3 years ago...let's reminisce

[RyNinDaCleM]

I remember before this forum was called Bitcointalk. I started in this as a test because someone from my overclocking forum was having trouble mining on his 6950. I had one so I figured I'd try it and report back. I read a little about it and first thought was that this was like F@H but you get paid for it. I was like "Sweet!" Then I learned about Bitcoin and what it offers.

The Gox crash was somewhat surreal for me. I didn't know what was going on initially. I had about 100 mined BTC at the time, but none on Gox yet. I didn't have a huge investment as far as I was concerned, so I wasn't panicking. I remember watching on GoxLive as the price just kept ticking lower, then it was lights out. For 5 days!

Three years ago is about when the first talks of "The Manipulator" surfaced. I believed! I traded opposite of him (Pirate?) and made great money. And the walls of the single digits....

[1715388097]

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[1715388097]

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[smoothie]

I started reading the forum just after proudhon song.
dude you were my hero! best troll ever to hit the board.
took some real balls to make the switch like you did.
smoothy's posts used to fun as well but now days he's all serious (mostly)

Curious what I have to do with this? lol

Yes i'm much more serious in my posts. But I do have my moments 

[smoothie]

Around 2 years ago. I said to my mates and anyone else who would listen:

Me: "You know what, I am going to sink £1000 into Bitcoin as a wildcard investment and this time not blow it all on Silk Road, but hold them as I really think that this Bitcoin could have some potential 5-10 years down the line. But I am not going to buy now (October 2012), because Bitcoin has gotten way too expensive. I don't like to pay any more than $5 for my Bitcoins don't you know and they are currently trading at almost $10! This is because the growth of of Silk Road, as everyone loads up on drugs for the festival season, and then again for winter festive season their has been a high demand for Bitcoin. I am going to wait until Jan 2013, when the price is going to sink back down a bit just like it did in Jan 2012 when all the drug buying was done and the vendors were all cashing out."

My Mate: "Maybe you should just buy them now if you have the money. Who knows, the price may not come back down. Maybe Bitcoin will just explode to $100 or something?"

Me: "Naw, don't be so silly. Bitcoin price is driven by Silk Road. The price will come down when the drug buying dies down a bit after the New Year"


Me to my younger brother circa Feb 2013:

Ricky: "Hey Matty, Matty, ken those Bitcoins you are always going on aboot, they have just hit $30! Could you buy me some!?"

Me: "Keep away from Bitcoin bro, it is in a bubble! 1 BTC being worth 1 Oz of Silver is just totally unrealistic! It will crash and go back to $2 next week."

This is a funny story. I am guessing you eventually bought back in?

[MatTheCat]

This is a funny story. I am guessing you eventually bought back in?

Yes.

In November 2013, at $700!

After I had bought some Silk Road Bitcoins at $100-ish from LocalBitcoins in September, then went offshore on a job that lasted around 6 weeks, came back and seen that my Bitcoin stash had trebled in value (Bitcoin around $340), filled my pants and sold for some instant 'free money'. That night I had a dream of Bitcoin going through $600 on Gox. If you read any of my posts, you will know I take great heed of my dreams. I woke up feeling like a proper dumb cunt. Bitcoin was up $50 or something since I sold, and I set about trying to get a Bitstamp account as the nice vendors on LocalBitcoin were all wanting 20% premiums. It took about 11 days before I was ready to go on Bitstamp, and Bitcoin had recovered from first flash crash and was back up in $700 range.

I am one of those who knew about Bitcoin pretty early on. Was using Bitcoin very early on, and who could have become a millionaire if only he had the correct mindset. I have the right mindset now, a bubble or two too late for a man of my means to really capitalise on Bitcoin.

[bitcoinsrus]

This is a funny story. I am guessing you eventually bought back in?

Yes.

In November 2013, at $700!

After I had bought some Silk Road Bitcoins at $100-ish from LocalBitcoins in September, then went offshore on a job that lasted around 6 weeks, came back and seen that my Bitcoin stash had trebled in value (Bitcoin around $340), filled my pants and sold for some instant 'free money'. That night I had a dream of Bitcoin going through $600 on Gox. If you read any of my posts, you will know I take great heed of my dreams. I woke up feeling like a proper dumb cunt. Bitcoin was up $50 or something since I sold, and I set about trying to get a Bitstamp account as the nice vendors on LocalBitcoin were all wanting 20% premiums. It took about 11 days before I was ready to go on Bitstamp, and Bitcoin had recovered from first flash crash and was back up in $700 range.

I am one of those who knew about Bitcoin pretty early on. Was using Bitcoin very early on, and who could have become a millionaire if only he had the correct mindset. I have the right mindset now, a bubble or two too late for a man of my means to really capitalise on Bitcoin.

Sucks that you used bitcoin since 2010 (guessing, not sure) [and did not find a stash you forgot about or something on your harddrive] and rebought in 2013.

[MatTheCat]

Sucks that you used bitcoin since 2010 (guessing, not sure) [and did not find a stash you forgot about or something on your harddrive] and rebought in 2013.

Nope...no stash on old USB stick or nothing. Even have the same wallet on my hardrive, showing old 2011-12 transactions for numbers like 177 BTC. Just around 500 quid worth or something back when that particular transaction was made.

I would put my mother on the game to get those 177 BTC back alone!

[megadeth]

Sucks that you used bitcoin since 2010 (guessing, not sure) [and did not find a stash you forgot about or something on your harddrive] and rebought in 2013.

Nope...no stash on old USB stick or nothing. Even have the same wallet on my hardrive, showing old 2011-12 transactions for numbers like 177 BTC. Just around 500 quid worth or something back when that particular transaction was made.

I would put my mother on the game to get those 177 BTC back alone!

I believe in karma. MatTheCat, your time dispensing TA on this forums will be rewarded. I hope you make some winning trades and get back some of that stash.

[spiderbrain]

3 years ago I'd heard of bitcoin but hadn't worked out how to buy any. I saw the price crash and decided to wait out before buying some. which I did. But nowhere near enough, it turns out!

[Raize]

Share your story.

Realize this is probably another troll-post but I'll still bite for the sake of telling my story. This is in my form of short-speak so I can get straight to the point:

So early/mid June 2011 I'm at my sister's wedding reception and I've got some coin. I'm talking to a friend about how Bitcoin hit $30 "earlier this week" and he's got double digits in Bitcoin himself so we've been joking about it's going crazy. This friend's wife overhears us and she says, "Yeah, my husband says that someday it'll hit $100, but it's falling now."

I say, "Well, honestly it doesn't matter what the price is now, it's got a fixed cap, so someday, maybe in a decade even, it'll hit $1000, we just have to hold it that long."

She says, "but it's falling right?". So I load up my crappy smartphone and show her the price on the only Android app available for Bitcoin pricing.

Oh shit, she's right, it just hit $12 and falling. Fuck. Buying opp!

I kiss my sister and congratulate my bro-in-law then head home early around 10pm (they partied till 6am I find out later). I hop on Gox, see the price, it's like $11. Buy about $500 worth, put in an order to sell at $18. Pass out drunk.

Wake up next morning, check app, it's $13. Well, damn, I think, volatility might have finally killed this thing. Check price history. Wait, it went to $18 after I passed out? Check Gox, I'll be damned, hit my sell order. Nearly doubled up my money in less than 6 hours. Got like ~$1k chilling in my account.

Price falls over several months. See this huge-ass buy wall on Gox for like $185k that slowly moves down. I keep putting in new measly buy orders just above it, they never get hit. Meanwhile, I've been mining like a badass (I brag to friends I run the biggest Bitcoin mining OP in the Midwest even though I know a guy in KC that's running 20+ GPUs). I have 6 GPUs going 24/7. Every single person I tell except my friend from the wedding calls me a 'fool'. Spent most of the summer of 2011 sleeping in 90 degree heat even with the A/C on. Utility bills of $200ish/month. Just losing money all over the fucking place. Frankly don't care, I know this is the real deal and I got a new computer with awesome GPUs I can resell, anyway.

November 2011 comes around, I figure "fuck it" and put in a buy order for all $1k at $2.01 above the buy wall at $2. Order goes through. Fuck yeah! Next day it hits $2.50. Buy wall disappeared. Bubble starting up again, I know what's fucking coming...

(In all honesty, I sold along with many others as the price increased throughout 2012 and especially 2013. I also bought FPGA miners and ASICs and generally supported the blockchain and community instead of focusing on just making coin and hoarding. As an example, I remember spending 7 BTC (5BTC worth of expedited shipping) on this and to be honest, even today it was worth every coin. Still have them hanging on the refrigerator, in fact. Bitcoin is best spent after you've made your profits instead of trying to pick highs and lows, IMHO. I got lucky, don't plan on Lady Luck.)

[T.Stuart]

Sucks that you used bitcoin since 2010 (guessing, not sure) [and did not find a stash you forgot about or something on your harddrive] and rebought in 2013.

Nope...no stash on old USB stick or nothing. Even have the same wallet on my hardrive, showing old 2011-12 transactions for numbers like 177 BTC. Just around 500 quid worth or something back when that particular transaction was made.

I would put my mother on the game to get those 177 BTC back alone!

I believe in karma. MatTheCat, your time dispensing TA on this forums will be rewarded. I hope you make some winning trades and get back some of that stash.

No no no.. please just lock most of what you just bought away and play with the rest.

In fact, if I've got it right Mat you've got about 60 BTC or so. So put 50 aside and play with 10. Then you still have the best chance of becoming a millionaire in dollar terms (BTC to $20k is perfectly feasible I think).

[Swordsoffreedom]

Three years ago I was thinking about the ideas around the financial system but had not yet heard of Bitcoin
If I had I probably would have bought some or start using it.
That said at 4 million difficulty I remember the days before it was up to billions.

[OgNasty]

then we were all epically goxxed with an insane hackcrash from $17 to, basically, $0.  It was gut-wrenching.  I was on my way to the gym when it happened and casually opened the price app on my phone to see the price was under $10.  I was a little disturbed, but it's bitcoin.  At another stop light I checked again and the price was under $5.  That's when I called my wife and frantically attempted to explain to her how to log on to MtGox and put in a sell order...by the time she logged in the price was $0.25 and I said, "well, shit, it's pretty much all gone..."

I was on vacation watching in amazement on my mobile.  All I remember thinking was that I wish I could get a buy order to go through.  It was easily one of the most exciting moments in Bitcoin history.

[maok]

3 years ago I heard of Bitcoin from a Kaspersky report that they were taking steps into protecting the digital wallets as there were many priv keys stolen, I thought wtf is that ? a week later I began mining with a single GPU and was producing about BTC0.1 a week lol and then after couple of months I took the time to gather some extra cash and bought BTC1100 at $10, a year later invested all of them in pre-ordering asics from Btcfpga and BFL, almost 10 months later bitcoin was ~ $100 and I was still waiting for the mining equip, requested refund, received refund in FIAT fast from BFL and 2-3 months later from Btcfpga. I took a step out of Bitcoin world after this for about 6 months didn't checked prices, etc then last December I entered mtgox saw the price $1000, I imagined how fun it would've been if I wouldn't had invested the BTC1100 in pre-orders...fucking stupid... waited for the price to come down and purchased my first bitcoins after 3 years at $450 in april, plus I recovered BTC2 from blockchain wallet from 3 years ago  

[elliwilli]

3 years ago i did not even know bitcoin existed!

[BTC4Host]

Long time lurker of the bitcoin forum here

I bought my first coins during the 2011 bear market, and its been a crazy ride since then. I remember opening my first account at mybitcoin, watching Bruce "Pedo" Wagner's bitcoin show, waiting for dwolla transfers to go through to mtgox, and panicking that the price dropped $2/coin! It was an exciting time back then and in a way I kind of miss it. I had no idea were it was going to go, but it seemed like the future.

[MatTheCat]

In fact, if I've got it right Mat you've got about 60 BTC or so. So put 50 aside and play with 10. Then you still have the best chance of becoming a millionaire in dollar terms (BTC to $20k is perfectly feasible I think).

I have 13.5 BTC.

I lined up a 60 BTC buy-in on the Feb crash to $400. I was really going all in with that as I had a dream that Bitcoin hit $380 and as you know, I believe in my dreams. I had one 60 BTC buy in tranche on Bitstamp at $391.37, or something like that. I missed out on the entire lot by less than $9. Phucking idiot!

Since then, I have taken a lot of fiat off the exchange, spent a lot of it, and lost a hefty sum when I resolved to hold out on a bad short trade until I broke even (my nerve broke well before the break even point finally came) and without having worked to earn more, and now Bitstamp won't let me get any fiat back into my account without subjecting me to an anal probe before hand. So I have what I have on the exchange and/or in Bitcoin and that will be it.

I have my Bitcoins in offline wallet for now. I am confident that we will be mostly heading north from here. As soon as I lose my confidence and start getting Bitcoin Fear proper, I shall post the fact on this forum.

[DolanDuck]

Three years ago I was reading a forum where someone wrote about a digital currency which could be mined at home.
Didn't care about that, it was without any sense for me.
The guy now is one of the biggest owner of btc and I am one of the smallest.

[jubalix]

3 years ago I think I passed through this forum but never joined, found out about btc from /g/ ....I was stuck in...well lets just say I was really far away.....when I heard about BTC back then I spent 2~3 days solid trying to buy it, but where I was there was no way to get money through.....next I looked I saw it had crashed back to $2, was so glad I did  not buy any......yeah yeah I know....right.

I clearly remember the old gox site.......

[CoinRocka]

The "Aha Moment" for me after watching for 2 years after my libertarian techie friends introduced me to bitcoin was when it "survived" the "Goxxing"....Proof is in the pudding. 

[oda.krell]

Sucks that you used bitcoin since 2010 (guessing, not sure) [and did not find a stash you forgot about or something on your harddrive] and rebought in 2013.

Nope...no stash on old USB stick or nothing. Even have the same wallet on my hardrive, showing old 2011-12 transactions for numbers like 177 BTC. Just around 500 quid worth or something back when that particular transaction was made.

I would put my mother on the game to get those 177 BTC back alone!

What's your mother look like? I mean, 177 coins is a lot of money, but if she's in prime shape...