I am the poorest early adopter in the world

[countryfree]

You shouldn't have tried mining at all. Using a few faucets back then would have brought you more BTC. They were the good old days! I've missed several opportunities too, it happens to us all.

[gkv9]

Knew BTC in 2010, and wanted to invest nearly $1000 when the price was just $10 per BTC, but my dad didn't show interest and so, I decided not to stretch the talks like a gum, and left it... Regret I didn't get it... I forgot about it afterwards, as I thought that I should not see it back or else my mind will just addict me towards it... So, till Sept. 2013, I was unaware whether this thing was still alive or gone? Hate myself, why didn't I fight with dad when the price was damn cheap during those days...

[countryfree]

Knew BTC in 2010, and wanted to invest nearly $1000 when the price was just $10 per BTC, but my dad didn't show interest and so, I decided not to stretch the talks like a gum, and left it... Regret I didn't get it... I forgot about it afterwards, as I thought that I should not see it back or else my mind will just addict me towards it... So, till Sept. 2013, I was unaware whether this thing was still alive or gone? Hate myself, why didn't I fight with dad when the price was damn cheap during those days...

Check your sources, my friend. BTC wasn't worth a dollar in 2010, and BTC was exactly $14 two years ago.

[BlueTemplar]

Indeed, there wasn't even a real market in the start of 2010 :
- the famous ~$25 pizza for 10,000 BTC deal happened May 22, 2010
- MtGox was established July 17, 2010

And bitcoin then rose from about $0.05 to the insane $30 in June 2011... just before the first big price crash (or second, if you count November 2010).

I'm still kicking myself for having followed the herd and bought days before the crash at $28 and not when I first heard of it when it was about $0.28.

But then maybe it's for the better now because would I have bought it at the lows of $4 that followed the crash? Probably not...

[haploid23]

I was mining on my laptop running Windows XP), I was only able to generate 75,000 satoshis:

I must be the poorest early adopter in the world.

Mining on a laptop in 2011 is already too late. That's when everyone was mining on the HD5000 or HD6000 GPUs. The real early adopters mined on CPUs. Now if you would have bought a couple of those GPUs and built a desktop, then you would have been better off by now.

And I'd like to mention that just because someone is an early adopter doesn't mean they're rich. I'm willing to bet most are actually poor, as these guys sold off a while ago.

[Flashman]

It's really hard to know how one would have actually reacted to various price moves.

Then, if one was active much earlier, would one have had developed a complacent attitude to MtGox, and have been wiped out when they took the final dive. Personally, they tweaked my spidey senses from early '13 onward, so I didn't get burned there.

However, the spidey senses didn't stop me losing 5 BTC and change to some assclowns running what was supposed to be a used ASIC brokerage. Derp.

I did make a determined effort to throw away about a coin's worth when MtGox in it's death throes though... I knew they were screwed, but I thought maybe they could cover about 20% of their BTC obligations... and "gox coins" could be bought at a 95% discount.... so thought that could potentially earn a bit, since I was quite happy to lock up a single coin for several months. Well turns out that a "5 cents on the dollar" valuation might have been hugely optimistic, I don't think there's going to be anything left after the lawyers are through. But "fortune" in the form of OKPay deciding to lose my cash for 24 hours, helped me dodge that bullet.

[BlueTemplar]

Spot on for the complacent attitude about MtGox... however anyone keeping all their BTC "eggs" in one trading place "basket" has it coming.

Well, about 27% (202k/744k) of BTC have been retrieved, so we might get back more than 5 cents on a dollar.
But that also depends on whether we'll be able to get back that money directly in form of BTC... and what kind of conversion will be made if not.

[BitcoinFX]

You win some, you lose some and that's just the way it goes ... !?!?

~ Inspired by this thread and some recent events I randomly decided to try and fire up an old dell inspiron laptop I used in early 2010 which suffered a battery, screen and HD failure in the space of a month or so.

After eventually managing to boot it up and having 30 so attempts to remember an old windows xp password (without success) I then resorted to using an ubuntu live cd to try and access my old data...

Success. So, I open the search prompt and enter 'wallet.dat' with the vague recollection that I might of made a backup of a backup from another PC (since lost) to this laptops HD...

~ Finds a wallet.dat - last access 31/01/11 - 19:57 - Size (unencrypted): 336 KB  

So, I immediately copy the file to a USB flash drive and load it up in a new Bitcoin core instance.

Rescanning... 1% ... 99% ... (I'm feeling many mixed emotions obviously) I'm thinking maybe I left 0.55 BTC or was it 25 BTC or even 500 BTC !?!? ...

Great! 0 balance.  

1st transaction - probably sent to myself from another of my own mining wallets...

Status: 277163 confirmations
Date: 15/02/2010 15:20
From: unknown
To: 1JXFXUBGs2ZtEDAQMdZ3tkCKo38nT2XSEp (own address, label: Your Address)
Credit: 13.37 BTC
Net amount: +13.37 BTC
Transaction ID: b3aa001dec9bccfe02c5c018034d569bf0cf7012a840238a759071f525cf6b79-000

The wallet.dat also contains 66 solo mined 50 BTC block transactions ...

Status: 278034 confirmations
Date: 15/02/2010 15:44
Source: Generated
Credit: 50.00 BTC
Net amount: +50.00 BTC
Transaction ID: 9b70e62d9ce6ea0d63d1cb5067c62934616ad390ec778eee146f1d36016ac94b-000

onwards to:

Status: 253403 confirmations
Date: 09/07/2010 16:23
Source: Generated
Credit: 50.00 BTC
Net amount: +50.00 BTC
Transaction ID: 7dd20e43bb44f147da8a735e908a35f23ec4df2e650a3a2c2c55272accc6dd53-000

I even sent the test transaction back to myself !?! (I think) - LOL

Status: 277873 confirmations
Date: 16/02/2010 19:22
To: 189iAhvyheVzWqtL9E8hdfdpyQ2AEprXmm
Debit: -13.37 BTC
Net amount: -13.37 BTC
Transaction ID: 84163a9688ce9694387a9257165c14a41cfe446ddab99462c93c639163313a8c-000

"mere bagatelle" ...

Status: 261135 confirmations
Date: 26/05/2010 16:45
From: unknown
To: 1JXFXUBGs2ZtEDAQMdZ3tkCKo38nT2XSEp (own address, label: Your Address)
Credit: 2500.00 BTC
Net amount: +2500.00 BTC
Transaction ID: 33009032b3d69a2a29f8bdbbfa6848616989058d057bf60f075b6f8ca4fc1fda-000

...

Status: 258814 confirmations
Date: 10/06/2010 05:21
From: unknown
To: 1JXFXUBGs2ZtEDAQMdZ3tkCKo38nT2XSEp (own address, label: Your Address)
Credit: 2500.00 BTC
Net amount: +2500.00 BTC
Transaction ID: ff6f0f6810d5683b52059470a9b5b4a67d7c78e5f240da5542167e9c1d3eaab3-000

...

Status: 258034 confirmations
Date: 15/06/2010 02:50
From: unknown
To: 1JXFXUBGs2ZtEDAQMdZ3tkCKo38nT2XSEp (own address, label: Your Address)
Credit: 2500.00 BTC
Net amount: +2500.00 BTC
Transaction ID: 50114d74e9acab3908c01575cbb9f6661df92edec1f3ccf6362895dba7e64b7b-000

...

Status: 257188 confirmations
Date: 20/06/2010 13:33
From: unknown
To: 1JXFXUBGs2ZtEDAQMdZ3tkCKo38nT2XSEp (own address, label: Your Address)
Credit: 3125.00 BTC
Net amount: +3125.00 BTC
Transaction ID: c7c11418eae5b5c4d904cab77b80cff680c0b7ba4e387a00f91f311bd8945538-000

...

Status: 256626 confirmations
Date: 23/06/2010 21:04
From: unknown
To: 1JXFXUBGs2ZtEDAQMdZ3tkCKo38nT2XSEp (own address, label: Your Address)
Credit: 3125.00 BTC
Net amount: +3125.00 BTC
Transaction ID: 42bd3ac3e78bdaf69c4c020a695cec9fcfc3f9777be531f2fa0aeb23d884db4c-000

...

Status: 250220 confirmations
Date: 18/07/2010 00:51
From: unknown
To: 1JXFXUBGs2ZtEDAQMdZ3tkCKo38nT2XSEp (own address, label: Your Address)
Credit: 5503.40 BTC
Net amount: +5503.40 BTC
Transaction ID: 6d245d6b2657399ea700e5010d10da34974299dc59b89a5e506a51a929ca9ffd-000

Just a few examples (from the same wallet) ... that all correspond with outgoing transactions. Some back to my own wallet(s) and some going elsewhere.  

...

So, as of today, I currently have about £5 UK pounds in my main UK bank account (following the holiday season) ... "Re: I am the poorest early adopter in the world"...

~ Maybe I can auction this 0 balance wallet on ebay ? or elsewhere ? It is a piece of Bitcoin history after all (probably not though I guess).

  

[Melbustus]

...
~ Maybe I can auction this 0 balance wallet on ebay ? or elsewhere ? It is a piece of Bitcoin history after all (probably not though I guess).

  

If Bitcoin were proof-of-stake, you probably could

[jonald_fyookball]

so you could have had like over 10,000 BTC easily...damn...

[K210]

wow so much pessimism in this thread, we are still early adopters 5-10 years down the line BTC might have a value of $10,000 then people will look back and say i should have bought bitcoin in 2015 when it was at $270. Instead of looking at the past we should look at the future bitcoin is still young.

[HCLivess]

Dont be sad, get in Monero (XMR) its actually better overall than Bitcoin and has great chances of repeating its success, its also cheap.

stop it now. there is nothing special about monero. and the price is hyped. terrible idea.

[dmugetsu]

i regret that i don't know btc sooner

stupid me

[iCEBREAKER]

Dont be sad, get in Monero (XMR) its actually better overall than Bitcoin and has great chances of repeating its success, its also cheap.

Yes, Monero is a second chance for us financially incompetent but technically astute early adopters to get a Lambo and beach house in Bora Bora.   

Plus BTC is still in its early days, being about were TCP/IP was in 1981 (an obscure six years old protocol used only by the nerdiest nerds in Nerdville).

[viboracecata]

mid-2011 can not be very early, there are more people, especially those IT engineers, introduced bitcoin in 2010, seriously, no one can image today's situation when bitcoin only worth cents

[desired_username]

Dont be sad, get in Monero (XMR) its actually better overall than Bitcoin and has great chances of repeating its success, its also cheap.

lol. Where do these imbeciles come from?

[Flashman]

didnt needed to buy TCP/IP to use it,

There was a period when finding a usable implementation was a chore, and the most functional ones were commercial software. It didn't come bundled with the OS, it wasn't "just there".



Edit, example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTP_Software

[Wary]

First heard of it around 2011 or even 2010. Decided it's bad idea. "It can't work. No intrinsic value. They should marry it with gold or something."
Next heard of it after the 2011 crash. "So, I was right. No intrinsic value".
Next heard of it around May-2013. "Well! It does work! Should buy some". (It wend down immediately after the purchase ).

[Brewins]

At least you haven't lost your money with scams and with Gox/Stamps. Or gambling

Things always could be worse

[johnyj]

Even by 2011, it is not an easy task to get a couple of bitcoins without setting up a perfessional GPU mining rig. If I remember correctly, a top gaming rig with dual AMD GPU can generate 0.4 BTC per day, a garage filled with 14 motherboard with 3 AMD cards each can get around 10 coins and pay a lot on electricity since the coin worth just a little by then



And running such a setup for 400 days will net you 4000 coins, still not a big fortune like the guy lost 7000+ coins in a hard drive. If you get the coin this hard way, you will try all the best to protect them