributed mining for scrypt based POW
Namecoin: Decentralized DNS/ content distribution.
Open Transactions: Instant transactions and pretty much anything else that can be done in finance.
Keccak: Secure Cryptographic function, excellent data compression system, Magnet link hash distribution.
Industrial Internet of Things:  Instantaneously programmable actions across M2M, B2B, Micro Monetary control of assets, autonomous corporations, 100% efficient wealth distribution.
magnet links: Micro distribution of content, even pay per share content.
Monetas: Phone based bank distribution network.
Ripple: Grass roots wealth exchange.

Put these all together and other open source technologies I have not seen yet and the possibilities will be endless.

[tvbcof]

My regret is that I changed jobs.  In 2009 I was in a dead-end IT job with nothing to do, so I spent my time doing folding / seti / etc. distributed computing projects with as much hardware I could utilize.  Then I made the brilliant decision to get all career-focused and change jobs to a fancy big-name consulting company that demanded all my time with on-call rotations and all-weekend data center upgrades and software installations.  If only I stayed at my dead-end job, I would have surely discovered bitcoin earlier and mined the crap out of it, but noooo I had to go an advance my career.  Stupid rational choices.    

If it makes anyone feel better:

I heard about Bitcoin in association with Wikileaks which would have been mid 2010 I believe.  Got interested enough to download the source code, but didn't get around to porting it to my platform (since I always try to compile anything sensitive from source and Bitcoin did not have it together enough to have an auto-configuration system.)  Being desperate to draw down my fiat balance and diversify, I got all tied up in finding and buying some property and mostly put Bitcoin on the back-burner.

Combined with my excess fiat and interest in Bitcoin from a computer/monetary science point of view, the property I ended up buying cost me probably many many millions of USD.  Oh well.  I've done well anyway by taking advantage of the post-mid-2011 second chance.

[kokojie]

Can't help but feel this way

Don't be, even if you had heard Bitcoin 3 years ago, it's highly probable you would have dismissed it as "pyramid scheme", "ponzi" or "worthless garbage" at the time, same as the 90% other people who have heard about it. You probably would not have invested in it.

[johnyj]

The earlier you are in the game, the more uncertainty you will have, the difficulty of evaluating the risk/reward is almost the same. Bitcoin was cheap back in 2010, but by that time it had almost no public awareness and everyone thought it is just a game

So it does not matter you enter the game at $1 or $1000, you will always face this very difficult decision making process, the market is fair

Even in a fully saturated market, there are 370K new baby born each passing day, means sooner or later they will be competing for 5000 coins daily supply of bitcoin on the market, so they averagely will get 0.0135 coin per person for their whole life, and that amount of coin is going to hold their life savings, for example 1 million dollar at today's price

Once bitcoin is accepted at official exchanges around the world, hedge fond and pension fond will start to invest in bitcoin, the race to this 1-100 million dollar per coin will begin

[BitThink]

The earlier you are in the game, the more uncertainty you will have, the difficulty of evaluating the risk/reward is almost the same. Bitcoin was cheap back in 2010, but by that time it had almost no public awareness and everyone thought it is just a game

So it does not matter you enter the game at $1 or $1000, you will always face this very difficult decision making process, the market is fair

Even in a fully saturated market, there are 370K new baby born each passing day, means sooner or later they will be competing for 5000 coins daily supply of bitcoin on the market, so they averagely will get 0.0135 coin per person for their whole life, and that amount of coin is going to hold their life savings, for example 1 million dollar at today's price

Once bitcoin is accepted at official exchanges around the world, hedge fond and pension fond will start to invest in bitcoin, the race to this 1-100 million dollar per coin will begin

For the new babies, the daily coin supply will be 1800, 900, 450, or less.

[malumeze86]

You can't get bummed out because you missed some perceived "cutoff" for making money with alt coins.  BTC will be around for a long time and will see some hefty gains in the future.  *I hope*

There are other alt coins that are gaining ground too!  Will you bet on these?  Or will you simply wait and feel depressed again?  You have to take a chance, gamble a bit, then wait and see!  Just don't give up if/when you lose a bit of money. 

I'm late (or early, depending on who you ask) to BTC, and I could spend my time wishing I was one of the first.  But that doesn't matter to me.  I am willing to bet on BTC today!

[johnyj]

The earlier you are in the game, the more uncertainty you will have, the difficulty of evaluating the risk/reward is almost the same. Bitcoin was cheap back in 2010, but by that time it had almost no public awareness and everyone thought it is just a game

So it does not matter you enter the game at $1 or $1000, you will always face this very difficult decision making process, the market is fair

Even in a fully saturated market, there are 370K new baby born each passing day, means sooner or later they will be competing for 5000 coins daily supply of bitcoin on the market, so they averagely will get 0.0135 coin per person for their whole life, and that amount of coin is going to hold their life savings, for example 1 million dollar at today's price

Once bitcoin is accepted at official exchanges around the world, hedge fond and pension fond will start to invest in bitcoin, the race to this 1-100 million dollar per coin will begin

For the new babies, the daily coin supply will be 1800, 900, 450, or less.

The 5000 figure is not only the daily coin generation, it also includes coins that were cashed out at 10% rate per year from existing coin holders. Further down the road, there will be more and more people cashing out coins, but they will cash out less and less, eventually the number of daily cashed out coins will stabilize around 5000 coins. See my signature

[phillipcooper]

I'm not depressed that I didn't find it sooner. Bitcoin is fun. I've had fun mining it for a couple of months. Yeah, I would have loved to CPU mine and have a million coins. Face it, I would have spent them on pizza. Let me go back to why I'm here. Bitcoin is fun. Do I want to make money? Yes of course. Big exchanges set up. Dice games are made. Check. Early miners game is long gone. Asic makers are the only ones making money. Now what can I bring to the table? Can I do any of the previously mentioned things better? Maybe. Can I come up with something to make Bitcoin better that everyone needs? I hope so. I won't be rich because I got here first. It's my turn to make something big based on what I know and what I learn. If you have no skills and want to make it big just go buy a $2 powerball ticket and stay in mom's basement. You'll never get there. But watch. I will.

[lateblooming]

You are not alone SeanArce. I think almost everyday of it how lifechanging it would be to look in my Client and see some 3to4figures of BTC.

These words of cheer in that Thread really helped me a lot and hopefully you too.

Thanks Guys!

[davida]

I can tell you now, it's harder to have had them and lost them than never to have had them at all.... Less than 6 months ago I had over 500btc (today valued at $500,000).

Now THAT is depressing...

[Sam-Os]

Maybe it will crash and you'll be able to buy low again.

[haploid23]

Another sob thread? This must be first world problems.

[C10H15N]

Another sob thread? This must be first world problems.

lol - correct.   

[niothor]

Maybe it will crash and you'll be able to buy low again.

Or maybe not , if he is depressed right now , imagine how he will be at 10k/btc.
With only 10 mils addresses with even a few satoshi in them we can easily call everybody on board early adopter.
Early adopter doesn't imply shitloads of money.