My $11k bitcoin odyssey

[ekstremista]

Look at the bright side: In the good old days, you could have mined 10,000 BTC in a week on a cheap laptop...

...and then put them up at MtGox.

...or not.

[PalmerLaura]

It's easy to look at things in the past as missed opportunities without considering all the 'gambles' and great things you've achieved... eg. your wife/daughter... perhaps if you'd never gambled on chatting up your now wife, you'd not be with her and not have a daughter... maybe if you'd spent an extra 5 minutes in a casino 10 years ago you'd have left and got hit by a car. It's easy to forget about the good things in life and get bogged down by all the things that in retrospect seem like no brainers.... what if I'd bought Coca Cola shares in the fifties, or invested in Microsoft in the 80s or short sold British Airways Stock before 9/11, so many ifs, buts and maybes... try to focus on the things that matter, living life is much more important than counting it.

[tigeRshoes]

It's easy to look at things in the past as missed opportunities without considering all the 'gambles' and great things you've achieved... eg. your wife/daughter... perhaps if you'd never gambled on chatting up your now wife, you'd not be with her and not have a daughter... maybe if you'd spent an extra 5 minutes in a casino 10 years ago you'd have left and got hit by a car. It's easy to forget about the good things in life and get bogged down by all the things that in retrospect seem like no brainers.... what if I'd bought Coca Cola shares in the fifties, or invested in Microsoft in the 80s or short sold British Airways Stock before 9/11, so many ifs, buts and maybes... try to focus on the things that matter, living life is much more important than counting it.

Toying with the idea of making a "what if" website. Input the date you first heard of bitcoin (or apple or google) and cash you have available right now to spend at a whim (summer 2011, $5 for a latte). Click to calculate what such an investment would be worth today, and weep.

[Intaryna]

Oh man, you sound like me trying to do IM. I spent thousands of dollars on software. Then I went back to programming, because it was a waste of money trying to cheat the system.

Hold on to your 6.5BTC, its a respectable amount. If you use some, replace it. Build your savings over time like a 401k, $100/week or month. Whatever you can afford to throw away.

[Intaryna]

I think it will hit $1k by end of this year with all the mainstream adoption going on. Its going to be a hurdle to get past this BitLicense bullshit, but hopefully the people will prevail and not some government regulatory agency who doesn't understand shit about it.

[smashingpumpkin]

Can you explain why you bought mining equipment? I think it was pretty clear that people over invested in mining and I'm curious why that happened, why buy mining equipment and not just bitcoins?

[AlPutino]

Can you explain why you bought mining equipment? I think it was pretty clear that people over invested in mining and I'm curious why that happened, why buy mining equipment and not just bitcoins?

Because free money yo.
At least, that's what it looks like until you do the math. I have a feeling though, based on the posts in this sub, that most amateurs have stayed away from mining this year.

[FlowerMatt]

So the moral is don't mine? That was a mistake but looking back to 2011, you gotta let that part go.

[Riniaiokl]

You have 6500000 bits. Unless bitcoin fails, that amount will make you pretty darn rich in the future.

[666uazan]

Thanks for sharing your story. I remember first hearing about bitcoin in 2012 when I heard about the deep web. I didn't think much of it, except that it was just a digital currency. If only I had researched it, just like I do with everything else. But oh well, I am a holder

[Tenarlty]

Same situation as me, were not too late tho - right now you've just bought in before Wall St, before financial institutions are even beginning to implement it, just at the start of the curve where BIG retailers are opening up to accepting it but still mainstream adoption and regular Joe knowledge is low..

Youre at the real start my friend - investing your entire life in it back then would be insanely risky. It wasn't then, what it is now, it could have gone many ways from then.. now is the solid ground floor - hold those 6.5 for 3-5 years and youll be laughing!

[dyland]

Can you explain why you bought mining equipment? I think it was pretty clear that people over invested in mining and I'm curious why that happened, why buy mining equipment and not just bitcoins?

Sure:

I was initially attracted to mining based on stories of GPU mining of BTC. I knew I had missed the boat on BTC mining, but I thought that I might be able to get ahead of curve with scrypt, but I was mistaken, clearly.

I also thought it might be a good way to diversify on my investment, things with BTC were pretty shaky around Mt. Gox time, and I thought that I could always sell the scrypt miners, or, if I got hacked, my investment sat in the miners and not in a wallet.


It was a decent diversification strategy in theory, but it underestimated difficulty increases and also the amount of time I had to invest in getting miners running.