5 ms·

A long long time ago, I mined 3650 coins on a single cpu in a month. Bitcoin was worthless at the time, and I thought the idea was interesting. After a month, I

A long long time ago, I mined 3650 coins on a single cpu in a month. Bitcoin was worthless at the time, and I thought the idea was interesting. After a month, I went back to folding at home. A little over a year later bitcoin hit a dollar and I sold it all. On one hand I made a few thousand from nothing. However if I held it I would have been a pretty rich right now. I truly believe that bitcoin is something that cannot work, so I have not and will not reinvest in it. But the sting of it doing so much better does bother me at times.

sperma 6y ago
Do you ever think that you losing out on tens of millions of dollars might have affected your desire to challenge your believes that "bitcoin is something that cannot work"? I know I'd probably cope in a similar manner
- loceng 6y ago
  No more or no less than it is influencing people who are pro-Bitcoin, and in fact that bias may give them a clear, less biased view.
- Zhyl 6y ago
  It's also a possible butterfly effect. Would Bitcoin have taken off without those specific few thousand coins in the economy? If even half of Bitcoin holders at the time thought they'd make it big and held, how could Bitcoin have had the liquidity to gain value?
  - AshWolfy 6y ago
    liquidity never mattered because its not a currency
    - Zhyl 6y ago
      You still need trade volume. If there is no Bitcoin to buy, there is no Bitcoin to sell.
      - AshWolfy 6y ago
        the bitcoin to sell is being mined, in hype driven markets restricted supply is no issue
- georgyo 6y ago
  Sorta it does make me slight more bitter about bitcoin in general, and if I made millions of dollars off of it I would likely thing it's the best thing in the world. However, I do try to self adjust for that bias. When I mined the coins it was a neat concept, but bitcoin wasn't at all practical then and it isn't at all practical now. I sold it all back then for a few reasons. - I believed other tech nerds would come to the same conclusion. - It would never reach main stream adoption because of how utterly impractical it actually is. - I thought that governments would crack down on it pretty hard, pushing it further into the fringe communities. I was definitely wrong about governments cracking down and the novelty of bitcoin has definitely caught the interest of many and that has caused many chain reactions of the price going up. I still think bitcoin is basically useless, but I severely didn't properly estimate that just it being interesting would make it so valuable. Bitcoin truly is extremely interesting, and the vast majority don't try to understand it at all. So while it may in fact be useless, that does not actually matter for the price to go up. In the end the only thing I kick myself for was looking at it objectively. Bitcoin wasting untold amount of energy, low transaction rate, high wait times for confirmation, high transaction fees, ever growing public transaction history, long cryptographic identifiers for receiving and sending, and so on do not actually matter. Not rebuying is because I still have hope that people will come to their senses. But my stubbornness has not made me rich.
  - josemwarrior 6y ago
    Agree 100% with you. Almost same scenario here, I sold my Bitcoin in 2017.
  - ad31mar 6y ago
    > In the end the only thing I kick myself for was looking at it objectively. Bitcoin wasting untold amount of energy, low transaction rate, high wait times for confirmation, high transaction fees, ever growing public transaction history, long cryptographic identifiers for receiving and sending, and so on do not actually matter. As if there's a better alternative.
majani 6y ago
That's US $178m today for those who are curious
- phatfish 6y ago
  Say one is still sitting on 3650 coins from 2011, and you decide now is the time to sell the lot. How exactly do you "cash out" that amount? Sell to Elon maybe? ;)
  - hanniabu 6y ago
    You can sell OTC. Pretty sure all the major exchanges have OTC desks now.
  - mastermojo 6y ago
    You can definitely try to barter it. The top reputable exchanges have daily liquidity in the billions https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/ https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/.
globular-toast 6y ago
I feel similar. I bought 1 BTC when they cost tens of pounds because I was interested in it. I spent about 0.2 BTC, some on goods and some I donated to charitable causes. I sold the rest when it was ten thousand. I also tried to buy a second BTC but lost my money on an exchange. I still believe, as I did then, that Bitcoin is worthless because it's not scalable. I do think if someone can solve the scalability issues then decentralised currency is extremely valuable. But I've tried investing in those and they've all tanked. Crypto is entirely driven by speculation. There is very little real value. But yeah, it sucks a bit to think if I would've waited until now I'd actually have what amounts to a life-changing amount to me. I just remind myself that I'm rich anyway. I have a warm house, enough food to make me fat, a home cinema, loads of computers and a fast car. So why would I lose sleep over it?
worker767424 6y ago
> However if I held it I would have been a pretty rich right now. Or you'd have lost the hard drive. Maybe you encrypted it, forgot the password, and spend your evenings typing iterations of your birthday, middle name, favorite song, and 69 while you watch Family Guy reruns. There are things worse than not being rich.
sneak 6y ago
I once bought a pair of alpaca wool socks from some alpaca farmers somewhere for 75 BTC, because I liked supporting people who accepted BTC for online payments. Don't sweat it.

sperma 6y ago

Do you ever think that you losing out on tens of millions of dollars might have affected your desire to challenge your believes that "bitcoin is something that cannot work"? I know I'd probably cope in a similar manner

loceng 6y ago
No more or no less than it is influencing people who are pro-Bitcoin, and in fact that bias may give them a clear, less biased view.
Zhyl 6y ago
It's also a possible butterfly effect. Would Bitcoin have taken off without those specific few thousand coins in the economy? If even half of Bitcoin holders at the time thought they'd make it big and held, how could Bitcoin have had the liquidity to gain value?
- AshWolfy 6y ago
  liquidity never mattered because its not a currency
  - Zhyl 6y ago
    You still need trade volume. If there is no Bitcoin to buy, there is no Bitcoin to sell.
    - AshWolfy 6y ago
      the bitcoin to sell is being mined, in hype driven markets restricted supply is no issue
georgyo 6y ago
Sorta it does make me slight more bitter about bitcoin in general, and if I made millions of dollars off of it I would likely thing it's the best thing in the world. However, I do try to self adjust for that bias. When I mined the coins it was a neat concept, but bitcoin wasn't at all practical then and it isn't at all practical now. I sold it all back then for a few reasons. - I believed other tech nerds would come to the same conclusion. - It would never reach main stream adoption because of how utterly impractical it actually is. - I thought that governments would crack down on it pretty hard, pushing it further into the fringe communities. I was definitely wrong about governments cracking down and the novelty of bitcoin has definitely caught the interest of many and that has caused many chain reactions of the price going up. I still think bitcoin is basically useless, but I severely didn't properly estimate that just it being interesting would make it so valuable. Bitcoin truly is extremely interesting, and the vast majority don't try to understand it at all. So while it may in fact be useless, that does not actually matter for the price to go up. In the end the only thing I kick myself for was looking at it objectively. Bitcoin wasting untold amount of energy, low transaction rate, high wait times for confirmation, high transaction fees, ever growing public transaction history, long cryptographic identifiers for receiving and sending, and so on do not actually matter. Not rebuying is because I still have hope that people will come to their senses. But my stubbornness has not made me rich.
- josemwarrior 6y ago
  Agree 100% with you. Almost same scenario here, I sold my Bitcoin in 2017.
- ad31mar 6y ago
  > In the end the only thing I kick myself for was looking at it objectively. Bitcoin wasting untold amount of energy, low transaction rate, high wait times for confirmation, high transaction fees, ever growing public transaction history, long cryptographic identifiers for receiving and sending, and so on do not actually matter. As if there's a better alternative.

majani 6y ago

That's US $178m today for those who are curious

phatfish 6y ago
Say one is still sitting on 3650 coins from 2011, and you decide now is the time to sell the lot. How exactly do you "cash out" that amount? Sell to Elon maybe? ;)
- hanniabu 6y ago
  You can sell OTC. Pretty sure all the major exchanges have OTC desks now.
- mastermojo 6y ago
  You can definitely try to barter it. The top reputable exchanges have daily liquidity in the billions https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/ https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/.

globular-toast 6y ago

I feel similar. I bought 1 BTC when they cost tens of pounds because I was interested in it. I spent about 0.2 BTC, some on goods and some I donated to charitable causes. I sold the rest when it was ten thousand. I also tried to buy a second BTC but lost my money on an exchange. I still believe, as I did then, that Bitcoin is worthless because it's not scalable. I do think if someone can solve the scalability issues then decentralised currency is extremely valuable. But I've tried investing in those and they've all tanked. Crypto is entirely driven by speculation. There is very little real value. But yeah, it sucks a bit to think if I would've waited until now I'd actually have what amounts to a life-changing amount to me. I just remind myself that I'm rich anyway. I have a warm house, enough food to make me fat, a home cinema, loads of computers and a fast car. So why would I lose sleep over it?

worker767424 6y ago

> However if I held it I would have been a pretty rich right now. Or you'd have lost the hard drive. Maybe you encrypted it, forgot the password, and spend your evenings typing iterations of your birthday, middle name, favorite song, and 69 while you watch Family Guy reruns. There are things worse than not being rich.

sneak 6y ago

I once bought a pair of alpaca wool socks from some alpaca farmers somewhere for 75 BTC, because I liked supporting people who accepted BTC for online payments. Don't sweat it.