Please Ban Newbie
StrategicERP for copy pasting the whole quora reply as a constructive post.
Copy :
I first heard about Bitcoins about three years ago (spring 2011), at that time a Bitcoin was worth about $2.00. The first thing I did was to download the Bitcoin client and started mining. I left it running a couple of hours, but as I can come back I had not gotten any Bitcoins. I thought, well screw this. Now looking back at it it feels stupid. Bitcoins were ridiculously easy to mine compared to today. Imagine if I had continued mining...
But that didn't end my Bitcoin story. I continued reading on the Bitcoin forums where people were speculating about the future price and impact of Bitcoins. I remember people dreaming about future values of up to $1000 and all kinds of cool ways to use them. At some point, I discussed it with some friends at school. I was 15 back then, but two friends actually caught on and found it really interesting. We discussed back and forth whether we should invest in Bitcoins or not. Finally, I decided to buy $20 worth of Bitcoins. Remember that at that time one Bitcoin was worth only $2, so I got 10 of them.
Buying them was a bit tricky though. The only real exchange site at the time was Mt. Gox. I created an account but immediately hit a problem, how would I transfer money to Mt. Gox? They had an option to transfer money by PayPal, but they had a processing time of one week to avoid scams. But I didn't want to wait that long, I was super excited, who knows where the value will be next week?
I continued browsing the forums to find another way to buy some Bitcoins. Eventually, I decided to buy from someone directly. I created an account on the IRC chat and managed to find a guy who was willing to sell Bitcoins to me by PayPal. I have to know idea who this guy was, his age, sex, country, etc. I knew nothing about him, except that he had a reputation on the forums. Finally, I transferred $20 to him by PayPal and a couple of minutes later I had 10 Bitcoins in my wallet!
A couple of months after my purchase, around June 2011, the value of Bitcoins started taking off for the first time. I remember excitedly following the rise and wondering whether I should sell. I kept telling myself that it might rise a bit more and kept waiting. Finally, the bubble hit its top at about $30 and fell back to the levels that I bought in to. I was a bit frustrated thinking that I had missed the whole party.
Eventually, I lost interest and only checked the value maybe once a month until January 2013 when the value started moving again. The value started rising rapidly and my thoughts were drawn back to the summer 2011 and the last bubble that I had missed. Afraid to miss the party again I sold my Bitcoins in February 2013 for $30 each only keeping 0.1 Bitcoins just in case, expecting the value to fall shortly after as it did in the last bubble. That didn't happen.
The following months were quite painful to follow as the value kept rising and rising... When the value soared above $1000 in fall 2013 I wanted to rip my hair off. I tried to keep myself from checking the value and stop thinking about the $10 000 I could have made from a $20 investment. One of my friends who I discussed Bitcoins with before contacted me at this point interested in whether I still have them or not, he had finally decided not to buy Bitcoins when I did. I can tell you that he does really regret that decision today...
Today I do not feel too bad about it anymore. It does bother me that I missed $10 000 but I have pretty much come over it. I try to focus on the fact the I still had a 1400% increase in my investment. It was a really risky investment and I am very lucky to have gotten anything out of it at all. When will I hit the jackpot like that again?
Oh, and my final 0.1 Bitcoins went missing a couple of days ago as Mt. Gox was shut down. Great.
Archived for future reference :
http://archive.is/UYtF2Original :
I first heard about Bitcoins about three years ago (spring 2011), at that time a Bitcoin was worth about $2.00. The first thing I did was to download the Bitcoin client and started mining. I left it running a couple of hours, but as I can come back I had not gotten any Bitcoins. I thought, well screw this. Now looking back at it it feels stupid. Bitcoins were ridiculously easy to mine compared to today. Imagine if I had continued mining...
But that didn't end my Bitcoin story. I continued reading on the Bitcoin forums where people were speculating about the future price and impact of Bitcoins. I remember people dreaming about future values of up to $1000 and all kinds of cool ways to use them. At some point, I discussed it with some friends at school. I was 15 back then, but two friends actually caught on and found it really interesting. We discussed back and forth whether we should invest in Bitcoins or not. Finally, I decided to buy $20 worth of Bitcoins. Remember that at that time one Bitcoin was worth only $2, so I got 10 of them.
Buying them was a bit tricky though. The only real exchange site at the time was Mt. Gox. I created an account but immediately hit a problem, how would I transfer money to Mt. Gox? They had an option to transfer money by PayPal, but they had a processing time of one week to avoid scams. But I didn't want to wait that long, I was super excited, who knows where the value will be next week?
I continued browsing the forums to find another way to buy some Bitcoins. Eventually, I decided to buy from someone directly. I created an account on the IRC chat and managed to find a guy who was willing to sell Bitcoins to me by PayPal. I have to know idea who this guy was, his age, sex, country, etc. I knew nothing about him, except that he had a reputation on the forums. Finally, I transferred $20 to him by PayPal and a couple of minutes later I had 10 Bitcoins in my wallet!
A couple of months after my purchase, around June 2011, the value of Bitcoins started taking off for the first time. I remember excitedly following the rise and wondering whether I should sell. I kept telling myself that it might rise a bit more and kept waiting. Finally, the bubble hit its top at about $30 and fell back to the levels that I bought in to. I was a bit frustrated thinking that I had missed the whole party.
Eventually, I lost interest and only checked the value maybe once a month until January 2013 when the value started moving again. The value started rising rapidly and my thoughts were drawn back to the summer 2011 and the last bubble that I had missed. Afraid to miss the party again I sold my Bitcoins in February 2013 for $30 each only keeping 0.1 Bitcoins just in case, expecting the value to fall shortly after as it did in the last bubble. That didn't happen.
The following months were quite painful to follow as the value kept rising and rising... When the value soared above $1000 in fall 2013 I wanted to rip my hair off. I tried to keep myself from checking the value and stop thinking about the $10 000 I could have made from a $20 investment. One of my friends who I discussed Bitcoins with before contacted me at this point interested in whether I still have them or not, he had finally decided not to buy Bitcoins when I did. I can tell you that he does really regret that decision today...
Today I do not feel too bad about it anymore. It does bother me that I missed $10 000 but I have pretty much come over it. I try to focus on the fact the I still had a 1400% increase in my investment. It was a really risky investment and I am very lucky to have gotten anything out of it at all. When will I hit the jackpot like that again?
Oh, and my final 0.1 Bitcoins went missing a couple of days ago as Mt. Gox was shut down. Great.