Topic: My Bitcointalk, BTC Story. (Read 1741 times)

Thank you very much for sharing these stories. Of course, awarded the best one with merit. I hope to see more stories and I still have a couple of merits left to award them.

I came across bitcointalk.org since but I didn't really know much about it and I was lazy to make my research on it. One of Friends Godwin hard to convince me to give a try. I open the account but was ask to pay for it before I can type and this was a turn off for me. I told him guy I can't do it and wunt pay any thing. As a good friend he offered me an account and am liking here.

Let me share my story with you as well. I open my first Bitcointalk account in 2017 I was ask to pay a token for evil fee and I was not happy about it when have not even use the account before so how did I commit evil with it. Last last I still pay for it because I was eager to post here. Actually I opened two accounts but only payed for one I left the 2nd one like that without using it. Just this year June that my account (https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/unfredo-1780587)  was banned till today without any form of warning that made me very sad till today. But because I enjoy this forum I have to go back and pay the evil fee for that my 2nd acc to enable me posts.


If there is anyway I can recover my first account I'll appreciate it.
Mean while I have been making posts to get merit but is not just coming sha.

Let me share my story here:

My very first post in this community: How to Recover Lost Bitcoin. You heard it right, I was involved in bitcoin around 2011-2012, I joined some website that supposedly give you $$$ at that time, sort of doing task and services and you are getting paid. I vividly remember "Satoshi" name, some experiment as the owners have mentioned. So just go to the usual task everyday, I totally forget the name of the website though. And then one day they said that the work is done and all the money that we have earn is going to be "Bitcoin".

NO clue about what is bitcoin is that time, they require us to create a wallet in https://www.bitaddress.org/ print and save the "private key". So I follow the instructions, move my supposedly digital money and that's it. I totally forgot about it.

Then somewhere late 2016, someone is popping me in Facebook, didn't bother to read his messages until New Year of 2017 and mentioning about this internet thingy that is taking the world by storm "Bitcoin".

So I recall that I have stash somewhere way back in 2010-2011 and so i scramble to look for the printed material with my bitcoin wallet address and private key. Damn, I went into sleepless nights trying to figure it out where I put it. Weeks past by, until in the middle of the night, I was able to find it. But my heart fell because I thought that I have like 10 BTC stash back then, Lol.

 Anyways, I got everything and then sold off everything without knowing that before the end of that year, the price will rock ~$20,000. Hard lesson for me because I don't know the thing about it and the HODL mentality, too late,  I could have made a tons of money in 2017. It is what it is so I can't do anything about it my to move forward and try to earn more bitcoins thru trading. 

I have it, which I hope satisfies your selection criteria. What I have done to earn merits written in my thread, and below is one post inside that thread.
Roadway from zero to hero

I have a couple of merits left so I encourage everyone to share your story and I will award the best once for sure. Just share how you found BTC and Bitcointalk this will be enough.

Thanks for sharing your story in my thread. I was so happy that I will read a new story because lately, there were only a few publications here.

Unfortunately, I have already read this thread just after your publication and even shared a short commented wishing you luck.

Still, this is very good that you shared the link here and I encourage every member to this same if already has his story published somewhere.

Always the chance is bigger that somebody will find this link and read your content if links are widely spread on the forum, especially to quality content.

That is my story: Roadway from zero to hero
Yeah, with help from merit system, and supports from community, I am here, as a Senior member.
My plan? I would prefer to finish my current challenge to hero member and celebrate it before Bitcoin halving.

Thank you for sharing this. Nice read I like such stories and ask for more.

My latest story is someone whom are jealously with stories from self-made users, and don't like inspirational stories.

Hours ago, I updated my old story that written when I ranked up to a Senior Member from scratch, months ago. I just re-read the Welcome message written by admin, and saw that interesting part.
I think, it is once again, demonstrates that users should read forum rules, pinned threads, and helpful guides repeatedly, because the more times they read, the more probability that they will discover something interesting and valuable.

I have a couple of merits left so I encourage everyone to share your story and I will award the best once for sure.

No matter if the story is simple or you are a newbie here. Just share how you found BTC and Bitcointalk this will be enough.

I am very happy that you liked my story. I will be very happy to read yours. Thanks for honest merit award and this comment.

I hope I will encourage everyone to post this thread. I need more members to give a good example and to share their stories here.

Fantastic story  , thanks for sharing it with us.

Indeed reporting is very time consuming but finally, I have mastered it.

Never got single merit because of my reports and never wanted to be famous because of them. Never created special report threads in meta or reputation sections to get merits only used the "report button" even if I found a big bot farm or multiple plagiarism attempts. I am and always was against multiple report threads (there are already existing once) and against merit awards because of reports.

TBH even after so many reports, I have seen no changes in the forum. There was so much spam at the end of 2017 that a few thousand less (because of my reports) made no visible difference.

That was the reason why I stopped to spend my time to look for abuse, report spam on my own and joined the Spambusters Club from the very beginning, to report all kind of abuse more efficiently. We have reported multiple threads in this club and work until today, very closely with moderators on our reports, to get the most value from our work.

TBH I did by myself after members advised me to move it back to the meta section because it could be removed by mistake.

Mods are only humans too and make sometimes mistakes. My thread is still in the meta section so I assume that was the case.

I don't know too, but eventually it was moved back here.
Last time, I posted in the thread, I was a Senior Member, but now I am a Hero Member. I actually made it on 30 Jul. 2019.
I am on the way to Hero Member rank. Within less than 2 years from register day
Glad to stay on the same rank as yours.

I fully agree with you and don't mind the beginners' section. I just couldn't understand why my thread was moved to the off-topic section which is not related at all with my post.

Because there are overlaps inside the @wwzsocki's story, including his journey in real life and with bitcoin & blockchain technology. On the other hand, the story tells about his journey with merit system, from Senior Member rank to Hero Member rank now. That's is the main reason why the thread can be fitted with Meta board.
For other stories, for example, solely tell about rank achievements with merit system's challenges, I still think they are more fitted with the Beginners & Help board. Not sure, but I kept my story in that board, not in Meta.
Promotion with merit system and new rank requirements. It's possible.
Most of other stories are in Beginners & Help board, too: Inspirational stories from self-made promoted users

---

Any ideas (hope that I am not wrong with it)?

Your story is not boring at all. Is just an honest story and thank you very much for sharing it. Maybe this will encourage other members to this same.
They maybe think, just like you, that they have a boring story and nothing to say, but this is not true as we see.
Every member of this forum has his own BTC and Bitcointalk forum story and I will be very happy to read all of them. Merits are waiting for the best stories!!!


This is true we haven't interacted together on the forum but maybe it would change in the future, I hope so. I am in Bitcoin almost from the start and after my first contact with BTC, I knew it would be something which would change the world. I just knew is the missing part of the internet. This is so funny that back in 2011 nobody wanted to listen about BTC and everybody had the exact same opinion as yours that this is a scam. This shows me clearly that from the start there were two groups of people. The first one the believers like me which after the first look at BTC, knew that this is something big, despite didn't understand the tech behind it fully also and had a lot of questions about it. Second group disbelievers which from the start treat BTC as a scam because there is too much fraud in the internet world. Some of them during the time get to know BTC better and joined the believers' club forces. Just like you @The Pharmacist.


Of course, I have used both of these faucets and even Freebitco.in I use to this day and have plenty of refs there, thanks to my signature. Today is not working so good because everybody already is familiar with this faucet, but back then I got hundreds of them every week. That was the time when I realized how strong such a signature is and how good ref links works on the forums. TBH back then faucets were paying a lot more like dust. I knew faucets which paid 0.5BTC just for signing up  . I like sometimes take a look at my BTC wallets history and my old transactions. Just yesterday I remind myself looking at my old transactions that I have won 3.5BTC in https://peerbet.org/. That was a raffle service back then where you put provably fair bets against each other. If I would only hold to this money it would be whooping 80.000$ if sold on ATH. I remember, I sold it only for 900$ and that was luckily my last transaction at Mr.Gox because the next day was hacked.


Exactly, despite there are more posts as in meta this section is a mess and a pure spam contest with no real activity. Even if somebody post there something never follow it further.
No real activity and real committed readers of that section. I would have nothing against off-topic but activity in this thread just died there.

Well, I think this thread ought to be in Meta and I'm glad it got moved back here--I have Off-Topic on ignore since I never post there and from what I've heard it's a mess.

OP, I think I told you before you have an amazing bitcoin story and thanks again for sharing it.  Our paths don't cross much on the forum, but I was familiar with your name and never realized you'd been into bitcoin for so long.

I remember sitting at my computer at some point in 2012 reading financial news, mostly about the stock market, and I remember reading some blurb about bitcoin and how fast it was rising.  When I read that it was some kind of internet currency, I figured it was the equivalent of Flooz, which I'd remembered from the early-ish days of the internet.  I assumed there were a bunch of suckers buying bitcoin, pushing it to the moon, and that they'd eventually get burned and that bitcoin would fall to zero.  I thought it was some sort of scam, like a Ponzi.

Sometime in 2013 I kept hearing about bitcoin because of how high the Mt. Gox fiasco was pushing it, and it was at that point I discovered bitcointalk--every time I searched for something about bitcoin, forum links were the first ones that popped up on Google.  I found the forum to be very interesting reading, especially all the scam accusations, which I took to mean that bitcoin was mostly a scam.  Eventually I just bookmarked a page from the forum so I could come back to it and continue reading about the dramas that were happening.

I saw how bitcoin had survived Mt. Gox, even though it crashed really hard, and that sort of dispelled my belief that bitcoin was a scam or that it was headed toward $0.  Reading more about it, I figured out why bitcoin is different from Flooz, that it's decentralized and completely different than what Whoopee Goldberg was shilling back in the day.  However, the technicals really confused me and I did not find it obvious how to buy any bitcoin, how to store it, how to send it, or anything else.

2015 came and I'd figured out how bitcoin ownership worked.  I started earning dust through faucets (there was one called Land of Bitcoins IIRC) and finally created a Coinbase account and bought my first coins.  Bitcoin was trading around $300-400 at that time, and boy I wish I knew then how crazy bitcoin was going to take off.  I never held onto what I bought, and that's one of my regrets. 

My story is absolutely boring compared to OP's, but I thought I'd just share it.  I was not an early adopter or a believer in it from the start--bitcoin kind of won me over as time passed.  Aside from not keeping my early purchases, I've no regrets about getting into crypto.  I don't write about my feelings on bitcoin and crypto much, but I'm a true supporter now.  And thanks for keeping this thread alive and in the right place.

Probably because Meta is supposed to be for discussions about the Bitcoin Forum, and other threads weren't reported yet.


Off-topic is actually more active.

Off-topic
804232 Posts
28545 Topics

Meta
287803 Posts
16448 Topics

I keep wondering why this thread was moved to off-topic section?

There are so many threads like this one in meta section and I see them there for a very long time and never moved.

I would do nothing but there are plenty of such stories about self-made senior, hero or legendary members and they are not removed from meta.

Why my thread is different and constantly moved to the off-topic section where is no activity at all?

Great story, thank you for finally sharing the updated version. I was very happy to read it and I need more inspirational stories from other Bitcointalk members .

I encourage everyone, to share your story here. For every story, I will found useful and high quality, there will be a merit award and I have left a couple for this occasion  .

So, if you want merits, please share your story and there is a big chance, that you will be awarded for your efforts.

This is a partial story in a sense, which I posted at the beginning of this year and just remembered now. What I depict here is not anything spectacular, nor my full story (which I wish to keep private), but rather more how a Newbie (me) entered the forum with a mindset to understand what all the hype was about. In order to do that, I undertook the task of performing some things which are against my nature, but that I took on as a sort of personal social experiment, on my quest to understanding a major aspect of the forum, albeit not the core intended one:

Hey wwzsocki,

very well written and interesting story, thanks for sharing, and good luck with your health issues.

I hope many more interesting stories will be shared here.

No problem take your time. This is worth to wait for another inspirational story. I hope this will be something spectacular.

Just joking, anybody is welcome to share his story. No matter if it is short, long, inspirational or not. I will be happy to read any story, just to know all of you a little bit better.

I will start from the birth of my account which is September 2017 when my friend introduces me this forum and said to me that I need to create an account here so I did. He taught me on how to earn money here thru bounty campaigns and yes, I'm a newbie at that time and what I did is to increase my activity while finding some bounty campaigns with the help of others. I can't say that I'm a shitposter at that time but I can say that my post is decent enough even I'm a newbie . Time passes by and my posting is improving although I'm not as constructive as other users here because English is not my main language and I'm not that fluent in English.

Cut story short, I spend the next months of 2017 and 2018 finding bounties and earning money thru it although getting rewards in bounties is very hard at that time I managed to withdraw some of my rewards in bounty campaigns to buy phone, desktop and others. When the merit has implemented here, I'm a Full Member and until now I'm a full member but I don't care. What is important for me is I CAN WEAR AN AVATAR!!!

Although I spend most of the time in this forum finding bounties, I didn't forget reading some threads here and luckily I got some merit sharing important information to others especially newbie people. 57 Merits maybe is low for others especially those who are contributing so much here but..... OK .

I will share a bit of my personal experience here. I graduated with Bachelors Degree in 2017 and after 2 months after graduating, I found a job in our town. At that time, I don't know about crypto that much so I worked as an employee and my daily rate is around 5-6$ (3rd world country). Maybe for other countries, this is a small value but for me it is not that high but at the same time not that low. I'm an employee for 4 months in 2017 (September - December) and the first 4 months of 2018 (January - April) and after that I quit.

While working, I'm just browsing here on this forum and can't stop thinking something. What if I stopped working and focus on this (bounty campaigns etc.). This sounds weird but for 4 months, I always thinking about being an employee and bounty campaigns. After thinking, I decided that I focused on bounty campaigns. To be honest, I don't want to ordered around too. I hate getting ordered by higher people.

This is the weirdest decision I made in my life. To stop working and focus on campaigns here on the forum. After quitting, I'm always browsing bounties section and services section to find signature campaign but most of the time I'm on services because I want to earn Bitcoin at that moment. I spend weeks browsing and browsing until I saw open slots in signature campaigns (Bitcoin). Fast forward, I was accepted in Yolodice in around May - June 2018 I think. Almost 1-2 months after I quit my job.

At that moment, Bitcoin is going down slowly so my weekly payment is very low at that time but I stayed because I believe that Bitcoin will rise anytime soon and it really did this year. I didn't say to anybody that I'm having a monthly payment here since nobody in our house knows even Bitcoin - only me.

Until now, I'm still on Yolodice and I didn't stop because what I'm getting here right now is x3 as much as I get from being an employee here in our town. My monthly salary on being an employee is around $100 only but here, it is x2-x3. Maybe some are saying here "Get a decent Job and Save money blah blah blah". I don't believe in them. I want to work on our home and not working 8 hours a day being a slave.

At this moment, I'm just spending my time here in the forum and creating some videos on my Youtube Channel and I'm happy with what I'm doing. Although one of my family said to me that "Go work as an employee blah blah", I don't like it because aside from higher money that I get here I'm also happy with what I'm doing.

This forum changed my mindset. After graduating, my mindset is "Go to school, Get a Decent Job. Work in a huge company. Be a slave". When I find a way to earn here, my mindset changed slowly and I want to work now without getting ordered. Maybe some are saying "You're just here to earn blah blah". Hmmmmm that is my second reason but my primary reason is to learn how the crypto works that is why I always read here on this forum.

I know some here have decent jobs right now and they are getting paid huge amounts of money monthly. I think what I can share is, its better if you have your own business rather than be employed. Its better if you are invested in different investments than be employed.

At this moment, I'm saving my earnings from my Signature campaign for the future. I'm buying some Altcoins that I will hold for the future. I'm also exchanging some of it to fiat for the expenses here in the house. I don't want to be an employee anymore. I want to earn money with the help of my laptop now.

This is my short (and useless ) story of my life and the forum. How did the forum changed my mindset . Thanks

Thanks for your story, great read. Of course, I have awarded your post with merit and wait for more such inspirational stories in this thread.

I have a couple of merits left for this purpose, so share your story and maybe, would be merited if the quality, will be high enough or the story, will be original and breathtaking.

I don't always know where to put myself if these were the options, I explained before how I get into BTC, short vers --> play poker for more then 15years, did all the different cash games, tournaments etc but also organised a "HOME" game.
@some point a fella dropped in cause he heard from a friend we were playing.... Now he didn't really was looking for a game but more fore a fun place, smoke a blunt, chill place, play some poker (stakes were not his usual high, i also played higher but it was a fun game etc), now he was an online king in HU playing with no question the BEST from Belgium @ that time and probably a TOP spot worldwide, "HU playing" but he discovered very early the BTC play sides and crushed them all "literally".
of-course he made all in BTC and HODLed as that was his main goal for winning.
Now he was playing @the live tables and lost a bit, if he needed to pay € he had to change BTC of-course and he didn't like to make those BTC-sells etc

Then it happened, i didn't knew anything of that guy and he asked me if he would lose its ok to pay me in BTC and i pay the winner of the game.

me---> what is A BTC?? anno when the price went from 360-ish to ATH "he always repeat i'm the luckiest ever to be introduced @that time"
he ---> highly intelligent guy explained me and provided me everything to handle and so on

then he lose ---> pay, all went good, lucky as i was "i was the winning guy"

then the game changed "No more HOME games with much peeps" only me, him and a select group of peeps playing online for BTC to each other

What i wanna say= i didn't ever hear the name BTC or WO-thread before that single guy, and he introduced me to this world so well so good, always took care for me and learned me so much, i'm absolutely no BTC-tech expert guy, but i no for damn sure he is, i would put myself in CATEGORY B, with the willing to learn all there is to know about BTC-)but i'm just not a good computer guy surely no programmer etc, what i am from CATEGORY A= an absolute crypto enthusiasts....... but when those guys talking about technical stuff then yeah sometimes i lose it and can't follow
of-course my longterm perspective is what it needs to be to be a BTC'er

as of today we still play our thing and i learn more and more cause of him and cause of being here, then why am I here, obviously to learn, mostly active @the WO, but also cause its a bit of a chill place were nobody cares if i go OT sometimes and yeah that maybe happens to often but then again everybody there likes to have a good laugh and the humor down there is pretty good, I also like to share some news there that crosses my path etc

so me = MIX A and B

and i think its better to have some Merit system then no Merit system, as I don't only use it as when i think something = of high quality, I also like to use it when I think something is good humor as for THX as when I see somebody is posting something with best intentions etc


BTW@ OP "QuestionAuthority" .......... long time no see :-/

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.50321842
^
I copied my post from here in an OT thread.... but this is a little bit my run with BTC

I have read your story and a few of your posts and I see that you are struggling (like me) with the English language and especially the grammatic.

There is a tool which is free and will do magic for you and correct almost all grammatic, spelling and interpunction errors in each text you are writing, on almost every page, on the internet.

This is Grammarly and is totally free. Of course, there is better, paid version, but you don't need it. Grammarly works as an extension in browsers or stand-alone program.

You will be amazed, how good Grammarly is and it will take your English skills to another level. Only few seconds is needed to download the extension and start to work without any settings.

Just download and it will start doing its magic.

My story:

I joined the forum since late of third quarter 2017, and I am a Full Member when merit system came to us.
Honestly, before the merit system started, my post quality is lower than average, I meant low quality. However, with motivation from both merit system and rank up procedure, I tried to learn more (read forum rules, helpful guides), then contributed more to the forum via my posts, and threads.
By now, I have 314 merits in total, and I received enough merits (150) to rank up from a Full Member to a Senior Member.
From now on, my next rank is Hero Member, that is too far, but I feel I have become a more contrusctive user in the forum over last 12 months.
There are some of my contributions recent months:
[TIPS] to avoid pyramid quotes (for Newbies)
[TIPS] to avoid plagiarism
Tools for managers to check quality of posts (both merited & unmerited posts)
Guideline on posting images (with size adjustments), hyperlinks
Collections for someone who would like to improve English skills
Collection of comprehensive guides on identify and avoid scam projects
1 merit per applicant who find qualifying posts or topics on Scam Related Issues
[Suggestion] Rules on Animated Images should be changed

Everything depends on context too I believe. All of them are important and play roles in your lives. I probably know a little of what wwzsocki went through, and I doubt you can simply call it 'not true love'. It's a complex thing, not about true or not. Anything that relates to another person is always complex.

But of course, money is not everything. That being said, collecting satoshis is a good hobby.

I do not agree, but I will not explain why from personal reasons.


Because they definitely went bankrupt 

There are still people living in the world without money, they live off the land with what nature provides. Money is just a way to keep all of us under control, is is their ultimate weapon against us.   If you weren't able to keep your love because of money then it wasn't true love.

Also I know many wealthy people that have committed suicide.

I understand what you mean and respect that, but don't believe this bullshit that one can live and be happy without money and the only thing that matters is the health or love  .

Of course, both are important but try to stay healthy or in good mental condition without money. Try to keep your love when you are broke. Mission impossible I know I was there.

I know literally hundreds of people who will be very happy and healthy if they can afford expensive treatments. Many will be in a lot better mental condition if they could pay the rent and other bills on time.

Sometimes I am so angry when I hear this, but luckily in the last few years, I haven't heard it very often.

For every story like yours there are is one where someone lost all their bitcoins or got hacked and ended up losing a fortune.  Be grateful for what you have and remember that health will always top wealth in terms of importance.

I can remember when back in 2011, I was once such a "Bitcoin Guy" at a party, but nobody wanted to listen to me.
I was already mining from some time and was really excited about BTC, so thought it would be great to spread the word because I knew, this is revolutionary and will be a big one day.
That was the missing part of the internet for me. Literally, nobody wanted to talk about this after, I started the discussion.

Somebody said: "again a scam, how could you get real money for running a laptop, just think about this".
I tried to convince them, but the discussion was already over and I was left alone with my BTC. Some time ago, I met one of those people and the first thing, he said to me was: "How do I regret that I didn't listen to you as you talked about Bitcoins, how much were they 50 cents back then?".

I remember that I told them to invest only 500 euro in BTC and to forget about it for a few years, but nobody did it. I wish I have such a friend in 2009 when BTC just started.

It's still fine though because you ranked up to hero member from senior member. My bitcointalk forum history is not good when I started here because i'm still newbie (newly created account) which I don't have much knowledge or still learning about cryptocurrency and the forum and few days later merit is implemented which gives me more headache at that time but I still doing my best to learn slowly.

I was the guy poking fingers at the crazy people who thought this "Monopoly" money was real. Back then nobody wanted to touch Bitcoin, because it was still illegal in most countries. I was at a party when I struck up a conversation with a guy that was introduced to me as the "Bitcoin Guy" and I already knew about this, so we clicked instantly.

He explained the full concept without all the FUD and misinformation and it was like someone switched on a light inside my head! I started buying coins and selling assets to buy more coins, because I saw the bigger picture. Well, the price took a huge nose dive and I panicked and sold some of those coins !

I forgot some coins on a paper wallet and when the price suddenly went up, sold those coins for a massive profit and kept some money to buy on the dip again. A lot of that profit was used to kill loads of small jackals that kept me in the mouse wheel. I am out of the rat race now and I can breath a lot easier with most of my debt being paid off now. 

Great story Baofeng, thanks for sharing. Is just hard to imagine how big impact crypto has on so many lives. Just impossible to stop this revolution at this time.

I can only hope that BTC will shoot to 100.000$ with this bull run and we all finish financially free.

This Is such a great opportunity and I always liked the concept of the wealth redistribution with BTC.

I will read another encouraging story, starting to be addicted to . Share your story, please if you have one!

Congrats to ranking up mate, I think we have a similar story as well, I was about to rank up to Hero prior to the introduction of the merit system. At first I was a bit disappointment, however I learn and go by the system and up to know I'm still a senior and trying to rank up into a Hero. Maybe I will get lucky this year and achieved that. It will be a big accomplishment on my end.

I was in the IT sector, unfortunately, I was laid off by the company in 2015 so it's really hard for me to bring food in the table. Working offline as a freelance was good but it was not enough at the competition is really hard that time. Luckily at the beginning of 2017, I encounter this site, so being in IT make me curious about what this crypto is all about and then learn that at the side line, you can earn bitcoin. So I did everything to understand crypto and how the community works. And then those precious bitcoin I earn was used for trading. So it is a life saver for me as it gives me financial financial freedom, specially the crypto boom in 2017.

So it was also a difficult journey, I did also take the risk of working outside of my country, travel to Canada with just a visitors visa, trying to get some luck to be able to hire, unfortunately though 9/11 happen, so I have no choice but to go back and start my journey. Find good jobs, laid off in one of the worst economic meltdown in 2008. Land a job in 2009, lost again, re-hire by the same company in 2009 then finally for the last time they let me go for good in 2015. But again, thank God that I found crypto and bitcoin in 2017 and now I would say that my life has turn 360 degrees. (I have an off-line business too!!!).

Thank you for sharing your story, I'm sure it will give inspiration to others as well. 

My story posted in Beginners & Help board, it has been there for months. I think you should consider to move your topic into that board, that looks fitted with core purpose of the thread. Newbies might learn lots of things and might be motivated by your thread.
Promotion with merit system and new rank requirements. It's possible.

I will wait for a little and if indeed there will be no activity at all I will move this topic to BTC discussion section and hope that mods don't remove it again.

Off topic section has no frequent readers as other boards. As I said I am here only because my thread was moved. I never come to this section if I don't have to.

Yeah I believe this must be in bitcoin discussions as I have read some stories from other members there about what bitcoin brings to their life.i didn’t come to bookmarked them but I things there are 2 of them ,the one made a vacation something from the expense he profited from bitcoin and the other one is I cannot remember

Like I thought after great start this thread lost all activity when was moved to off-topic section.

I don't think that this is the proper section for this thread.

So much mug in the meta section that sometimes I wish to read something different.

Thanks for asking is much better as it was 7 years ago. I am still sick and this shit stays with you until the end. I was running marathons 20 or even 50km when I was young. Now if I can run for 50 meters I will be happy. I can move by myself, of course, I am tired pretty fast and I have a lot of pain in my legs always. Still taking pills every day and have to wear special healing socks for entire legs. Now I have social cover here and all insurances needed. Medical care here is on a very high level so doctors are doing all what possible. I still hope it will be better someday. I don't know a new pill or something  .

Sorry for the off topic but is there any chance that your legs can perform again?i mean are those curable?was just concern since you have struggled a lot in your life.

Extending my Prayers for you mate and hope you can walk again normally..

I have no much more story to tell But i have found admiration from yours,thank you for sharing and happy 6th anniversary for your account

Yes, I understand you fully. I wanted my post to be as short as possible because if somebody wants to read a book he buys one  . So I had to cut the original post in which I described this situation with wallet fully. I couldn't find the keys first, but the major problem was that I had no internet. So I was traveling in my wheelchair through a very small village looking for open wifi  . The best story begins when I found that wifi   .


As I said before I would like to read your "celebration" post if possible. Please be so kind and post a link or quote the hall story. Why not?


Thank you for sharing your story. I like it and ask for more!!!


This is the right choice. I will be very happy to read more such stories.

---

From what I have seen this thread lose attention and I couldn't understand why? Now I know.

I see that is moved to Off-Topic section and nobody looks to this section TBH. I personally never did on my own.

Wasn't sure to which section publish this thread and I left the decision to moderators but to Off-Topic section? Why?

Finally is about BTC, Bitcointalk forum and there is so much mud in the meta section.

Is not worth to have one little different, more inspirational thread there, between all these scams and personal fights? Maybe not.

Thank you for your kind words and I would like to read your "celebration" post if possible. Please be so kind and post a link or quote the hall story. Why not?

This thread is for such stories and I assume a lot of members will be glad to have them in one place or even a few during the time.

i think ive posted it a couple times but no idea when or where.

soo.. around mid 2011 on a tech forum, anandtech, there was a thread about this bitcoin thing. "mine" btc coins with (at that point) your graphic card. since i was familiar with distributed computing (folding@home, had some nvidia cards and a cpu aimed at it) i hunted some info down on bitcoin mining and such and finally aimed my ATI HD4850 on my daily driver rig at it. well it took a few tries between setting up the mining program, the core wallet and a pool account up, but finally, i got a payout in btc to my wallet.

now, the fun part. convert that to dollars in my bank account and see if this whole thing could work. much more reading, and finally mtgox and dwolla are set up. aaaand presto. money in the bank.

at this point i was much more aware of what bitcoin was really about.. not making money, but redefining money. and being your own bank, with all that entails. i was hooked.

but now to get the wife on board. since i had proved to both her and myself it really worked end to end (mining to meney in the bank), i convinced her to let me buy an ATI HD6870 (as ATI cards were the goto cards back then) i remember when i got it and proudly showed her the card she was like "WHAT?? $200 bucks for THAT??" she thought i was nuts. I thought it was a thing of beauty.

anyway i put it to work, showed it could put actual dollars in the bank if needed, and my btc journey began in earnest. later added a HD5830 and HD6770. ran those cards for years between btc and ltc mining. and i still have the cards. i will never get rid of them, and am tempted to gold plate the 4850 and 6870.. basically those two cards changed our lives.

of course then there were things like the lost coins due to stupidity on my part, the mtgox debacle, occasional scams, the crazy price rise and falls, all the stuff that makes crypto such an exiting place.

wouldnt of missed this for the world. well worth the admission price just for the entertainment value alone. and it did change our lives.

thank you bitcoin.

and thank you bitcointalk forum of course. without this forum and its members helping a total noob out my journey would of been much harder or may not of even happened.

Quite an interesting and motivational story thanks for sharing and also congratulation on your ranking up. I would had loved to share my story here but as you can see I'm almost a Hero member too and I have already drafted out my celebration post so i won't want to be a spoiler. Truely it isn't easy ranking up to hero especially when you're just an average user like myself, currently I'm counting down my days too just as you were doing few months back (as stated in your OP) before the introduction of the merit system hopefully nothing new spoils my celebration  

Thank you very much. I awarded you with merit for this post because is clear that you have read the hall thread really closely and with attention.

I added your story into my thread: Inspirational stories from self-made promoted users
And, a typo found.

First, I want to say Thanks to all the posters in this thread for your encouraging words.

Second, I will answer your question @thd26bct. I did not start my small business with only 450$ but sold single BTC for 450$ and I mined a few blocks solo   .

When I heard about BTC was already too late and the price was almost 50% down from first ATH in 2014. This was the first time that something like this happened and many people suggested to hold. So I sold only so much to get my life back and thought that maybe will go up again. Finally, I had to sell when I was loosing more and more every day.

---

I would like to hear some stories from you Bitcointalk members. Share your Bitcointalk or BTC story if you have one!

You told us a great, and motivational story, from which we know that everyone has their own lives, own stories. It is just they tell their stories or not. If someone is do great works, to contribute for the forum, they deserve respectfulness.

I have nearly same situations with altcoins, that I liked them, and forgot (due to their low prices). One day, the pumped, and I don't remember the password I setup for wallets. That's a long and stressful weeks to try remember passwords. So, I understood what you experienced.

By the way, I am just curious that are you serious that you started your companies with just $450?
Anyway, congratulations because finally you still been here, and contributed great things for the forum community.

Glad for you, even though my story is not as heroic as yours, but BTC or crypto to be exact helps my life too.
I'm still on college and able to bought laptop and phones with my own money, cover my daily expenses and sometime i paid my tuition fee if i had enough.
Btw i live on third world country so it's much cheaper compared to Europe

I was never sick in my entire life, only some colds (when sleeping under a tree  ) or headaches. Until suddenly, one day in the morning, I couldn't move. I got so much pain in my legs that I have never experienced before in my entire life. I was taken to the hospital and it turned out that I have Thrombosis of both legs in six places, which is virtually unheard of. First of all, it's a disease of old people and I just started my 40 back then. Additionally, it's normally only in one or max two places in one leg, not in both and in six places.

Yes, I keep running my business. The only work I was able to do was in a sitting position. I had a professional driver license and a lot of experience as a professional driver, so I started a small taxi business which is growing each year and running smoothly. It was easy and only money was needed to start. Today after five years I hire 4 additional drivers and have a few cars in my fleet  .

So i wonder what sick do you suffer? and do you still running your small business until now?

No, I am not referring to this thread. Why there is always someone who can see a hole in the whole?

Is my 6th anniversary here and I thought it would be a good time for such a summary. I have already written this story on Bitcointalk some time ago in a random post and thought that after an update it will be enough to start a thread and encourage other members to share their story. I was thinking about this thread for a longer time.

I would be happy to read such stories in meta and not only accusations and personal fights.

Merit fishing? Common look at my merits stats.


Thank you very much for this suggestion. I already changed it.

Maybe if you change the Title to "My Bitcointalk Forum , Btc Story" would be fits better , also i remember there was some kind of thread or 2 already for that here on Meta , but not 100 % sure !

I think you are refering to this thread. I don't mean to sound harsh, but this looks like what has been discussed around in some threads: merit fishing.

 I'm glad BTC saved you though 

Please move the thread to the best suitable section.

I had a problem myself to choose a proper section for this thread. I thought about reputation but found a similar thread in meta some time ago and that is why decided to post it here.

My story is about Bitcointalk and BTC, so it can fit into both of these sections meta and bitcoin discussion.

I will leave it to moderators.

Bitcoin Discussion, maybe.

Meta is about the forum, not that of Bitcoin.

"Discussion about the Bitcoin Forum."

Great story but I think this thread should be moved to Offtopic.

UPDATED 07.08.2019

My 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.