How Did You First Learn About Bitcoin?

[goldkingcoiner]

Hi everyone,
I’ve been curious about how people first discovered Bitcoin.
Was it through a friend, online articles, social media, or maybe during a market hype period?
For me, it’s interesting to see how different journeys start, especially since many people enter the space for different reasons — technology, investment, privacy, or just curiosity.
How did you first hear about Bitcoin, and what made you decide to learn more about it?
Looking forward to reading your stories.

I think I heard about it on some forum or other as some magic internet money that can be used to buy drugs off of strangers on the internet completely anonymously. Back then it was mostly used for such illegal dealings but in time it became clear that Bitcoin can easily be tracked and it started evolving into something much more decent. Hopefully in time it will evolve even further for the good of humanity.

[Youngrebel]

Heard about Bitcoin investment from a conversation between 2 people.  It sounded very strange.  Not just strange but I had concluded that it was one of those ponzi schemes so I had zero interest in it. One of the reasons I had not interest was because Ive had an encounter with a Ponzi scheme so I never wanted to fall victim of another.
I know of a relative who even has an investment years back and when bitcoin started rising he couldn't find his seed phrase hence he lost everything that he invested before.

[LogitechMouse]

---
Was it through a friend, online articles, social media, or maybe during a market hype period?
For me, it’s interesting to see how different journeys start, especially since many people enter the space for different reasons — technology, investment, privacy, or just curiosity.
How did you first hear about Bitcoin, and what made you decide to learn more about it?
Looking forward to reading your stories.

September 2017. That's the time where I started to know more about cryptocurrencies. If I remember correctly, Bitcoin's price back then was at around $2000, and it's starting to go up during that time. It always amaze me to see the price of Bitcoin went from around $2000 when I started learning about crypto to reached as high as $126,000 after only 8 years.

Anyway, I learned all of my knowledge both from this forum, and from YouTube. I still remember back then when I always watch Bitcoin documentaries because that's where the knowledge is for me during that time. At the same time, this forum also helped me learn more about Bitcoin, and altcoins as well. I started without any mentor, and it's all self-learned from me that's why it's hard especially when you're a newbie. There's a chance that you might get overwhelmed with the amount of information that you will be seeing every time you make a research online. That's what I felt back then, but I didn't stop because I want to learn it.

I heard Bitcoin from my friend and he introduced me to crypto, the forum, and Bitcoin. I decided to learn more about it just because of curiosity, and of course money as well. The technology might've helped me a  bit with my decision, but it's because of the first 2 that I shared

[Kavelj22]

September 2017. That's the time where I started to know more about cryptocurrencies. If I remember correctly, Bitcoin's price back then was at around $2000, and it's starting to go up during that time. It always amaze me to see the price of Bitcoin went from around $2000 when I started learning about crypto to reached as high as $126,000 after only 8 years.

I guess that the majority of veteran bitcoin enthousiast today have started their journey in mid 2017 during the ICO boom. They were all encouraged by the huge benefits from an emerged market of cryptocurrencies, even before to learn about bitcoin itself. That period was huge and so impressive in the history of bitcoin after the ATH in 2013.

It's also worth mentioning the importance of bitcointalk forum to lead the community in all periods. We can say that bitcointalk was the school for users with all their different approaches.

[OXONE BROTHER]

Hi Payagold,I first learned about Bitcoin when I was 16 years old in 2016, when I was still in high school. At that time, the internet was abuzz with malware that could lock data on hard drives and demand a Bitcoin ransom to unlock the data. That's when I started to learn about Bitcoin and how it works.

heh, classic. same story as 2017 when the news went on and on about bitcoin being for criminals because of wannacry. got so tired of it, but my family actually asked me about it for the first time.

funnily enough that ransomware wave probably got more people to look at bitcoin than any whitepaper ever did.

messed up way to get people in but it works. i remember the forum debates, people were furious about the bad press while others just shrugged and said any attention is good.

we saw it with silk road before that and we'll see it again with whatever the next boogeyman is. the pattern's always the same -they attack what it's used for, never the protocol itself, 'cause they can't.

Yes, that's right, that's classic news that is often reported that Bitcoin is a tool used by criminals to blackmail people who surf the internet, but that's where I learned what Bitcoin is and how it works.

[Rustam Meraj]

My friend told me about that in 2020. He just told me about faucets and everyone knows that faucets was small earnings. I just started to do my own research and I learned about. When I entered in crypto world so I came to know that this is a big ocean to understand. I started trading and learn more about this and after that I found this forum and I learned much from this forum too. And I am still in learning stage.

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

My friend told me about that in 2020. He just told me about faucets and everyone knows that faucets was small earnings. I just started to do my own research and I learned about. When I entered in crypto world so I came to know that this is a big ocean to understand. I started trading and learn more about this and after that I found this forum and I learned much from this forum too. And I am still in learning stage.

In 2020, Bitcoin faucets are no longer big and generous and they're mostly from online casinos but it's like time wasting if you want to claim satoshis from Bitcoin faucets. It takes you a very long time to claim enough satoshis for withdrawals and in time consuming, it does not worth to try.

There are still online casinos with faucets and you can get basic information about their faucets
List Of Crypto Casinos with The Best Faucets.

Again, in 2026, it does not worth trying for anyone who want to claim big amount and get rich from it. It is very different than claiming bitcoins from Gavin Andresen faucet in many years ago in 2010, and hold bitcoins after the claim.
Get 5 free bitcoins from freebitcoins.appspot.com.
https://web.archive.org/web/20100703032414/https://freebitcoins.appspot.com

[LimPinks]

I heard about BTC from colleagues before the 2017 hype. Back then volatility was a gift for active trading. Now the market has become harder because of institutional players, but cycle mechanics and crowd psychology work just as they did 10 years ago

[BlackBoss_]

I heard about BTC from colleagues before the 2017 hype. Back then volatility was a gift for active trading. Now the market has become harder because of institutional players, but cycle mechanics and crowd psychology work just as they did 10 years ago

Creating your account and posting almost instantly after registration, then telling us that you knew about Bitcoin and this market since 2017.
Did you actually join the market since 2017 or only joins it today?

[Queen uloma]

My first introduction to Bitcoin came through my Friend, although I never showed interest at first not until I encountered a post on the internet where many  people were talking about the price fluctuation and how it could transform people's financial system, so I made more research about Bitcoin especially Blockchain, that was when I discovered that Bitcoin operate on a decentralized network without depending on banks or even the government. After all my research, I realized that Bitcoin isn't all about making immediate profit but it's also about having financial freedom and allowing people have full access to their money anytime and anywhere. That was how I took Bitcoin more serious and learn more about how it works.

[Agbe]

I have created a thread on how I discovered bitcoin in my early days in the forum and it was through a seminar programme launched in my area. The instructor asked us to invest with small amount but I could not because I was not capable of funding the wallet as of then. But for the forum it was a friend in my service Year to the Nation.