How easy was it to buy Bitcoin back in 2011?

[Remember remember the 5th of November]

Bitcoin in 2011 was the best thing ever.

[shkiser]

This tread made look up when i got my first bitcoin.

05199   21.06.2011, 20:37:20   khorne   2.6 BTC   11.39 GBP   29.61 GBP   Confirmed

It was very easy to get the 2.6 BTC on June 2011 and then a total of 111 over the next 3 weeks all paid with paypal.
I lost every single one of them. Most on the scamy exchange i left them on, no not gox i got goxxed before the word existed.
0.6 of a bitcoin is stuck until this day on a doggy phone app.

Looking back at my first transactions they were 20-30 bitcoin each. I deposited almost 1k bitcoins in less than a year. At todays value thats over half a mil lol..

[annoyingorange]

I remember hearing of bitcoin in 2011, getting excited about it, wanted to buy with paypal..couldn't. Decided I'd wire the money to an exchange to purchase 1000 of them. Then learned that the exchange was some shady looking website named after Magic the Gathering cards. I felt like an idiot for even getting excited about it and went on to forget about it for a long while.

[Remember remember the 5th of November]

I remember hearing of bitcoin in 2011, getting excited about it, wanted to buy with paypal..couldn't. Decided I'd wire the money to an exchange to purchase 1000 of them. Then learned that the exchange was some shady looking website named after Magic the Gathering cards. I felt like an idiot for even getting excited about it and went on to forget about it for a long while.

You were at least correct about Mt Gox, it was a scam.

[FUR11]

I remember hearing of bitcoin in 2011, getting excited about it, wanted to buy with paypal..couldn't. Decided I'd wire the money to an exchange to purchase 1000 of them. Then learned that the exchange was some shady looking website named after Magic the Gathering cards. I felt like an idiot for even getting excited about it and went on to forget about it for a long while.

If it actually makes you feel better, there might've been a chance that you left your BTC on that very exchange and well, who knows if that cryptic exchange even exists anymore

[bucktotal]

it was fairly straight forward in 2011. i wired money to mt gox and got my coins at what would be the bottom. (~$2.5/btc)

from what i could tell from others around me at the time, the hard part was actually making up your mind to go through with it. personally, it was an easy decision since i was buying them to play online poker again, after being told i couldn't play for dollars in the usa.

[annoyingorange]

So I don't know if it was exactly what you would call difficult but it was a uncomfortable process.

[FUR11]

So I don't know if it was exactly what you would call difficult but it was a uncomfortable process.

I don't know, it's not exactly hassle-free nowadays. I mean there are quite a number of exchanges that are rather trustworthy, as in 'they most likely won't go bust while you purchase your coins and won't run away with your money in the meantime' but you have to comply with all the KYC and AML regulations. I totally understand why they exist and don't mean to debate their usefulness, but they're and additional hurdle for people wanting to buy BTC.

[farlack]

BitInstant was around near the end of 2011, right? That made buying Bitcoin pretty easy.

2012

[haploid23]

In 2011, the only exchanges available were mtgox as the largest, and tradehill was a runner up. There was not AML or any verification for accounts, so it was super easy to deposit and withdraw both btc and fiat. It was nearly free too. They had dwolla back in the days, which only cost 25cents to deposit and withdraw fiat.

It was a lot easier to mine back then, so I didn't purchase a single btc. I did use my mined btc to day-trade on mtgox though, but never purchased additional btc with new incoming fiat.

[tins]

it was fairly straight forward in 2011. i wired money to mt gox and got my coins at what would be the bottom. (~$2.5/btc)

from what i could tell from others around me at the time, the hard part was actually making up your mind to go through with it. personally, it was an easy decision since i was buying them to play online poker again, after being told i couldn't play for dollars in the usa.

That was what my first purchase of bitcoin was for. I bought a few...put them on sealswithclubs, made some more and lost some.
Then, started playing around with the alt scene.
Fun times.

[Soros Shorts]

There was not AML or any verification for accounts, so it was super easy to deposit and withdraw both btc and fiat.

In fact, in 2011 I had several accounts on Mt.Gox under different pseudonyms. Later on, they forced me to merge all my accounts into a single account when they started requiring linking an SSN or EIN to all US accounts.

[dserrano5]

it was fairly straight forward in 2011. i wired money to mt gox and got my coins at what would be the bottom. (~$2.5/btc)

Yeah this was my experience as well. Some hours later that day I realized "fuck!! I have 400 euro *in this computer*, gotta make a backup *now*" .

[JayJuanGee]

It's nice to read these varying memories.

I keep searching my memory regarding when I first heard about bitcoin - maybe 2013?   I did NOT research into it, until November 2013. 

It is very hypothetical what I would have done in 2011, if I had researched into BTC, yet my thinking is that I would NOT have invested into it - even though once I started to look into it, I thought that it was great, even at $1,200 per BTC. 

Currently, I believe that BTC is a good value, while it remains under $1,000 per BTC.

[MineForeman.com]

I never really bought any bitcoins BUT in 2011-2012 it was quite easy to buy Casascius coins from your local ebay (or whatever you have).

I bought 7 from someone local in New Zealand for the MtGOX USD->BTC spot price, from memory it was about $7.

Neil

[obocaman]

I don't know much about 2011, but in 2010 it was extremely easy to buy Bitcoins. Because the most important exchange at that time (New Liberty Standard) accepted both Paypal and CC (Visa / Master). And you won't believe the exchange rates. It was 1$ = BTC1,309.03. 

kill me

[obocaman]

I'm pretty much sure it's happening already. If not happeining that at least there are some ppl that CAN buy Islands and stuff like that with amount of BTC they have (or better say, with par of BTC they have). Some of them out there are filthy rich.

I have 0.001 

[GreenCoin22]

We are not prophets

[JayJuanGee]

I'm pretty much sure it's happening already. If not happeining that at least there are some ppl that CAN buy Islands and stuff like that with amount of BTC they have (or better say, with par of BTC they have). Some of them out there are filthy rich.

I have 0.001 

Each of us have our own budgets and means, and .001 is the equivalent of $.62, which seems insufficient to accomplish anything in the BTC space.

If you currently, know about BTC, then you should attempt to acquire as many BTC as you deem practical 10 to 20 BTC would be a decent goal, especially, if we consider where BTC will be in about 5 years... I'm speculating possibly in the $100K range per each BTC?

[obocaman]

I'm pretty much sure it's happening already. If not happeining that at least there are some ppl that CAN buy Islands and stuff like that with amount of BTC they have (or better say, with par of BTC they have). Some of them out there are filthy rich.

I have 0.001  

Each of us have our own budgets and means, and .001 is the equivalent of $.62, which seems insufficient to accomplish anything in the BTC space.

If you currently, know about BTC, then you should attempt to acquire as many BTC as you deem practical 10 to 20 BTC would be a decent goal, especially, if we consider where BTC will be in about 5 years... I'm speculating possibly in the $100K range per each BTC?

Yah i would like to onw at least 10, but i dont know how.