How did you guys get into bitcoin?

[BR0KK]

After 4 mmnth minigng with that rig i found some threads here about FPGAs. Read into it and decided do switch completely to Ztex boards. When i have some money left i will buy an Icarus a x6500 Board for testing purposes.

I actualy own 5 Ztex 1.15x Boards now. That cluster gives me 1 GH/s at EMC

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[redrider]

free talk live radio show/podcast.

http://freetalklive.com

[RAK02]

I really need to get in contact with an owner of a store who uses bitcoin! heidijosboutique.com but cant access the website and they have no email....

[viboracecata]

I know it from twitter

[zorbus]

My friend told me about it.

[TheOriginalMyth]

A friend told me about them a year (maybe even longer) ago but he didn't really explain it well and it came off sounding like a pyramid scheme so i never looked into them. Fast forward to 2 weeks ago i randomly stumble onto them again but this time i look into them and i love it. Kind of kicking myself now for not realizing what they were when i first heard about them but im glad i know about them now

[edd]

I really need to get in contact with an owner of a store who uses bitcoin! heidijosboutique.com but cant access the website and they have no email....

I believe that's elwar and his wife.

[uuidman]

I first read about it at sweclockers and learnt that some knowledgable linux kernel hackers was involved, and thats usually a good sign.

[finkleshnorts]

Wikipedia. I am still very skeptical but I want to be a part, because I love the ideals and the implementation. Here are my two reservations about bitcoin:

1. the longterm viability of mining/transaction fees is really dubious to me. Even now, as evident in this thread, people are not mining because it is not profitable. It should always be profitable, whether it is by mining or by transaction fees. Thoughts, all disclaimed with a "maybe":When they cut the reward in half, sh*t is gonna happen, right? Even after the transaction fees stabilize, only the miners with access to the cheapest electricity and most efficient machines will come out on top. Nobody else will be able to compete. Is it heading towards a monopoly? Also, why not gradually reduce the reward instead of cutting it in half intermittently? It's pre-programmed market trauma, as it now stands.

2. Some more "maybes": The vision seems too small scale. People talk all day about how infinitely divisible coins is so amazing, but it's really not that great considering that a very small handful of people are sitting on 5%ish of the long term total and 12%ish of btc in circulation. I realize that they deserve a payoff, and that early adopters in any bubble are rewarded. But until all of the hoarders and speculators (early and newcoming) start spending, btc will remain a daytrading playground and retirement delusion. Hell, I wish Mt. Gox made their limit even smaller. I also think the 21 million get out way too fast.

Unless we have a few more Mt. Gox freakouts in a short time, I think btc will be around for awhile.

[SgtSpike]

Wikipedia. I am still very skeptical but I want to be a part, because I love the ideals and the implementation. Here are my two reservations about bitcoin:

1. the longterm viability of mining/transaction fees is really dubious to me. Even now, as evident in this thread, people are not mining because it is not profitable. It should always be profitable, whether it is by mining or by transaction fees. Thoughts, all disclaimed with a "maybe":When they cut the reward in half, sh*t is gonna happen, right? Even after the transaction fees stabilize, only the miners with access to the cheapest electricity and most efficient machines will come out on top. Nobody else will be able to compete. Is it heading towards a monopoly? Also, why not gradually reduce the reward instead of cutting it in half intermittently? It's pre-programmed market trauma, as it now stands.

2. Some more "maybes": The vision seems too small scale. People talk all day about how infinitely divisible coins is so amazing, but it's really not that great considering that a very small handful of people are sitting on 5%ish of the long term total and 12%ish of btc in circulation. I realize that they deserve a payoff, and that early adopters in any bubble are rewarded. But until all of the hoarders and speculators (early and newcoming) start spending, btc will remain a daytrading playground and retirement delusion. Hell, I wish Mt. Gox made their limit even smaller. I also think the 21 million get out way too fast.

Unless we have a few more Mt. Gox freakouts in a short time, I think btc will be around for awhile.

1.  Why would mining become a monopoly?  There's many people with good electric rates that have huge mining farms - not just one person.  And to make the argument that in the future, mining will be viable to few enough people that Bitcoin is susceptible to a 51% attack, you'd have to do some detailed analysis to figure out what total hashing power makes staging a 51% attack practical/profitable.  Mining doesn't need to be profitable to everyone, just so long as there are enough miners to secure the network from a single party taking over the network.

2.  I agree with you there.  Having 7% of the coins owned by a single person (Satoshi), and several others with smaller whole percents is absurd if this can ever hope to be a currency on the scale of the USD.  The current richest man in the world only has enough wealth to equate about 0.5% of the USD in circulation.

Who knows though - maybe 50 years down the road, if none of those original coins are moving, people might assume that Satoshi got hit by a car and died, without leaving anyone else any information about his wallet.  In other words, those coins would be assumed dead and never moving.

[katie.mckinley]

A friend told me about them a year (maybe even longer) ago but he didn't really explain it well and it came off sounding like a pyramid scheme so i never looked into them. Fast forward to 2 weeks ago i randomly stumble onto them again but this time i look into them and i love it. Kind of kicking myself now for not realizing what they were when i first heard about them but im glad i know about them now

I'm with you on that one, I heard about them but didn't look into what they were, then I heard someone talking about them again at school and how they mine them, and I looked into it more and love it as a hobby, I also mine Litecoins as well thanks to Bitcoin.

[kliffen]

A friend of mine from the Netherlands told me about a long time ago, probably about a year++.

I mined for a while (back when CPU mining was boss), didn't really understand how the payments worked, so i thought solomining would work. Tehe.

Stopped mining for a long while, saw the threads on /g/ back in April/May 2011, mined hard ever since:)

[victory1]

Just registered in this forum, finally!

Got in Bitcoin last year during the hype up season when the price is in the 20 range. Bought some overpriced rigs in the excitement and BANG, BTC price crashed with the series of hacking saga. Sold off all the rigs after a month time and incurred $500 plus loss.

It's a painful lesson and i had learn a lot from that. 

[mike029]

Crunching Boinc doing Distributed Computing with SETI.USA and one of the guys mentioned Bitcoin. 

[xxaudioxx]

i've read bitcoin from xtremesystems forums last july.. been hook since then...

[FLAPJACKDAN]

I learned about through some thread on a forum that I frequent.

[Rion]

I jumped on the bitcoin bandwagon on August 2011 after my friend showed me it. It seemed new, but I didn't trust that it would live long.
Five months later I start mining.

[bitcoinsarefun]

I had been reading articles about bitcoin for months before I finally started getting into it. I started mining a bit and then started buying some every couple of weeks. I've been absolutely hooked on them ever since, and really believe there is a great future for currency of this kind.

Finally, as a small business man, this technology is an absolute godsend as it allows me to recieve payments for my service without having to involve any 3rd party. In fact, it is fast becoming my preferred method of payment, even over cash

[BlueCorp]

i heard it from a friend and the prices were $15 per bitcoin.

[SgtSpike]

Data charted here:  http://bitcoinforums.net/threads/how-people-found-out-about-bitcoin.467/