My Bitcoin Story (console me)

[smoothie]

I just need to get this off my chest…

I found out about bitcoin in 2011 by listening to the Stefan Maleneoux (f$#% spelling) Podcast. It was just after the big crash from $30 and the price was hovering around $3. My first reaction was skepticism of course but I took the time to read the Satoshi Paper and did my research and poked around on some forums and came to the conclusion that this bitcoin thing was legit, and possibly the future of money for the world.

At some point I got a bonus at work that was rather substantial so I thought I'd use that bonus money to dabble in this Bitcoin thing. I bought 500 BTC for about $1500 bucks on TradeHill. I then used some of those bitcoins to purchase some Casascius coins. I bought 10 1 BTC casascius coins and one 25 BTC Casascius coin. (all of which were the 2011 with the error) I made an offline wallet with encryption in a flash drive made 3 copies of it and bought a safe to store the coins and the flash drive in and gave the other two encrypted flash drives to two trusted people with safes as well and I was done and happy.

Some time passed and I was watching the price religiously. Almost an entire year passed and it was only hovering around about $5, and my best friend bought a motor cycle, and he needed someone to ride with, and I wanted a motorcycle. So I cracked open the safe, put in my password, and since TradeHill was out of business created an account on MtGox and sold all of my coins in my wallet at $6 a piece, and I went and bought a motorcycle for $3000. (which I still have, Ninja 250r)

A while later I moved out of state and the price of bitcoin was around $200, I was so sick with myself for what I had done that I was kind of delirious and so as a going away gift I gave all 10 of my 1 BTC Casascius coins to the 10 closest people to me in my life. And so I was left with only the 25 BTC casascius coin.

I owned 500 BTC and 11 of the most valuable collectable items that will ever exist, and I was left with just the one 25 coin. It is safe to say I will never own 500 BTC ever again in my life for as long as live.

AFter the climb to $1200 and crash, and with a new job, I started buying again. I have not even recovered the 10 BTC I gave away yet but it's cool. The experience taught me a valuable lesson. Don't underestimate Bitcoin and what it can do. In the moment it seems silly to invest so much in what seems like such a crazy dream, but do it anyway. And I also learned the secret investment strategy for Bitcoin which is this: Buy low, Buy high, and keep buying and buying and buying. Just keep converting worthless fiat into Bitcoin at every step of the game, ignore the price, and convert fiat into bitcoin at a steady and consistent rate. Never sell. Never convert bitcoin into fiat, it is always a bad move in all circumstances, especially considering you can buy anything you need with bitcoin now.

Sometimes when I think about it, or I do the math in my head, I feel like I just got kicked in the stomach and I need to throw up. But I keep buying more bitcoin every check I get, and I won't stop until I'm getting paid in Bitcoin directly. Hopefully my story is interesting to you. Cheers.

One big lesson for me is that if you plan to give away coins make sure you replace them in your stash that way you won't feel as bad when the price explodes in the future.

[Kenshin]

Hey, don't worry about it. Bitcoin will crash back down to $1 eventually and you can buy back those 500 coins and get ready for the next jump to $1000.

In your dream, that will never happen. There are far too many people in bitcoin now.

[jubalix]

You dont "sell" bitcoin for FIAT period. You just wait for people to start accepting 1 BTC for a good house, in about say 5 ~ 7 years, or as they may say by then, 100 Million Satoshis for a good house. That's a lot of satohshi's for just one house.

I actually calculate prices in Peercoins these days.

[Kenshin]

I owned 500 BTC and 11 of the most valuable collectable items that will ever exist, and I was left with just the one 25 coin. It is safe to say I will never own 500 BTC ever again in my life for as long as live.

Look on the bright side. You probably would have sold all your 500 BTC and 11 coins today.

The lesson need to be learn is to, only cash out a small bit of your bitcoin, if you absolutely need the money, and keep the rest in your wallet. The price will keep on going up in the the future. So use bitcoin as your pension, or long term investment. That is what I am doing right now.

[zvs]

I had to sell my bitcoin as I mined to buy more mining hardware.

Didn't have the luxury of having extra money I could just throw at it, outside of my initial purchase of three 5830's (for four total, already had one from months prior).

... though I suppose I would have made a lot more money just mining with those four 5830's and never expanding, but that's just how it was w/ Bitcoin... pretty crap mentality for most things.

[Eric2013]

i like this story!

[Justin00]

so much hostility between certain people.
oh i'm not saying stop...

Seems like its a contest to see who lost the most BTC..

anyways yeah.. hard to tell if you would of kept you 500 bitcoins or sold for $7 or $8 or blah blah upto $1400

guess we'll never know. I have a similar story, only more tragic heh.. we all do... :}

[spazzdla]

Lesson learned here always HODL.

[QuestionAuthority]

Hey, don't worry about it. Bitcoin will crash back down to $1 eventually and you can buy back those 500 coins and get ready for the next jump to $1000.

In your dream, that will never happen. There are far too many people in bitcoin now.

Read all of a thread before you respond.

[Eric2013]

dear friend, everyone regrets doing something wrong, but this is life, unpredictable! Keep believing in btc, and u might have ur dream come true one day!

[Bit_Happy]

"...and sold all of my coins in my wallet at $6 a piece"
I had ~100 BTC that I sold around $7.00, so I know something about how it feels. The "rally" from $1.9996 to ~$7 took so long and the price seemed pretty high at the time.

Ehhh.... i sold over 1k btc when it was ~$9

I dont cry like a bitch like some of the "hero members" on here tho. I'm actually happy for bitcoin and community. Remember, the early TXs are needed for btc to grow.

I know that it would not sound like much, but I assume that you are young. Programming or building businesses in bitcoin are a great venue for you to recover 500 BTC and then some. After all, 500BTC is "just" 300K, which is what some very good programmers are being paid in a year or even less.

"Very good" programmers (not running their own business) aren't paid $300K or more. Unless I missed an extreme boom in salaries, the real numbers are much lower.

[Joe_Bauers]

"Very good" programmers (not running their own business) aren't paid $300K or more. Unless I missed an extreme boom in salaries, the real numbers are much lower.

Top programmers at some of the big SV companies are paid more.

[allthingsluxury]

Hey, don't worry about it. Bitcoin will crash back down to $1 eventually and you can buy back those 500 coins and get ready for the next jump to $1000.

In your dream, that will never happen. There are far too many people in bitcoin now.

Agreed, I can't see this happening ever again, but hey weirder things have happened.

[BitCoinDream]

Because of the uncertainty of price, my strategy is neither buy bitcoin nor sell it too. Just keep earning it by providing services.

[theblacksquid]

Because of the uncertainty of price, my strategy is neither buy bitcoin nor sell it too. Just keep earning it by providing services.

In speaking of, does anyone know of a good services market place like freelancer.com that paysout in BTC?

[erre]

I buyed @ 1100.
End of the story.

[BitCoinDream]

Because of the uncertainty of price, my strategy is neither buy bitcoin nor sell it too. Just keep earning it by providing services.

In speaking of, does anyone know of a good services market place like freelancer.com that paysout in BTC?

There is no good one as of yet. Most of the deals take place at Services or Project Development sub-forum of BitcoinTalk.

[Stunna]

You may have not have won the lottery but you have ten happy friends, a solid motorcycle and a 25BTC error'd coin all at a cost of $1500. Sounds pretty good to me.

[minerpumpkin]

You may have not have won the lottery but you have ten happy friends, a solid motorcycle and a 25BTC error'd coin all at a cost of $1500. Sounds pretty good to me.

A motorcycle has got to be better than some coins you can't touch or ride along a mountain road 
It's true though, it can be very hard at times to hold, retain your believe in BTC and just pull through...