The mistake I made some years ago

[sokani]

I got to know about BTC in 2016 through a friend who introduced me to a pyramid scheme. I bought 0.0334 units of BTC at $20.9. I didn't know the risks associated with online wallets then, so I stored it in my blockchain.com wallet. I sent the BTC to an upline member hoping to receive it back from 2 downline members I introduced to the scheme. To cut the story short the pyramid scheme turned out to be a scam and I lost my BTC. Today, I was browsing through my phone and I stumbled on my blockchain.com wallet and I decided to check it out, lo and behold the value of the BTC in my wallet left me with mixed emotions. I was happy being that even in bear market, the BTC that I bought at $20.98 has appreciated to $566.11 and also I was sad because I wish I had invested in BTC instead of the pyramid scheme.

I didn't buy Bitcoin until 3 years after. I really missed that golden opportunity to get it at such rate. Well the good news is that... The bear market is a good time to fill my bags and I got myself some BTC and I'll hodl unto it. You never can tell what price BTC could hit in the coming years.

Transaction hash of my first BTC purchase 2016: https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/transaction/0ffb4d64715a09d61491dab5d2ecceb7bd67f52aea61da19e4d168d8bf24caa1

[1714165890]

1714165890

[1714165890]

1714165890

[GreatArkansas]

I can relate to this. I already lof of Bitcoins lost in the early days of my journey when I started to introduce Bitcoin.
I also a lot of pyramid or Ponzi schemes I joined before and even if I didn't deposit a ton of money before, I made a lot by just inviting someone, that's how I am dedicated before but later on, most of their earnings are lost to a lot of scams and altcoins that I bought using my Bitcoin. This will be a lesson for us.

[noorman0]

-snip-
You never can tell what price BTC could hit in the coming years.

This is an important point, no one knows how bitcoin will go in the future, and actually the value of bitcoin will grow by itself without involving any scheme.

You're not the only one who's sorry, I think people just rushed to get riches on the "profitable" methods of the past by spending $10-20 bitcoins which they didn't think were worth much back then.

[mk4]

Unfortunate. I'm very certain we all had our fair share of mistakes with varying degrees of financial damage. What matters most is what you do today after you learned your lesson. Best of luck!

[Darker45]

All of us have our own fair share of newbie days. To many, that means falling victim to all kinds of schemes. I used to be a victim as well. I learned lessons from it, but I payed for it a bit dearly. Later on in my Bitcoin journey, I fell victim once again, this time to a centralized exchange that went bankrupt. Again, I learned my lessons, but not before I payed for it.

I guess many of us here in the Bitcoin community share the same rough road. But we're still here. We're still going forward. Instead of crying over spilled milk, we're making the most of the opportunities at hand. I guess there's a reward waiting for us in the end. Or so I hope.

[Razmirraz]

Mistakes made in the past shape character in the present and the future. Mistakes like this are common, regardless of the various cases experienced, regret always comes when knowing the true reality. Bitcoin will continue to run, bitcoin growth cannot be separated from fluctuations that require you to be patient when the price is below.

No need to rush to get riches in an instant way, walk slowly, sooner or later you will arrive at your destination safely. Remember, never keep any assets on an exchange for a long time, the risk of loss is very vulnerable if something unexpected happens to the exchange.

[harizen]

I'm sure the majority of us here do have the worst experience before as a newbie. Honestly, even experienced ones still fall on sh*t.

Isn't it good that we experienced those as that became our fundamentals and foundation in building a good crypto experience?

The feeling of being regrettable and disappointed is just usual but we have to move on. Cheer up!

[Apocollapse]

I wouldn't call it as a mistake, it's a small achievement for you since you can hold it after 3 years, so congratulations for holding Bitcoin after 6 years. At least you're accidentally remember your old wallet and your cellphone still able to survive for six years long, usually people change or lost their phone after 2-3 years.

The most important part is, just buy Bitcoin when it's still cheap and hold it for long time.

[uneng]

Don't feel so bad about it. Everyone had their mistakes in this bitcoin journey. I remember to have made more than 0,001BTC daily back then only on faucets, planning to grow those earnings into something substantial. 100,000 satoshis on those times didn't worth too much, I think something around 0,40$-0,50$. But I wasn't disappointed about that, because I believed on the big potential of PONZI SCHEMES!

There were a plenty of offers where you could earn more than 1% daily over your investments at the conservative ponzi schemes, as there were also the turbo ones offering 10% daily or so. Then I believed that could be true, although under the name of cloud mining services. All those opportunities made me believe it should be possible to grow micro earnings to hundreds or thousands on long term.

And indeed it was possible, but not through scam schemes, rather through the simple act of holding! And it's never too late to start holding. Forget previous losses, have a new beginning from zero with bitcoin, it's still time to prepare yourself for the next bull run!

[Dave1]

I guess majority of us here, at one point in time, have been scam with this kind of pyramiding scheme that you have been introduced. And I think this is the stigma that left a bad test for bitcoin, and that it became synonymous to scams like pyramiding. I myself was a victim of bitcoin doubler, and just like you thinks that I can double my money and have a downline. But in less than a month, the website closed and the rest is history. Don't regret it though and charge this to experience, move up and accumulate bitcoin because this is the perfect time - bear market.

[lousie9]

now you get a valuable experience. although it's you don't lose big enough if you see the capital you spent when buying Bitcoin.
now you have seen the opportunity, the market is down, and this is an opportunity for you to make a profit by investing in Bitcoin. it may take more time, but now the market can move faster than in the past. it is due to the popularity of the Bitcoin market which is growing quite rapidly. Now you see an opportunity, and you can do it. I hope you succeed this time, even though you also have to spend more capital, unlike the first time you bought your Bitcoin.

[Poker Player]

There are a lot of stories like that. Bitcoin started trading at $0.008. By the time it reached $1 there was virtually no people left of those that still holded, who bought at $0.008. From $1 to $100 the same thing. The one who makes a 20x or 30x often sells because he doesn't know what the future is going to look like and prefers to have the money in hand now.

There are worse stories. Like those who bought at the top of the cycle only to panic sell shortly after because prices fell, only to see in the next cycle that the price went much higher.

[romero121]

OP have missed the opportunity, and now he's on the right track. Even now it isn't too late, you've got more time left to experience the best out of bitcoin. Maybe the profiting won't be the same as what you missed. This is common and most of the users could've experienced it.

I personally hadn't trapped into pyramid schemes, I was fooled by multiplier schemes and lost good number of bitcoins believing in a centralized wallet application. Later through P2P transaction one user cheated me while trading. From then onwards I used to be very careful handling bitcoin.

[KINVAN e]

I have made a lot of mistakes, I was dazzled by desire, I kept buying in the bull market, and increased leverage, resulting in a serious shrinkage of funds, but there were also gains. After experiencing all this, I became mature, started to learn, and improved my consciousness. Know.

[Outhue]

The size of your images are too big, kindly use height=400 to lower the size.

I have used BTC to invest in a Ponzi scheme called MMM years ago and I bought BTC worth of 200$ at the time, I am very sure the that value today will be in thousands of dollars, some times we learn the hardest way to gain more knowledge.

At least you still get your life going, you are still alive so you still have the chance to make a big difference someday, do not give up to, buy BTC and HOLd, we can see a new All Time High in 2025 or so.

[Strongkored]

It seems that people who knew Bitcoin very early or around 2016 onwards experienced almost the same thing, fell into a ponzi scheme or what is no less booming in the past is cloud mining, how many buy mining packages to get returns and it only works just for a while because in the end it will deceived, only cex.io where we can participate in cloud mining because they do own and run their own mining, the rest is just a scam company and only has a website without mining equipment.

[m2017]

Your losses are ~21$, not ~566$ as you think. You shouldn't be upset about them.

Now you are convinced that the pyramid scheme and bitcoin are not the same thing. Also, only those that are stored only with you, and not with friends or acquaintances who promise to give / return btc, can be considered your bitcoin.

You missed one opportunity - it doesn't matter. There will always be new opportunities, like now, in a bear market. The main thing is to invest in btc, and not in pyramids.

[davis196]

So you are surprised that a pyramid scheme turned into a scam? How shocking! I didn't see that coming.
I was scammed with 100 USD worth of BTC by a guy on Discord years ago, when the Bitcoin price was around 10K USD. Then the BTC price went to 60K USD, so I kept thinking that I've lost 600 USD not 100 USD. Anyway, it doesn't matter. We all make mistakes and we all get scammed by someone at some point. There's no point of regretting about the money we've lost. We just have to learn from our mistakes and avoid them in the future. A guy, who makes the same mistake twice is in idiot.

[adzino]

Happened to all. I am sure there are people that spent their bitcoin when the price was $500 or $1,000 or $2,000 or so on. You shouldn't be regretting. You probably sold because you had to or because you wanted to take your profit. People should stop being obsessed with holding "toxicity" mentality. If you want to take profit, take it and later when you can afford to buy more, buy.
Instead of looking at your previous transaction, why not buy again and hold some so you don't regret in the future once again?

[WatChe]

I got to know about BTC in 2016 through a friend who introduced me to a pyramid scheme. I bought 0.0334 units of BTC at $20.9. I didn't know the risks associated with online wallets then, so I stored it in my blockchain.com wallet. I sent the BTC to an upline member hoping to receive it back from 2 downline members I introduced to the scheme. To cut the story short the pyramid scheme turned out to be a scam and I lost my BTC. Today, I was browsing through my phone and I stumbled on my blockchain.com wallet and I decided to check it out, lo and behold the value of the BTC in my wallet left me with mixed emotions. I was happy being that even in bear market, the BTC that I bought at $20.98 has appreciated to $566.11 and also I was sad because I wish I had invested in BTC instead of the pyramid scheme.

I didn't buy Bitcoin until 3 years after. I really missed that golden opportunity to get it at such rate. Well the good news is that... The bear market is a good time to fill my bags and I got myself some BTC and I'll hodl unto it. You never can tell what price BTC could hit in the coming years.

Transaction hash of my first BTC purchase 2016: https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/transaction/0ffb4d64715a09d61491dab5d2ecceb7bd67f52aea61da19e4d168d8bf24caa1

More or less everyone of us has gone through such situations in our early days in crypto industry. Its better to take this as learning opportunity and dont repeat this mistake in future when we have bigger crypto portfoilio. Its also true that most of us never realized the vulnerabilities of crypto until it happen with us.
Just move on and keep accumlating BTC.