7 ms·

Still remember when it was $7 per bitcoin and sort of a joke. Hard to believe it's worth over $1700 now.

by vocatus_gate 9y ago

elliottcarlson 9y ago
I was mining when it was $4 per bitcoin... sold most at $32.
- JTon 9y ago
  Most of us would have. I mean, 4->32 is great a return. A lot stories about people who didn't sell were those who had lost and then found their wallets. Pure luck.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Cyph0n 9y ago
I learned about Bitcoin at exactly the same time. I told my father about it and asked him if I could invest $100. I didn't press him on it though, but I'm sure I would have sold way before $1000+.
- Grangar 9y ago
  I bought in at sub-dollar prices. I could've bought a house if I didn't sell almost everything in the April 2013 bubble lol. Still paid nicely for a lavish time in college though.
icefo 9y ago
Damn, some early adopters are certainly sitting on a ton of gold now
DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
I believe it's just going to keep going higher: more and more (legitimate, blue-chip) institutions see the value in Bitcoin for moving currency around due to its near-zero transaction fees, rapid clearing, and the impossibility of chargebacks - and given there's a cap of 21m BTC it means deflation is going to keep going on, if not accelerating further. I do expect to see BTC reach $10k or $20k within 5 years, even if it crashes this year. I don't know if BTC will reach $100k or even $1m - it depends on how the rest of the financial industry treats it - or if there's a mass ditching of BTC for ETH or possibly even a bank-controlled blockchain. BTC has one hurdle coming up: the darknets - the original populizers of BTC - are switching to Monero due to its increased privacy protections.
- vizzah 9y ago
  "near-zero transaction fees"? I wish.. it currently costs ~$1 to have your transaction executed within 10-30 minutes (next block).
  - codexon 9y ago
    "rapid clearing" as well. Takes a while to wait for the recommended number of confirms.
    - Taek 9y ago
      Not compared to wire transfers or credit card clearing, which can take 3 and 30 days, respectively.
  - matt_wulfeck 9y ago
    Yeah honestly, why do people keep saying this? Real life bitcoin transactions are much more expensive to users than credit card or ACH transfers. I can move money for free between my bank accounts and the money is settled in three days. I can pay friends for free with venmo and it settles likewise. Bitcoin needs to become significantly faster and cheaper, since there's nothing holding back the competition from getting more efficient from self-imposed limits.
    - sf_rob 9y ago
      >why do people keep saying this? Because they're confusing theoretical transaction costs with reality. This isn't an insurmountable technical limitation; this is a political issue within the miner community.
  - asciimo 9y ago
    That's still pretty great compared to wire transfers (~$15 fee, up to 72hrs). But I get your point; larger blocks can improve that greatly.
    - 9y ago
mikeash 9y ago
It's amazing to think of the RoI you could have gotten for a few hours of computer time if you were mining early. Of course, for every Bitcoin, there's a million stupid schemes that don't work out, and it's hard to tell them apart.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- dibujante 9y ago
  I mined 50BTC back in college. My harddrive died and I discarded it, thinking nothing of the ~$0.03 I was throwing away.
  - doubleunplussed 9y ago
    I wonder if in the future "bitcoin miners" might be a more literal name, for those digging through landfill looking for hard drives like the one you threw away.
    - mikeash 9y ago
      It's already been done at least once: https://www.cnet.com/news/uk-man-tries-to-retrieve-7-5-million-in-bitcoins-from-dump/ https://www.cnet.com/news/uk-man-tries-to-retrieve-7-5-milli...
austenallred 9y ago
I bought a bunch when it was around $9; probably $1,000 worth, just for fun. Then I spent most of it on stupid stuff like pizza, and had about $5 left. A couple years later that $5 had grown to become worth $200, so I again spent it on a couple stupid things. I would be mad, but it was in my MtGox account anyway.
- thefalcon 9y ago
  That's what I do with all my BTC: MTGO cards, Steam games. My initial "investment" was ~$10 worth of Stellar when that was given away for free, and I currently have ~$30 spread between BTC and a couple alt-coins from that initial free $10. So it's all just play money to me.
ic4l 9y ago
My friend told me to buy $1000 worth of it when it was around 60 cents a coin. I thought he sounded crazy. $1000 => $2.8M :'(
superasn 9y ago
I posted about this on an old forum when Bitcoins were super cheap. The mods didn't like it and deleted my thread saying that the whole Bitcoin thing sounded a bit scammy :D
- macintux 9y ago
  ...and it still does.

Still remember when it was $7 per bitcoin and sort of a joke. Hard to believe it's worth over $1700 now.

elliottcarlson 9y ago

I was mining when it was $4 per bitcoin... sold most at $32.

JTon 9y ago
Most of us would have. I mean, 4->32 is great a return. A lot stories about people who didn't sell were those who had lost and then found their wallets. Pure luck.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

Cyph0n 9y ago

I learned about Bitcoin at exactly the same time. I told my father about it and asked him if I could invest $100. I didn't press him on it though, but I'm sure I would have sold way before $1000+.

Grangar 9y ago
I bought in at sub-dollar prices. I could've bought a house if I didn't sell almost everything in the April 2013 bubble lol. Still paid nicely for a lavish time in college though.

icefo 9y ago

Damn, some early adopters are certainly sitting on a ton of gold now

DaiPlusPlus 9y ago

I believe it's just going to keep going higher: more and more (legitimate, blue-chip) institutions see the value in Bitcoin for moving currency around due to its near-zero transaction fees, rapid clearing, and the impossibility of chargebacks - and given there's a cap of 21m BTC it means deflation is going to keep going on, if not accelerating further. I do expect to see BTC reach $10k or $20k within 5 years, even if it crashes this year. I don't know if BTC will reach $100k or even $1m - it depends on how the rest of the financial industry treats it - or if there's a mass ditching of BTC for ETH or possibly even a bank-controlled blockchain. BTC has one hurdle coming up: the darknets - the original populizers of BTC - are switching to Monero due to its increased privacy protections.

vizzah 9y ago
"near-zero transaction fees"? I wish.. it currently costs ~$1 to have your transaction executed within 10-30 minutes (next block).
- codexon 9y ago
  "rapid clearing" as well. Takes a while to wait for the recommended number of confirms.
  - Taek 9y ago
    Not compared to wire transfers or credit card clearing, which can take 3 and 30 days, respectively.
- matt_wulfeck 9y ago
  Yeah honestly, why do people keep saying this? Real life bitcoin transactions are much more expensive to users than credit card or ACH transfers. I can move money for free between my bank accounts and the money is settled in three days. I can pay friends for free with venmo and it settles likewise. Bitcoin needs to become significantly faster and cheaper, since there's nothing holding back the competition from getting more efficient from self-imposed limits.
  - sf_rob 9y ago
    >why do people keep saying this? Because they're confusing theoretical transaction costs with reality. This isn't an insurmountable technical limitation; this is a political issue within the miner community.
- asciimo 9y ago
  That's still pretty great compared to wire transfers (~$15 fee, up to 72hrs). But I get your point; larger blocks can improve that greatly.
  - 9y ago

mikeash 9y ago

It's amazing to think of the RoI you could have gotten for a few hours of computer time if you were mining early. Of course, for every Bitcoin, there's a million stupid schemes that don't work out, and it's hard to tell them apart.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
dibujante 9y ago
I mined 50BTC back in college. My harddrive died and I discarded it, thinking nothing of the ~$0.03 I was throwing away.
- doubleunplussed 9y ago
  I wonder if in the future "bitcoin miners" might be a more literal name, for those digging through landfill looking for hard drives like the one you threw away.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    It's already been done at least once: https://www.cnet.com/news/uk-man-tries-to-retrieve-7-5-million-in-bitcoins-from-dump/ https://www.cnet.com/news/uk-man-tries-to-retrieve-7-5-milli...

austenallred 9y ago

I bought a bunch when it was around $9; probably $1,000 worth, just for fun. Then I spent most of it on stupid stuff like pizza, and had about $5 left. A couple years later that $5 had grown to become worth $200, so I again spent it on a couple stupid things. I would be mad, but it was in my MtGox account anyway.

thefalcon 9y ago
That's what I do with all my BTC: MTGO cards, Steam games. My initial "investment" was ~$10 worth of Stellar when that was given away for free, and I currently have ~$30 spread between BTC and a couple alt-coins from that initial free $10. So it's all just play money to me.

ic4l 9y ago

My friend told me to buy $1000 worth of it when it was around 60 cents a coin. I thought he sounded crazy. $1000 => $2.8M :'(

superasn 9y ago

I posted about this on an old forum when Bitcoins were super cheap. The mods didn't like it and deleted my thread saying that the whole Bitcoin thing sounded a bit scammy :D

macintux 9y ago
...and it still does.