Here's my story!
First heard about Bitcoin at a cyber-crime conference in Prague from a guy from the US. It was mid
2010. Bitcoin had basically no price. I didn't know that at the time, but around that period Lazslo bought his two pizzas for 10,000 btc on this forum. Did I buy back then? No
I had to understand first. I had no clue about mining, how bitcoins were created, how you could exchange them for fiat, inputs, outputs, cryptography... nothing. And so I went through the rabbit hole, which took months. Many months. In the meantime I started teaching about it. I was giving and still give classes on financial crimes all around the world, and I incorporated a module on Bitcoin & ML since early
2011. A few months ago I made a rough estimate: I have personally talked about Bitcoin for at least 2 hours to almost 3,000 people. I always wonder if any of those guys ever bought bitcoins, especially in the early days. Thanks to the courses I was conducting and the legitimate questions I was asked, I was forced to study-study-study. At the time I was literally reading each and every piece of news there was around, and every source available, including this forum. This forum was and is the best source of info. It was a wonderful place and all the devs were here and you could talk to them and ask questions. I didn't register immediately, as I was only a passive reader, absorbing all the knowledge available (I only did it in 2013). I still have some of the slides I used to teach during this period, and I see screenshots of the different exchanges. Price? from 2 to 15 USD. Aaaaaaarrrrgh! Time flies, the price goes up, I keep on teaching, and I finally buy my first satoshis.. probably at around 100 USD. I remember starting talking to friends about it, but none would follow my advice at the time (they did it much much later). I securely print some paper wallet from bit address.org (offline website on air gapped computer using a linux distro and a dumb printer) and i put my treasure there.
After a few months I have the worst idea ever! "I am so smart that I can easily day trade bitcoin and gain more and more"! I still have that MtGox account that I used to purchase my first coins. So yeah, let's go, let me send a quarter of my satoshis there! It was mid
2013. "what can go wrong? They are so reliable, they even send me a yubikey to secure my account! Wow, smart guys. And this Mark seems a great person!". I start smelling something was wrong. I made a tiny withdrawal, just to test, everything is fine... it seems. A few weeks later, when I try to withdraw everything, the collapse. Bye bye bitcoins!!! I am still waiting for the end of the bankruptcy (first) and liquidation (after) process to be over.
Now I am living my first big Bitcoin rally! Bitcoin reaches 1,100 USD before capitulating. I didn't know at the time, but I was seeing the first of the 4-year cycles. But what a great time! I fly to Amsterdam to join Bitcoin
2014, a big gathering organised by the foundation (rip). Patrick Byrne from Overstock gives a keynote, I meet Gavin, I meet Roger, Eric, Tuur, the foundation's people, everyone is friendly and they all spend a few minutes talking to you. I keep holding and teaching while
2015 brings a new low at around 200, people are giving up, bitcoin is declared dead. But I HODL. But now I am holding with an hardware wallet.
Fast forward, another cycle... this time all the way up to 20,000. it's
2017.Everyone tells me to sell! Please sell! And I say "no way"! When the price crashes they are all ready to put that sarcastic smile on their faces, the "told you so" smile. And I give back the "he who laughs last, laughs loudest" smile. It's crypto-winter again... all the people that were begging to learn more about how to buy bitcoin at 15-20,000 have now disappeared. The price goes down all the way to 3,000 and I try to explain that this is the moment to stack sats, buy the deep! But no, it's a bubble, we told you so. That's what they said. And now we are back again in
2021 with another rally. 60k and counting. I keep on giving classes, now online due to covid, and keep on HODLING. That's my story! See you at the beginning of the next cycle in 2024!