UPDATED 07.08.2019My 6th anniversary on Bitcointalk forum was a few weeks ago and I am just a Hero member because never rushed to rank up. Additionally, the merit system was introduced, just a couple of days, before my promotion and I was, still a Senior member back then. To be honest, I was promoted to Hero only a few weeks ago
.
I knew about the Bitcointalk forum, long before I have registered my first account, which was opened after a year of only reading and got hacked when passwords leaked for the first time.
Couldn't claim back, because lost access to the email and there was no whitelisted BTC address in my account. Took me another couple of months to open my actual, second account.
Until the end of the 2014 year, quality of discussions on the Bitcointalk forum was on a very high level. I couldn't join these discussions because of lack, of knowledge about cryptocurrencies.
Already in my first account, I had only a couple of posts and only in threads like "introduce yourself"
or giveaways.
I was interested in the BTC revolution and tried to read a lot about decentalisation, anonymity, Satoshi Nakamoto and how all this works in details. Bitcointalk.org was the only source of knowledge, about BTC and crypto back then. I started to mine with my laptop, so I was reading all I could find about BTC mining. For some time, I was able to mine solo at the start and in pools after some time. Later switched to LTC and stopped finally, when was not possible to mine on a regular laptop (without dedicated ASIC miners). Additionally because of health and financial problems in my personal life, which is important to be mentioned here for the rest of the story.
At the start of the merit system, I was really mad because it took me by surprise and the last few weeks I counted every day to my Hero promotion.
I was shocked, mad, disappointed, surprised when finally the merit system was introduced. With the time passing by started to appreciate the new system, when I saw how big impact it has on me and the forum as a whole. From a total shitposter, I evaluated to the
100 Most Merited Members Club (position 92) and finally, after so many years I feel like a real member of this forum.
To help a little on the forum, I have reported thousands of spammy posts, forum rules abuse, bots, alt accounts, bot farms, etc. Never wanted to be famous because of this and always used the "report button". That was at the end of 2017 when there was a lot of spam and I haven't seen any changes because of my reports, so I changed my tactic and joined the
[CLUB] The SpamBusters! from the very beginning, to report abuse more efficiently. We have reported multiple threads in this club and work until today very closely with moderators on reports, to get the most value from our work. After over 2600 reports my accuracy is still at 100%.
With the introduction of the merit system, spam was significantly stopped and I took a different approach to contribute, to the forum. Started to do something, with my local Polish community, which was almost dead at the moment. There was no posts, active members, only full of useless altcoins ann and bounty threads. Started to post there frequently, new and engaging content, despite I was talking to myself for a while. Finally, when I have published the most merited, recognized and visited thread in Polish section:
Czemu nie nagradzamy sie Meritami?, things started to change and today we have a decent local section, even with a few members between the 200 most merited once. From the last places, Polish local board goes up (like BTC price
) and sometimes we see top positions in merit awards, published post and other rankings.
Today I enjoy my frequent writings on the forum. My next goal is to achieve the Legendary rank. I give myself a year to do this because is good to have clear goals in every aspect of our lives.
I hope it will be enough. Anyways this is such a big difference because 2 years ago I couldn't believe I will be able to rank to Hero at all. I enjoy my contribution to the forum and organically am involved in many discussions. From last 2years I am frequently here (almost daily) and consider Bitcoin as the most known Bitcoin forum.
My journey with Bitcoin is another story. I can literally say that BTC saved my life and this is no joke.
As I have already mentioned, mined a few blocks and stopped with mining, when even LTC wasn't possible, to be mined with a regular laptop. That was in the years 2010 to the beginning of 2013. Later, I forget about BTC and crypto world for almost 2 years, because got very sick and almost died. After this, I couldn't work in my profession (I still can't until today) and actually wasn't living in my motherland for a long time, only changed countries every few years. In the age of 18, left my motherland and started, to travel the world. When I get sick, was already from 2 years in a new European country, where I had no social cover, insurance or even a home address.
Because of the sickness, I couldn't walk properly. I was able to move by myself only a few meters and you can't call it walking. So, I was sitting in a wheelchair and couldn't work in a foreign country, without the right to social welfare. I had no money, no work, so moved to a trailer of totally unknown, but very good people (they never asked for money) in the winter. I had no gas, electricity, internet or phone and that was slowly the end for me. Even if, I wanted to check the crypto news, wasn't able to, because I was fully isolated from the outside world. Finally, was the end of 2014 and I was already living for 2 years, totally broke in this trailer, without any plans for the future, only with a lot of debts and very black, stupid thoughts, crawling slowly in my head. Still couldn't walk properly, but was able to move around on crutches.
One day, I was going to the hospital for therapy, with a paid city bus and I heard there on the radio, that BTC was already at ATH some time ago and started to fall down very fast.
I knew that mined something but wasn't sure how much. Laptop on which I mined, was still up and running. I had all the files still there. When I was finally back home, I had to find an internet connection somewhere and all info, how to recover my wallets and BTC. Only this took me a few days. You just can't imagine, how difficult life can be, such a normal task can be an overwhelming problem, especially if you are totally broke and sick.
I remember how my hands shake when I found the dat.file. The time needed to sync the old wallet with blockchain data from a few years was the longest time in my life. Wasn't sure if, I will be able to send my coins, if not synced properly and when I finally saw the updated BTC balance in my wallet it was the best time of my life. Sold my BTC little later, only for $450 per BTC, but that was still enough to start a new life and open my own small business. So literally BTC saved my life and this is no joke.
This is my BTC, Bitcointalk story, what is yours?
