September 2013 Digital Time Capsule: Bitcoin Tweets from @lukestokes
Welcome to part 8 of 10! I decided to combine September and October into one post because both November and December are huge.
The Digital Time Capsule project is a labor of love where I filtered through over 25k of my tweets to find some old favorites about bitcoin. I took screenshots and organized them for your enjoyment using Twitter Advanced Search for bitcoin from my account in 2013.
This will be a series, one month of tweets per post. Searching for and organizing the tweets for all of 2013 took more time than I anticipated, but I hope you will find it worth it and these insights from the past will help you better understand the present and the future. Experience and expertise are only gained through time, and time is our most valuable, non-renewable resource. I hope you enjoy this series and appreciate the time represented here.
Who Cares?
Good question.
I think these tweets are helpful to others because I first bought bitcoin in January of 2013. I paid $50 for 2.5 BTC. Since day one, I've been passionately involved in learning about and educating people on what cryptocurrency is and why I think it's going to change the world. Relatively few people were involved in Bitcoin in 2013, so few people understand what it was like to experience it back then. I want to share my experience with you because I think you'll gain a bit of experiencial knowledge which may give you important context for today.
As this series progresses, you may recognize similar themes from back then, over five years ago, to now. China banning bitcoin, the dangers of keeping your bitcoin on an exchange (ex: MtGox), price volatility, holding and not selling, and the failures of the current financial system. You can click on each tweet to view the original.
I hope you find it useful.
If you'd like to follow me on Twitter, you can do so at @lukestokes.
September 2013
October 2013
Andreas Antonopolus has 410k followers now, but back in the day we used to tweet back and forth quite a bit.
Tweets from November 2013 are now live!
Previous Entries:
original image source licensed under CC0 Creative Commons
I laugh when I read the comment by Andreas Antonopolus. Obviously the goverment was doing a lot to stop bitcoin at that time and they didn’t. This time is no diferent. I wonder, why didn’t you take a profit at that time, I think most people did. Usualy if people think it’s too high it will go even higher eventually and the same come with the low. Reading your tweets it’s like now. It’s crazy but interesting.
I didn’t take profit because I believe in a much higher future value. More details here.
I try not to think about my "what if" moments of life, it would be rather depressing, but at the time I couldn't get my head round it and I am far from being computer literate. But I have always kept an eye out on the crypto/blockchain space. Basically observing user acceptance rates steadily going up. Even when the media bashes it, it still increases coverage to potential users and constantly reminding them too.
I am also a firm believer that one or two cryptos will dominate the space. This happens time and time again, you have a front runner that breaks out to the world and then a perfected version grows and dominates. Then we haven't even touched what blockchain applications are going to evolve from this. Steemit is a glaringly obvious example of an application that has perfected upon an "established" program.
I ask people all the time if they have heard of this sector. I start with asking if they have heard of bitcoin, cryptocurrency, blockchain and sometimes distributed ledgers if they know their stuff. My feeling is more and more people are talking about it. This is definitely not the case of where I am based in Peru. Even mentioning bitcoin comes with glazed looks of blankness, but then I ask "imagine a type of facebook that rewards you to post, like, comment and share" and immediate reactions where does this exist? oh yes just followed and autovote you. It isn't much now but appreciate how you have helped me and I thank you for that.
@intrepidsurfer
Thanks for commenting!
I'm not convinced some will dominate others (though that is what usually happens with the network effect power of currency). My reasoning comes from this lecture which describes competing currencies becominga form of expression, like language:
Steemit has dominance right now because the STEEM developers are still centralized within Steemit, inc. I hope this becomes more decentralized in the future once the foundations are set. Adding more decentralization at this point might just slow things down.
I love how Steemit is a killer app for cryptocurrency mass adoption. People get it. It's the onramp people need. If you find people wanting to know more about cryptocurrency, maybe send them to http://understandingblockchainfreedom.com/ and let me know if that helps them.
Oh wow you are quite fluid on your videos and easy to watch. Thanks for the links, watch a ton of videos. Like you, in my case a few years ago, I dedicated a lot of my time to learn about money and it's role in societies. At the time my conclusion was to store wealth in precious metals and take it out of the financial system. From then on I have slept better at night and don't stress about "money" no way near as much.
Only in the last three months, since joining steemit and earning my Steem/SbD (I haven't invested a cent in cryptos) do I see the potential blockchain and how it is here to stay. I wanted in before there is a stampede. In the first weeks of posting here, I needed to validate in my mind that this was "real". I found a user called @pit-bullion and he trades me silver for steem. It was unreal and it blew me away honestly. This is where I saw the growing potential of trading for goods and services on this platform. Lots of users who offer services in the physical world, I have noticed are willing to trade their time for steem. I know lots of people in the village who I could potentially trade my steem with, like the: local surf photographers, restaurants, artists for their artwork and I would even trade my home baked bread for it. But in order for this to happen I going to have raise awareness and educate. Basically starting with basics of whats is crypto/blockchain tech. If I threw them into steemit straight away, I fear they would be so lost (not all, but generally speaking). Do you have Spanish versions (sub-titled) of your tutorial videos? I am onto EOS too :)
No, no Spanish versions. That would be interesting though. Maybe I should ask my wife to translate them for me, though her Spanish is probably a little rusty for something like that.
I hope some day to provide as much value as Andreas Antonopolous. His stuff is fantastic.
It would be super helpful to raise awareness in Latin America and I am sure there would be loads of people willing to translate or interpret your posts/vlogs. Have you thought about doing a lukestokes.es (spanish version), lukestokes.br (Brazil) or lukestokes.fr (french) seperate pages and dedicated in those languages. You would cover latin america and most of Africa then. more work for sure, namely logistics and management but you would vastly increase your audience.
@lukestokes thank you so much for the post!
This is an awesome series to come across. Connecting with the history of Crypto is amazing for me considering the effect the space has on my view of the world.
I'm about to deep dive into your other Steemit content, see you around!
Thank you!
Cool to see back and forth with Andreas from that long ago!
Yeah, maybe some day I’ll meet him and say thanks for all that attention back then and all the excellent education he’s provided us all since then.
Would be great to have the opportunity to thank him in person, that guy's a rockstar now!
Speaking of rockstars, where did @karaelizabeth go? :) Nudge her to resurface, I miss seeing her posts!
I know, right! I miss seeing her here too. I'll let her know she has some fans. :)
Thanks.
50$ for 2.5 BTC...............now that is paying pennies for a castle.
Can't believe you were also in the market when 'silk road' got busted.
34$ to 180$, things like these happen only in crypto.
My daily dose of time travel. Jump on guys this train takes you back in time!
@lukestokes, I need a time machine to go back to when bitcoin was still very low and buy enough stakes. Noticed in 2013, the prices went up. Guess the feds will be disappointed seeing that address with more funds.
Thanks for sharing your past posts. The past is truly part of me, we need to understand the past to predict the future.
Very interesting. I write of the declining dollar soon to resume. Give Bitcoin two months (tops) two form a solid base here.
With the credit crunch, I wonder if people will be scrambling to get fiat to cover the debt being called.
Great point. But no matter, inflation (is here) and increases, interest rates rise and the dollar weakens despite best efforts to keep it strong (er). I do believe "non-fiat" the beneficiary.
This is amazing. Sir, @lukestokes thank you so much for sharing this iformative news. I'm very interested to this. Keep it up. I'm with you!
Excellent post, you touch the subject of cryptocurrencies and you help me understand a little more about this topic! Thank you for sharing this! keep it up
of course its great experiment share,,,to joining crypto its just amazing thanks for post