• ShunkW@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I forgot about Bitcoin when it was still mostly worthless. I got rid of my old laptop when it had a ton of issues. I had around 8 btc left in a wallet after spending several hundred on um… An ancient trade route lol.

      • skyspydude1@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        This is also what a lot of people forget how it was at the time, thinking “if only” they had been early adopters and how they’d be millionaires. I was one, and had found it was great for traveling said “trade route”, but also watched when Mt Gox collapsed and tanked the price 75% while stealing millions from people, and decided to take my winnings and leave the table.

        How many people would see that shit and be like “Yes, I’m going to hold onto this for the next 10 years when it’s worth something” and then sit through the number of 50+% loss events that happened?

        You would have done exactly what 99% of early adopters did, and considered yourself incredibly lucky that you managed to make 1000% returns and sold.

        • ShunkW@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Yeah it sat in my wallet for a long time and wasn’t really gaining any value. I didn’t have a need for the trade route anymore cuz I just used it once for some exotic spices that I didn’t really care for. Mining wasn’t an option for me because I didn’t have a powerful computer as a broke college kid. So I just kinda checked out.

          Still sucks to think about how I could have ended up with a great return, but hindsight is 20/20 and all that.

        • iopq@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          I still have bitcoins from 2011-2014 some of which I GPU mined. I’m patient. Of course I sold some, but I still have a couple full bitcoins. Not everyone sells the whole amount in one go

        • YerbaYerba@lemm.ee
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          5 months ago

          I recently got my first bankruptcy payout from the BTC I had in MtGox. I made more with them stolen as I certainly would have sold them at a lower price.

      • Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz
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        5 months ago

        Yeah, I almost bought $20 worth of bitcoin when it was $.008 a bitcoin, which would be worth $168,000,000 today.

        But realistically I would have cashed out a long time ago, so it would have been far less significant. I had some friends who bought at the same time though, one bought a car and the other got a healthy downpayment for his house.

    • dumbass@leminal.space
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      5 months ago

      Every so often I think about that dude, sometimes ibfeel bad for him, other times in think its hilarious.

      • Glowstick@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        I just feel bad for him. Can you imagine how much the moment of throwing it away is burned into his mind? And ever since then he’s wasted huge amounts of his life trying to find it because he’s very understandably obsessed. Can you imagine accidentally throwing away 181 million dollars? And living with the knowledge that it could be out there somewhere just sitting there in the garbage?

        Sounds like a nightmare.

        If i were him i would try to focus on the fact that most likely he would’ve spent or sold the bitcoin before it became worth millions anyway, so his mistake of throwing it away probably didn’t really cost him very much at all

    • Sabata11792@kbin.social
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      5 months ago

      I drove a pick axe through a drive with 1 btc I bough for shits and giggles at $20 when I was a kid. I damaged the drive pulling it out if a damn HP so I just did a low-level format. Never though it be worth anything.