started mining bitcoin in 2011 when the price was around 10 bucks so it was primarily a way to subsidize new hardware for games. and the tech was cool. i came from a background of distributed computing like folding@home and such so to me the money was secondary to the bitcoin experiment itself, which was fascinating.
of course i liked it a lot more when the price went stratospheric. that was a nice bonus.
of course i liked it a lot more when the price went stratospheric. that was a nice bonus.
I came in a little later than that, but I wonder what the mining requirements were when you entered the adventure? Was it GPU back at the time and what was your first setup?
Looking back, I loved those times experimenting around, setting up my first rigs. I didn't have an extensive IT background, so you can imagine how the experimentation felt when finally the hashes were accepted, everything started running smoothly and some coins were rolling in. I mined alt coins back then and although I barely have any these days as I think I learnt bitcoin is the real deal, it was a hell of fun back in the days. Tweaking the devices, adding some cooling, sleeping with the sound of the mining rig.
But back to topic... 
I think bitcoin's price wasn't impacting me personally as much ever emotionally or interest-wise, but it did impact the overall market sentiment and therefore, collective mood had some impact on me as an individual as well. At the end of the day, when there were these very intense crashes or moonshots, of course it is either a more pessimistic or optimistic mood that spills over. I guess that's almost inevitable.
. Although the transactions themselves don't have your identity, transactions can be "triangulated" e.g. compared to known endpoints--in a sense, it's like tracking your IP address.
