Any 50 BTC donor still active here?

[un_rank]

Logically, nowadays, few would "remember" to donate 10BTC.
We have to think about the monetary value that was being donated at the time. $10, $25, $50, $500 or $1000? Probably that, so it was logical donations for height. Today the same type of values could also be logical, but it would no longer reach 10BTC.

I would not "remember" to donate today, but the donators of the past did not just give the fiat value of their donations but they also gave the potential value. Holders at that very early stage certainly had an understanding of Bitcoin and expected that the price of one unit of it was going to be worth a lot, so they held it and supported its forum.
They know there was a chance that $500 or $1,000 will get to $5k or $10k but still donated it either way.

- Jay -

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[joker_josue]

I would not "remember" to donate today, but the donators of the past did not just give the fiat value of their donations but they also gave the potential value. Holders at that very early stage certainly had an understanding of Bitcoin and expected that the price of one unit of it was going to be worth a lot, so they held it and supported its forum.
They know there was a chance that $500 or $1,000 will get to $5k or $10k but still donated it either way.

- Jay -

When I joined the forum in 2013, there was optimism regarding the appreciation of Bitcoin, but it was not very common for someone to have the expectation that one day Bitcoin would be worth 60k as it already was. Today this is a little different. Of course, there were certainly some who had this hope, but the value at the time was very low, and therefore it was difficult to predict such an increase.

[un_rank]

...

Certainly. That is why I used a conservative multiplication rate of $500 to $5,000. This is a 10x return on investment and if we take an average price of $100 in 2013 that is just bitcoin going up to $1k.

Will you say the expectation then was that bitcoin could get as high as $1k or $5k within the coming years?

- Jay -

[Sandra_hakeem]

Perhaps it would be better to say that they deserve thanks, but you also have to take into account the time in which these donations happened - which was mostly at a time when the price of BTC was very low, and people were mining with their computers and for each block received as much as 50 BTC reward.

what are you saying in Essence?? That ofcourse anyone could donate because it was cheap?? Weren't they aware of the increase in value of the currency in the near future?? WHY DIDN'T YOU MINE AND DONATE YOURSELF since it was that easy?
The one thing that's certain is that they GAVE without regrets... I believe it's part of the forum's networth today.. apparently, you don't need to have much to give - it's all about how compassionate you are...
to the donators; y'all planted a seed that's been helpful... Y'all deserve some more accolade and respect - I believe that's the reason why y'all have 'em tags on.

🏰 TradeFortress 🏰 is a famous scammer. Some scammers are here too List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses.

It's not just about TF alone; haven't I read a thread from long ago when OGnasty made away with a huge cash from the forum's treasury? And Theymos ignored him since he was previously in control?... That's exactly what I read and I'm saying it without any hard feelings...

Sandra 🧑‍🦰

[joker_josue]

Will you say the expectation then was that bitcoin could get as high as $1k or $5k within the coming years?

Yes, that was more or less what was expected. Even so, it was the most optimistic who pointed to these values.

[PX-Z]

Will you say the expectation then was that bitcoin could get as high as $1k or $5k within the coming years?

Every bitcoiner, either short term or long term holder will hope and expect that way. Who would want to increase their holdings when you just holding it anyway. Also, isn't that how holders expect that's why they keep buying and holding?

[nutildah]

Amazing number of scammers in these lists 

Here's some of the most famous ones:

zhoutong - believed to be behind the hack of Bitcoinica, one of the 1st BTC exchange, Roger Ver famously lost 100s of BTC
pirateat40 - architect of the 1st major Bitcoin ponzi scheme, actually served time in a federal penitentiary over it
Goat (now El Cabron) - ran a mining ponzi, a heavy promoter of the pirateat40 ponzi, welched on a few bets
MemoryDealers (Roger Ver) - ran a famous campaign designed to trick the world into mistakenly purchasing BCH by claiming it was "the real Bitcoin"
🏰 TradeFortress 🏰 - already mentioned here, ran at least two different projects in which the loss of 1000s of BTC occurred

[Asiska02]

I learnt that there was a time forum members donated to the forum which fetched them the titles of donator for 10 BTC donors and VIP for 50 BTC donors.
My question is; are there 50 BTC donors who are still in the forum till date. They deserve respect.
I have seen Ognaty and he donated 10 BTC and still in the forum till today, Kudos to him. I want to know if 50 BTC donors are still here.

Where to find name of donors. https://bitcointalk.org/donate.html

You’ve gotten lot of answers to your question and I believe that would have satisfied your inquisitiveness. All those that have donated to the forum in the past needs to be appreciated and we don’t need to mind the worth of BTC then, at least it was a selfless act to the forum and they appreciated it at that time and gave them some tag of respects to their names.

Amazing number of scammers in these lists  

Here's some of the most famous ones:

zhoutong - believed to be behind the hack of Bitcoinica, one of the 1st BTC exchange, Roger Ver famously lost 100s of BTC
pirateat40 - architect of the 1st major Bitcoin ponzi scheme, actually served time in a federal penitentiary over it
Goat (now El Cabron) - ran a mining ponzi, a heavy promoter of the pirateat40 ponzi, welched on a few bets
MemoryDealers (Roger Ver) - ran a famous campaign designed to trick the world into mistakenly purchasing BCH by claiming it was "the real Bitcoin"
🏰 TradeFortress 🏰 - already mentioned here, ran at least two different projects in which the loss of 1000s of BTC occurred

What baffles me more is why some of this VIP members later got themselves involved in fraudulent activities, was the donor done initially so that the forum won’t believe them involving in such activities or they later got to know that bitcoin value will continue to increase and the only way to own more of it will be through scamming a lot of people? They have just tarnished their images here and this is despicable of them.

[joker_josue]

What baffles me more is why some of this VIP members later got themselves involved in fraudulent activities, was the donor done initially so that the forum won’t believe them involving in such activities or they later got to know that bitcoin value will continue to increase and the only way to own more of it will be through scamming a lot of people? They have just tarnished their images here and this is despicable of them.

One thing has nothing to do with another.
In fact, they could already be involved in fraudulent activities, and take advantage of the donation to try to become well regarded in the community, in order to obtain advantages for these practices.

Another point is that unfortunately greed has led some people to do everything to earn even more. And when they saw an opportunity in Bitcoin, they created these fraudulent schemes.

[Pmalek]

what are you saying in Essence?? That ofcourse anyone could donate because it was cheap?? Weren't they aware of the increase in value of the currency in the near future?? WHY DIDN'T YOU MINE AND DONATE YOURSELF since it was that easy?

I don't see anything wrong in what Lucius said. The donators do deserve thanks, but I wouldn't take the respect away, regardless of the value of the donated coins at the time. There are no problems with the rest of his post. Bitcoin was cheap at that time compared to today's standards. It was minable with A CPU and later with GPU. And finally, the mining reward was 50 BTC per block. I don't think anyone could anticipate that the price would explode and rise so drastically a decade ago.

And regarding the 'not mining yourself' part, he probably didn't know about BTC at the time, didn't care about it, or didn't think that an experimental digital coin could get so far. He wouldn't be the first to think that way. I laughed at the idea of accepting bitcoin the first time someone suggested it to me for some online work I completed. And that was a very long time ago. If I had, and I hodled those coins until they went up to tens of thousands of dollars, my biggest concern would be whether to take my lambo or helicopter.      

[JollyGood]

That sounds very interesting, an exclusive area. I did not know (and am fairly sure most of us did not know) that members that donated have their own private section of the forum. Why is/was it controversial for staff members to participate in that private section? Personally, if donors participated in a nefarious activity of any kind and it needed to have intervention of staff to lock or remove threads, or merge posts then maybe their presence was required but I am not privy to what was being discussed at the time.

As a Donator I can tell you that we have our own exclusive section of the forum (which controversially staff members are also able to participate in) and there are a few Donators such as myself that occasionally post things in there. A quick glance at that section looks like TradeFortress was that last VIP to post anything in there.

[nutildah]

It is also kind of amazing that almost none of the VIP donors are interested in using their accounts anymore (for good, anyway). Just think about that: in essence, a single account is currently worth $1.85 MILLION... maybe their owners f'd off because they were seriously rich & didn't need it for anything, or else it is just a reminder to them of how much BTC they "wasted"... one or the other 

I do have to wonder how much one of those accounts could earn weekly in a signature campaign -- granted it still belonged to the original owner.

[digaran]

I do have to wonder how much one of those accounts could earn weekly in a signature campaign -- granted it still belonged to the original owner.

The most important question, how many massively premined coins could they develop to contribute to the human race and even aliens on another planet? Don't laugh.

[JollyGood]

We will never know how many of those VIP left the forum because literally made enough millions of USD$ as a result of Bitcoin they might have made but if they are not online there cannot be too many reasons as to why. If 50 BTC is worth around $1.85 million today, let us not forget is would have been worth over $3 million at the all time high price so that could be telling.

Maybe some genuinely donated as a gesture of goodwill without realising how drastic that donation would affect their lives many years down the line and regret it, therefore have left the forum. Some probably made phenomenal amounts of money and decided they no longer needed (or wanted) to use it.

For the sake of curiosity and view a timeline, is there any way of finding out the specific dates/times when each of those 115 donations and 38 VIP donations were made?

It is also kind of amazing that almost none of the VIP donors are interested in using their accounts anymore (for good, anyway). Just think about that: in essence, a single account is currently worth $1.85 MILLION... maybe their owners f'd off because they were seriously rich & didn't need it for anything, or else it is just a reminder to them of how much BTC they "wasted"... one or the other 

I do have to wonder how much one of those accounts could earn weekly in a signature campaign -- granted it still belonged to the original owner.

[bangjoe]

We will never know how many of those VIP left the forum because literally made enough millions of USD$ as a result of Bitcoin they might have made but if they are not online there cannot be too many reasons as to why. If 50 BTC is worth around $1.85 million today, let us not forget is would have been worth over $3 million at the all time high price so that could be telling.

Maybe some genuinely donated as a gesture of goodwill without realising how drastic that donation would affect their lives many years down the line and regret it, therefore have left the forum. Some probably made phenomenal amounts of money and decided they no longer needed (or wanted) to use it.

Another possibility that they have a lot of bitcoin in their wallet that is still saved, bitcoin that was previously donated was not a high amount, of the total number of purchases they made at that time.
Yes maybe so, there are some people who are sorry, but I think they should be grateful because they spread goodness, and because of them I was here who felt the forum beneficial, and many people also got good in this forum from what people did before , indirectly saying thanks to them is not wrong.

For the sake of curiosity and view a timeline, is there any way of finding out the specific dates/times when each of those 115 donations and 38 VIP donations were made?

It's interesting and I'm curious too, maybe there are old users who still remember it

[PX-Z]

For the sake of curiosity and view a timeline, is there any way of finding out the specific dates/times when each of those 115 donations and 38 VIP donations were made?

It's interesting and I'm curious too, maybe there are old users who still remember it

I found nothing about theymos or admins or the donators itself announcement of who are the new donators or when they become donators.
Or if there are archives of every changes made on donators page, then it will be a huge help.

Edit: here are the archive wince 2011, there are really changes almost every year/month but sadly there's no specific date of when they joined the donators club

https://web.archive.org/web/20110801000000*/https://bitcointalk.org/donate.html

[Rikafip]

I do have to wonder how much one of those accounts could earn weekly in a signature campaign -- granted it still belonged to the original owner.

To be honest, I don't see why those accounts would earn more than anyone else (or at least not significantly more than the others if they are getting one of those private deals) just because of the "VIP" tag.

[nakamura12]

You could have checked the accounts one by one OP since it's not that many and as many have explained that during that time BTC price is not the same as of now and if you have been into crypto before you registered here in the forum then you'll know that the price before was at $3k -$5k per BTC around the end of year of 2018 and I think also in Jan 2019 before the price increased again, how much if you talk about the year before that where the mining reward is still at 50 BTC.

I do have to wonder how much one of those accounts could earn weekly in a signature campaign -- granted it still belonged to the original owner.

To be honest, I don't see why those accounts would earn more than anyone else (or at least not significantly more than the others if they are getting one of those private deals) just because of the "VIP" tag.

I also think that those accounts would earn the same as what amount of BTC is rewarded based on their ranks unless there is a bonus of some kind maybe private deals as you have stated) or maybe like the ones in icopress' signature campaign where if you have 1000 and above merits then you'll receive 20% bonus even though the account is sr. member or higher like $65 for sr. member + 20% bonus and hero/legendary member $80 + 20% bonus and so on. Overall, it depends on the campaign manager to start with either they have something like that or just like the others.

[JollyGood]

Maybe he was referring to recent signature campaign deals where there is a base rate pay for say Legendary rank but according to how many merits a member has accumulated, they receive increments of payments per post. I think that merit-based structure is not helpful however it seems to be the way some campaigns are conducted.

If a "VIP" tag was on a profile, would it convince someone to click the signature? Personally, I think it would have almost zero impact exactly the way as having more merits on a profile should not but that is my opinion.

I do have to wonder how much one of those accounts could earn weekly in a signature campaign -- granted it still belonged to the original owner.

To be honest, I don't see why those accounts would earn more than anyone else (or at least not significantly more than the others if they are getting one of those private deals) just because of the "VIP" tag.

[Nheer]

Perhaps it would be better to say that they deserve thanks, but you also have to take into account the time in which these donations happened - which was mostly at a time when the price of BTC was very low, and people were mining with their computers and for each block received as much as 50 BTC reward.

True, the price was low at the time, but it was still a valuable item, and given the buzz and promise of bitcoin, everyone knew that in a few years it would be more valuable and in high demand, yet these people had the courage to donate to the forum. Even if the price was so low or if they mined and obtained BTC for free, it takes a brave mind to donate as much as 50 BTC. They still deserve to be appreciated because they made these donations for the benefit of the forum, demonstrating how much they care about and support the bitcoin community. What i don't understand is why alot of them seem to have disappeared from the forum, what could there reasons be?