My $11k bitcoin odyssey

[dyland]

Well, on the bright side, you could have done what I did.  I bought about 20 BTC a couple weeks ago when the price was $650.  The price has since gone down to about $617, I could have gotten them for about $1,000 cheaper.  Oh well, I'm still confident that it'll go up to above the price where I bought it in the long run.

You still have significantly less loss than me (not to mention all the time and worry--setting up miners, shipping, waiting, pools, etc.)

[dyland]

Well, $660 is quite a bit less than $1000, but I get your point.

You could have gotten 21.07 BTC for the same price that you paid for the 20 BTC.

Somewhere along the thread I got the impression that the OP bought his BTC for $450.  Although I just checked bitcoincharts.com and it says the price was around $800 in February, so I think it was a bit more expensive than that.  Yes, you're right, it would have gotten me a little over an extra bitcoin had I waited.

It's a mistaken impression. My average buy price was probably about $675. I bought through to the downtrend.

[tabnloz]

Makes me glad I put mining in the too hard basket straight away.

[hellscabane]

I honestly get where you're coming from. There is always that slight sting of missing out on amazing chances; but all we can do, is move past it. It's not like we all have clairvoyance right? And if we did, these sort of chances would never happen.

I've also missed a whole bunch of chances in the past (both with bitcoins and with altcoins). Now I just bide my time and let things come as they may. After all, there are much more worse things that can be lost other than an opportunity.

This is why im not going to miss the ethereum bus! I will buy some ether.

It's fair that you want to catch another bus. I on the other hand, am not entirely convinced that's a bus worth getting on. But we'll see what happens. That's the beauty of this type of hectic and fast-flowing market, you never know where you'll end up until you're there.

[DannyHamilton]

Honestly a great vacation with my family now is worth more to me than any financial gains in the future.

This is a difficult decision, and is the nature of a highly volatile currency that will eventually be deflationary in nature.

Is a great vacation with your family this year, worth more to you than multiple great vacations with your family in the future?

[crazy_rabbit]

I generally sit down to write about something because it has somewhat of a therapeutic effect. You know, the whole 'get the demons out' thing. Well, I'm not sitting down. I'm reclining in boxer briefs in a newly bought house and my daughter is offering to shove some green play-doh in my nose in between the plot points of "My life as a teenage robot".

We bought the house through really careful saving over three years, mainly, and a couple well-timed promotions, which got our earning potential high enough for a decent mortgage.

Great. House, car, decent job, health, some money in the bank. Some money in the bank. Some money in the bank.


I first learned about bitcoin in 2011 off metafilter. It piqued my interest because I had argued with a thesis advisor for a couple years starting in 2006 that virtual currencies and properties were just as salient as our real life ones and to the extent that they could be made limited, just as valuable. Anyway, I had little money in 2011, and I didn't quite fully understand the problem that the blockchain solved.

Fast forward to March 2012. I had just gotten married and had a bit of cash. Again, I hear about bitcoin on mefi and it's now at $70.00 or something (this recollection may be inaccurate). I had enough then to have 700 BTC now if I had thrown my weight at it--and I was seriously contemplating doing it (I still remember the pause I had when I was opening my car door before I went to work, mulling it over in my head from the night before: if I lost that much I would be a fool, wouldn't I?)

I didn't do it.

December of 2013 rolled around and now I knew I was a fool. My heart pounded. I had missed my shot.

No, I hadn't.

I started buying in February all the way through the downtrend.

Then, I got into mining: a large group buy investment, script asics since the beginning (dual miner, grid seed, g blade, black widow, thunder, a train where each engine you add slows you down).

All told I have probably thrown 11k (maybe more) or so at BTC in varying ways and I have about 6.5BTC to show for it. It depresses me when I really think about it. But, here I am in my boxer briefs in my new house all the same (they're black btw). I guess there is some solace in being in your underwear in a house you own.

I am trying to turn this into a positive any way that I can, demons out notwithstanding.

Thanks for the read.

Perk up! You gambled what you could afford to risk- that was a smart move! You were just as likely to have lost it all! Cheer up! Bitcoin is still young! The glory days are still ahead of us!

[CurbsideProphet]

Looking at my old PMs it's crazy to think where things are from just a few years ago.  I have a PM of where I sold a guy an Xbox game for 1.5BTC.  Older ones I was buying useless crap for 15BTC. 

[Ninietz]

Look it is a learning curve. I'm sure you are not the only one who had to live thru it and lost a ton off K.
I myself was scammed and scammed again, even my mining efforts came out to be negative.
The advantage now is that I have the right experience to take on something different... within the BTC world of course.

Best of luck to you.

[crazyivan]

I m gonna say the only thing I keep repeating these days on this forum: BUY more, don't cry and be a man.
Bitcoin is going to be huge in the next couple of years and IMO we might NEVER have this kind of opportunity to make some serious money this way in our lifes. Get yourself a couple hundered BTC and wait. Just wait.

[dyland]

Honestly a great vacation with my family now is worth more to me than any financial gains in the future.

This is a difficult decision, and is the nature of a highly volatile currency that will eventually be deflationary in nature.

Is a great vacation with your family this year, worth more to you than multiple great vacations with your family in the future?

Good economic thought experiment. I would argue that the vacation now is a certainty whereas the future multiple vacations stand a chance of not happening altogether. I would also argue you get more value out of vacations take earlier in life because you can draw on that experience for a longer time.

[dyland]

I generally sit down to write about something because it has somewhat of a therapeutic effect. You know, the whole 'get the demons out' thing. Well, I'm not sitting down. I'm reclining in boxer briefs in a newly bought house and my daughter is offering to shove some green play-doh in my nose in between the plot points of "My life as a teenage robot".

We bought the house through really careful saving over three years, mainly, and a couple well-timed promotions, which got our earning potential high enough for a decent mortgage.

Great. House, car, decent job, health, some money in the bank. Some money in the bank. Some money in the bank.


I first learned about bitcoin in 2011 off metafilter. It piqued my interest because I had argued with a thesis advisor for a couple years starting in 2006 that virtual currencies and properties were just as salient as our real life ones and to the extent that they could be made limited, just as valuable. Anyway, I had little money in 2011, and I didn't quite fully understand the problem that the blockchain solved.

Fast forward to March 2012. I had just gotten married and had a bit of cash. Again, I hear about bitcoin on mefi and it's now at $70.00 or something (this recollection may be inaccurate). I had enough then to have 700 BTC now if I had thrown my weight at it--and I was seriously contemplating doing it (I still remember the pause I had when I was opening my car door before I went to work, mulling it over in my head from the night before: if I lost that much I would be a fool, wouldn't I?)

I didn't do it.

December of 2013 rolled around and now I knew I was a fool. My heart pounded. I had missed my shot.

No, I hadn't.

I started buying in February all the way through the downtrend.

Then, I got into mining: a large group buy investment, script asics since the beginning (dual miner, grid seed, g blade, black widow, thunder, a train where each engine you add slows you down).

All told I have probably thrown 11k (maybe more) or so at BTC in varying ways and I have about 6.5BTC to show for it. It depresses me when I really think about it. But, here I am in my boxer briefs in my new house all the same (they're black btw). I guess there is some solace in being in your underwear in a house you own.

I am trying to turn this into a positive any way that I can, demons out notwithstanding.

Thanks for the read.

Perk up! You gambled what you could afford to risk- that was a smart move! You were just as likely to have lost it all! Cheer up! Bitcoin is still young! The glory days are still ahead of us!

Thanks, the irony is that I thought the more conservative gamble was diversifying with some mining, but I'm only at roughly 20% of where my BTC position should have been had I just bought (20+BTC).

[dyland]

Look it is a learning curve. I'm sure you are not the only one who had to live thru it and lost a ton off K.
I myself was scammed and scammed again, even my mining efforts came out to be negative.
The advantage now is that I have the right experience to take on something different... within the BTC world of course.

Best of luck to you.

Mind if I ask what that may be? I have so many ideas now about disintermediation personally and how I might be able to apply it to some industries of which I am a part btw. That's been pretty valuable just in terms of possessing what I hope is a prescient perspective on the world.

[dyland]

I m gonna say the only thing I keep repeating these days on this forum: BUY more, don't cry and be a man.
Bitcoin is going to be huge in the next couple of years and IMO we might NEVER have this kind of opportunity to make some serious money this way in our lifes. Get yourself a couple hundered BTC and wait. Just wait.

I do not have the disposable right now for a couple hundred BTC unfortunately. (If I did, I would for sure.) I may buy one a month or something if it doesn't go above 700--see how many I get with that, maybe 2?

[acs267]

Well, on the bright side, you could have done what I did.  I bought about 20 BTC a couple weeks ago when the price was $650.  The price has since gone down to about $617, I could have gotten them for about $1,000 cheaper.  Oh well, I'm still confident that it'll go up to above the price where I bought it in the long run.

You still have significantly less loss than me (not to mention all the time and worry--setting up miners, shipping, waiting, pools, etc.)

Does it matter how much someone has lost?

Either way, everyone has lost Bitcoins or money. Some people more than you, some less. Does it really matter? You still lost money. A mystical thought created by humans, so... Yup.

[ezimedia]

I also heard about bitcoin back in 2009 and did not think much of it... and then again in 2011 I looked at it but did not get into it... and yes now I am kicking my self for not digging deeper.. but I am here now and have been in to it for only 6 months... and still do not have 1 btc but I do have 400+ VRC and other Alt coins... and you never know... in 3-5 years things may look bright... as I do not think bitcoin will be the only coin to make it big in the future...

Also back in 1997 I bought a business online and reg a domain for it and some others... and I thought hey what if I reg some good 1 word and 2 word domain names and hold them will they be worth anything in the future.... but back then at $200 a pop for a domain name I did not want to risk it... well I wish I did... still kicking myself over that one..

So this time I am not going to miss the train...

[keithers]

Honestly a great vacation with my family now is worth more to me than any financial gains in the future.

This is a difficult decision, and is the nature of a highly volatile currency that will eventually be deflationary in nature.

Is a great vacation with your family this year, worth more to you than multiple great vacations with your family in the future?

Yes, but the multiple vacations in the future will probably end up also costing significantly more than they do now since the cost of almost everything keeps going upwards

[Cryptopher]

Honestly a great vacation with my family now is worth more to me than any financial gains in the future.

Is a great vacation with your family this year, worth more to you than multiple great vacations with your family in the future?

Sometimes I guess life takes over, especially when there are others who depend on you - not that I know this from my own experience.

Perhaps the best solution is a compromise, keep some investment while spending a little more. There are plenty of opportunist trading moments out there - providing that the price doesn't get silly very quickly, again...

[darlidada]

I know you're all gonna doubt me, but you guys owed it to yourself to check out the cryptonote technology and make up your mind about which of its implementation is the best to invest in.

Everything starts there: https://cryptonote.org/ - good luck.

[slaveforanunnak1]

I honestly get where you're coming from. There is always that slight sting of missing out on amazing chances; but all we can do, is move past it. It's not like we all have clairvoyance right? And if we did, these sort of chances would never happen.

I've also missed a whole bunch of chances in the past (both with bitcoins and with altcoins). Now I just bide my time and let things come as they may. After all, there are much more worse things that can be lost other than an opportunity.

This is why im not going to miss the ethereum bus! I will buy some ether.

It's fair that you want to catch another bus. I on the other hand, am not entirely convinced that's a bus worth getting on. But we'll see what happens. That's the beauty of this type of hectic and fast-flowing market, you never know where you'll end up until you're there.

really? You don't think ethereum is the next big thing? I would like to get some insight from you if you don't mind.
why do you think it's not a good bus?

[pirsquared]

OP,

You should take solace in the fact the you have been able to provide comfortable life for your family. You should also be pleased with your participation in a global financial revolution. I'm sure you learned a thing or two through your experiences. I'm a big believer in just buying the coin rather than trying to keep up with the Jones on the infrastructure end. I bet you reach ROI in the next 12 months just by holding your coin despite getting in on the high side. Thank your for the read.