How I got into Bitcoin
I first heard about Bitcoin in 2011 when the price went from $1 up to about $22. My gut reaction was, "OMG here's another digital currency scam in the making. I did not look into it at all... I just laughed. Just look at these dumb dumbs buying fake money. Bah ah ha ha ha ha ha. I was buying Gold and Silver at the time. A few weeks later, the BTC price fell back down to about 2 or 3 bucks... and, I stopped paying attention to it.
Then in early 2013, a strange thing happened. Bitcoin started to out perform all my Gold and Silver stocks in a big way. The news was buzzing about Bitcoin again. I watched the price go to $5... then $10... then $20... $30... $40. That's when I got really curious about Bitcoin. Around that time, Jeff Berwick and Stefan Molyneux both released Bitcoin videos on YouTube that were very positive on the subject. So, I gave it another shot. I read the white paper by Satoshi Nakamoto. I started researching the crypto-currency subject in general. That's when the light-bulb went off in my head.
I couldn't sleep for about 3 days. I just kept staring at the ceiling thinking wow this was going to be HUGE! This is an economic game changer on so many levels!! When the price reached $60, I called my best friend. I said "DUDE... I'm buying Bitcoin... you gotta buy some. All libertarians are buying them now! Bitcoin is the future of money! It's the first programmable money in the history of mankind. You can even store them in your brain using a brain wallet!!" He was not impressed.
I didn't care... I jumped right in. I dumped some Gold and Silver on the market and bought a ton of BTC at $60... and more at $70. I just want sincerely thank Jeff Berwick and Stefan Molyneux for making those videos early on. They really gave me the courage to jump in and buy. I made about a 10x return on my investment so far. Hopefully another 10x move will happen before 2020.
"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge."
~ Khalil Gibran
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Building the Machine Payable Web:
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@michaelmatthews/building-the-machine-payable-web
Sincerely,
Michael Matthews
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Way to go! I was suspicious, and completely distrusted digital currencies, given the agenda towards a cashless society, and rejected this because it was inventing money by digital mining, and I saw it as more fiat inventing money.
I have since educated myself and realize that it is a more viable, free, alternative currency to the fiat paper and digital system, at the very least.
I still trust physical historically tested commodities that don't rely on digital infrastructures. Such as gold, silver, etc. They have other purposes as well apart from representing wealth as a real money.
I should have gotten into bitcoin in 2013 though, it's still better than the currency fiat system. Glad you made a success out of this system of bitcoin cryptocurrency.
Take care. Peace.
People still think BTC is a ponzi, heck they even thing STEEM is. This is a very wrong perception, they are both good currencies, but the public is just too skeptical.
Now they are skeptical about us, but they never question their fiat currency, which is in reality much worse than any other cryptocurrency.
We travelled a similar path. It was just before the Cyprus banking crisis that bitcoin came onto my radar screen. In fact I really heard about it from some mystic on a 2012 end of the world scenario website that a new currency and technology would come into being that would change the financial world forever. So when I began to study Satoshi's white paper on bitcoin it really rung a bell. Perhaps the blockchain and bitcoin were that new killer app on this innovative distributed, decentralized ledger blockchain. And now here we are with another exciting morph of the technology into the blockchain driven social media called Steemit!