My 6th anniversary was a few weeks ago and the only difference between us is that I am still a hero because never rushed to rank up and additionally merit system was introduced a few days before my promotion, I was still senior back then. TBH I am a hero from a few weeks as you see in my private text.

At the start of the merit system, I was really mad because it took me by surprise and the last few weeks I counted every day to my Hero promotion.
I was shocked, mad, disappointed, surprised when the merit system was introduced, but with the time started to appreciate the system, when I saw how big impact it has on me and the forum.
From a total shitposter, evaluated to the 200 most merited members club and finally, I feel like a real member of this forum.

I knew Bitcointalk long before, registered my first account, which was opened after a year of only reading and got hacked after some time when the passwords leaked.
I couldn't claim back, because lost access to the email and there was no whitelisted wallet address in my account. Took me another few months to open my actual, second account.

My journey with BTC is another story. I was very early in BTC and with an old dual-core laptop was still able to solo mine a few blocks.
After that, I started to mine Litecoin because my laptops were not strong enough for BTC a few months later.

I can literally say that BTC saved my life and this is no joke.

As I have already mentioned, mined a few blocks and stopped with mining, when even LTC wasn't able to be mined with a regular laptop. That was the year 2010 or 2011.
After this, I forget about BTC and crypto for a few years because I was very sick and almost died. After this, I couldn't work in my profession (until today and that is why I started internet marketing) and wasn't living in my motherland for a long time, only changed countries every few years. In the age of 18, I left my motherland and started to travel the world. When I get sick, I was from 2 years in a new European country, where I had no social cover, insurance or even a home address.

I couldn't walk properly. All I was able to move by myself was a few meters and you can't call it walking, so I was sitting on a wheelchair and couldn't work in a foreign country, without the right to social welfare. I had no money so moved to a trailer of very good people (they never asked for money) in a winter, where I had no gas, electricity, internet or phone and that was slowly the end for me. Even if, I wanted to check the crypto prices, wasn't able because I was fully isolated from the outside world. Finally was 2014 and I was already living for 2 years, totally broke in my trailer, with no light, gas, with only a lot of debts and very black, stupid thoughts crawling in my head.

One day I was going to the hospital for therapy with a paid bus and I heard there on the radio that BTC price was already 1000$ and started to fall down.
I knew that I mined something, but wasn't sure how much. This laptop on which I mined was still up and running and I had all files still there.
I remember how my hands shaked when I found the dat.file and the time needed to sync the old wallet with blockchain data from a few years, was the longest time in my life.
Wasn't sure if I will be able to send my coins if not synced properly. When I finally saw the updated BTC balance in my wallet it was the best time of my life.

Sold my BTC litter later only for 450$, but that was enough to start a new life and open my own small company. So literally BTC saved my life and this is no joke.

Registration day: January, 5  2014, so 5 years and 6 months here in the forum.