Poll - How did you find out about Bitcointalk?

[2double0]

Mine wasn't a lot different than yours, DdmrDdmr.
Actually, I heard about the buzzing word 'Bcoin Bcoin', you know the accent part. Then I asked my friend what is all this about and he asked me, Google "Bitcoin". I said, "Wait! W...what? Bit...Bitcoin?" He said, "Yes, correct."
I asked him, "What is it?"
He was also not much known to it but asked me to visit a Bitcoin forum to know more about it (he didn't know the name of the forum then). I immediately took my phone in my hands to know about this new big thing I was not at all aware about, and then the second result was Bitcointalk forum, that's how I landed here.

[Upgrade00]

Prior to 2018, I knew nothing about bitcoin or cryptocurrency asides the idea that it could be mined, and also never much attention to it. I got introduced to bitcoin and bitcointalk by an acquaintance/friend, just after the fall of the bull run (hard luck). I had a few stints in a couple of other cryptocurrency websites before settling on BT.
It's been a journey since then and I've introduced a couple of people personally to this forum myself.

[fillippone]

Everyone has a dirty secret.
Here’s mine.
Yes, I am guilty: I came on Bitcointalk because I was told by a random person of an AirDrop of a shitcoin, rewarding Bitcointalk users.
I already was a bitcoin zealot at the time, and I knew about the shitcoins, forks and airdrops because they gave me the possibility to grow my bitcoin stash, as I methodically sold each one of them at the first possibility.

I casually had already encountered Bitcointalk in the past, but it never clicked to me. I was studying and learning about bitcoin with other means (websites, telegram, Reddit etc).
But when I had to write a few posts to raise a little bit my merit status (I think I had to rake 10 merits minimum to qualify to that particular AirDrop) bang! It clicked.
The rest is history.
(All the details are in my post history btw, I never deleted shameful posts).

Great thread ddmrddmr. Remembering the first days here made me realise how long the path has gone, and how much the forum has given to me during this months.

EDIT: I went down the memory road and re-read the first merited post (my third overall post- didn't remember that):
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4545628.msg40921522#msg40921522

I can say it aged well.

[LTU_btc]

Despite that it happened more than 5 years ago, I still remember it perfectly. Damn, time flies so fast... I was looking for Bitcoin forum in my native language, so I entered "bitcoin forumas" in Google search. And I was disappointed about search results, because I didn't found any decent local forums about Bitcoin.
But then I noticed this topic from "Other languages and locations" in search results - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=24339.0. Unfortunately, it wasn't very active, so I started to look into other sections of Bitcointalk. I was lurking here for half year maybe without having account, until I decided to sign up. But then I didn't made any posts and forgot about account. And then I came back here after 4 or 5 months and the rest is history.

[UserU]

Man, I have to check back my earliest post to find out.

So how I came here, was during the Bitcoin boom and lost my access to some Bitcoin wallet private key. Did some search on Google and tadaa, Bitcointalk!

[Inkdatar]

As far as I remember my friend introduce bitcointalk to me late year 2016. Those year I'm involved in playing gambling online that pays bitcoin, faucets and investing into hyip. I am grateful that a friend introduces this forum because I have really gained knowledge and at the same time earning bitcoin.

[habibruis]

I heard about bitcointalk from a social media friend. Then I joined this community and earned a big amount of Bitcoin. But that friend betrayed me. He has lent my income, and disappeared Now!

[fortunecrypto]

Without going into the motives behind joining Bitcointalk, I was wondering how people’s first point of contact with the forum was made. Now we may need to jog the memory here a bit, although Beginners & Help tends to have newer profiles around, making the memory lane easier to walk.

If I recall correctly, I reached the forum at the time when searching for information on Bitcoin. I probably performed a Google search for "Bitcoin forum" and made it here through one of the results that popped-up.

What was the reference driver (source, not motive) that drove you to Bitcointalk?

I also landed here the first time through the search engine, that time all the best information are on this forum because there were few media articles that support Bitcoin and Bitcointalk is ranking in the search engine for information about Bitcoin, I guess many of us old members landed here through Google.

[HabBear]

What do you want to know when you first hear bitcoin? How to earn bitcoin of course  .

First, we're glad you're here!

Second, i always find this question - how do I earn bitcoin? - an interesting one among the newest among us. Bitcoin is just currency, money! It can be earned the same as any other way people earn money. The best way to earn it is to do whatever it is you do to make money fastest/most/best and then either (1) ask to be paid in Bitcoin or (2) use that income to buy bitcoin.

I realize that people are looking for new ways to make income and some of those ways that are typical for forum sites (like signature campaigns) or bitcoin (faucets) can be come new and novel ways to make money. Explore all the options! Just know that the fastest way to earn bitcoin is to do more work at the highest rate you can get paid to work, the currency you acquire is a separate thing to decide after you get paid for your great work!

I learned about Bitcoin talk back in 2015...it's been a long time and my involvement has been greater or lesser over the years. But the conversations remain the same, always a good education.

Cheers to the newest among you, you keep the party hip!

[UserU]

I guess many of us old members landed here through Google.

Google is like our magic 8-ball. Without it, I can't imagine how many problems would be left unsolved.

In fact, sometimes I solve my math calculations on the search engine too

[GreatArkansas]

(....)
What was the reference driver (source, not motive) that drove you to Bitcointalk?

I remember around the year 2017 which I have this random guy in one of the social media I have which we become close since he is also into Bitcoin that year and he already has an account here, don't know who he is here, but I'm really thankful for his advice about this forum.
Although I am not really into some internet forums, few forums I already joined but they are not about cryptocurrency. That time I already have some knowledge like what is thread, section or whatsoever.

At first, there is a lot of curiosity of mine in this forum because some people told me that on this forum, you can easily earn cryptocurrency like Bitcoin so I started to browse the forum and found out that there are a lot of things that other forum doesn't have like earning cryptocurrency/money while learning about Bitcoin and making conversation with other people.
But overall, a lot of new learnings I discovered on this forum.

[coupable]

Back to 2014. First time to know about bitcoin was by mining. A friend of mine who lives abroad, sent me mining machines and the link to preev.com and alloscomp.com in the way to calculate daily profit.
I had started mining without to know anything about bitcoin or what is a blockchain except for a wallet i had to create in coinbase to receive mined btc.
First trouble with the mining stuff, i had to deeply search about how to solve it, and at that time there wasn't enough support info till i discover this forum and was surprised how users are so kind and helpful then start my journey with bitcoin.
Back to 2017, the forum was introduced to me by one of my friends, then i found that i already had an account since 2015.
I want to thank the destinies that leaded me to discover this great community and be a part of it.

[agentx44]

Without going into the motives behind joining Bitcointalk, I was wondering how people’s first point of contact with the forum was made. Now we may need to jog the memory here a bit, although Beginners & Help tends to have newer profiles around, making the memory lane easier to walk.

If I recall correctly, I reached the forum at the time when searching for information on Bitcoin. I probably performed a Google search for "Bitcoin forum" and made it here through one of the results that popped-up.

What was the reference driver (source, not motive) that drove you to Bitcointalk?

It was a friend of mine who introduced me into bitcointalk. We were just having a conversation about this new trend which is bitcoin and then suddenly, he told me about bitcointalk. He explained to me the contents of it and taught me how to make an account and earn through joining campaigns on it. Afterwards, I was able to learn and I worked hard after joining campaigns which led me to great profits and amidst the crisis on the projects nowadays, I am still continuing to pursue it cause I know things will get better soon.

[TheBeardedBaby]

I was involved with bitcoin long before I found the forum (2013)and registers account.
How I found it, thanks to Google. I don't remember what I was looking for that time but ended up here. 
I spend some time on the forum before I registered. I didn't thought that It will change my life so much. Before I had some free time to read books, play games and dig into conspiracy theories, now I'm just addicted to the forum.

[DdmrDdmr]

Thanks for the answers so far to this topic. Keep them rolling …

Although the sample is still very small, it gives some tinglings, alongside the testimonials, on how we got to know about this forum. Interestingly enough, so far, family is a tabu way of reaching the forum (I figure that Alt Account cases belonging to "Me, Myself and I" would count as "family", but they are often seen as "friends" here - kidding). The search engine is still the prime factor, and as I stated before, I believe quite a bit could be done to get a better positioning in some contexts.

Note: I will likely not give out more sMerits on this thread. I did a mini-spree here in a honeypot attempt at serving a dual porpose: getting to know something I was curious about and likely interesting for many, and awarding a small portion of the sMerits I had (conceptually) stashed in a fair manner.

[tranthidung]

I was invited to join the forum by my colleague, who invested in bitcoin one year before me. He taught me basics about bitcoin, and told me that the forum is a best place to learn about bitcoin. After that, I created the account on November 08, 2017, 06:22:57 AM. And for the early months on the forum, I simply read.

About 2 months later, merit appeared in the forum, and I was a old-era newbie when merit system began in 2018. What happened after that is my history (see below table). It took me ~ 14 months to become a Full Member (on 21 Jan 2019). One year and 3 days later, I have 1212 merits that I would have never epxected in 2019, on the day I was a Full member. The last month, more than 200 merits came to me.  

Ranks	Time-required (old system)	Between ranks	My spent period (since reg. day)	My time between ranks
___________________	_____________________________	___________________	_________________________________	__________________________
Full Member	4.5 months	n/a	~ 13 months	n/a
Senior Member	8.5 months	4 months	~ 16 months	~ 3 months
Hero Member	15.6 months	~7 months	~ 19.5 months	~ 3.5 months

I earned my 600^th merits on 9^th September 2019.
I earned my 700^th merits on 2^nd October 2019.
I earned my 1000^th merits on 21^th December 2019.

[Findingnemo]

I guess many of us old members landed here through Google.

Google is like our magic 8-ball. Without it, I can't imagine how many problems would be left unsolved.

In fact, sometimes I solve my math calculations on the search engine too

Lot of scams also pops up while searching on google so don't trust them blindly. When you search the bitcoin forum on google you will see a lot of sites similar to bitcointalk.

[acdc]

It was the first time I heard about bitcoin, when I was really interested in this currency. I tried google to find out about bitcoin and come to this forum by chance.
Here people can learn a lot of knowledge and can earn money through aridrop and bonuses. It can be said that bitcointalk is the mecca of the cryptocurrency market.

[kamblepatry09]

When I scrolling on my Facebook news-feed. I found a post where people talking about Bitcoin.
I feel so interest and then I started to read their comments, some friends shared their real life experience about legit passive income source,
they mentioned bitcointalk as a legit income site, thus I searched on google and opened an account.

[Bodykeepers]

When i started crypto way back in 2017 i remembered those days  i got a new android cellphone in im curious what is bitcoin all about. Because a lot of saying that bitcoin can solve your financial problem so i started to research and asking to any of my friends who are already know about bitcoin. When i'm in my research i have a lot of struggle in year 2018 i get scammed, hype, losing my little funds, etc. It's because those days i didn't even know what is bitcointalk. Until one of my friend in facebook refer me to this forum. Even if he had tell me about this forum i ignore him because i thought he was joking at me but when i ask again to other people related to this forum a lot of saying that bitcointalk forum the main source of learning about crypto. And finally i created my account a couple of months ago in i'm still in the process of learning about cryptocurrency. So i am hoping that this is the right way i'm in.