I heard about btc in 2011 when someone told me about it online and they said it would be big. I looked at it for a bit and then thought this seems stupid as its like a joke. I believe price at the time was 10 dollars or so. But i believe it was 1 dollar earlier in the year etc. I never thought about buying it because it just seemed fake to me etc.
Now for those of you who bought or owned btc in 2011 and before...
1. Was it easy to buy btc? How did one that in the US? Was it through the exchanges and which ones? Mount Gox i believe was most popular one? You had to connect your us bank account to it right? Or did ppl buy it through certain sites and pay via paypal or underground sites or things like that?
2. Where did you store your btc back then? Was it in exchanges? Did most do that? I asked and someone mentioned electrum came out in late 2011 or so. So did a small percentage kept in in wallets like that? What other wallets like electrum existed back then? What about ppl that got btc in 2009 or 2010? Where they did they store it? Were there very few that bought like 1k or 10k btc since price of it back then i heard was like 1 cent or so? I mean, there is no harm in buying that if well its one cent. And if so, where did they store it?
3. Was it easy to acquire btc free back then or something? Like were people giving them out as bonuses or for doing things etc? The other thing is back then, were there any btc online casinos or sportsbooks like there is now or there was none around 2011 and before. I assume there were none? And was btc used as a form of payment much or not? If so, like for what type of things? Like imagine someone wants a website built and someone was willing to do the job... did those ppl offer btc or accept btc as oppose to say cash or paypal or bank transfer? Did you or many point treated btc like it was nothing? Like oh heres 100 btc, thats 1 dollar so nothing?
At first, when I saw this thread, I thought that you (author of OP) had some kind of camaraderie with folks who bought 2011 or earlier, but looks like your only camaraderie is that you found out about BTC in 2011, but you did not buy at that time.
So you asked the question for those who bought then and the hoops they may have jumped through, but you did not really disclose your own buying story in order to compare/contrast.
In other words, it is like you are exploring 2011 because you are fantasizing about whether you had made the right choice by not buying then and you are kind of second guessing yourself, perhaps.
I, personally, believe that it is best to act in the here and now, but of course there could be some reasons to explore the topic further in order to perhaps learn how to better act in the here and now, rather than beating oneself over the past.
Perhaps if you explained when you bought then there could be some compare and contrast, and also learning and understanding of the subject matter a bit better.
My personal buying started in 2013, so I don't really fit the target audience for this thread, but I did not really know what bitcoin was before 2013 (besides having had heard the name, bitcoin). So mostly when I first looked into bitcoin in 2013, I decided to start a buying plan and also to research further into bitcoin while I was investing into it... but also I was very eager to invest some money at that time, too, which could be kind of contrasted from earlier parts of my life where I had already felt that I was investing enough money into other projects... so I did not feel motivated to add new investments, as contrasted to the time when I found out about bitcoin