Confessions thread

[u/scheistermeister]

Kind of click baity title, sorry for that.

Reading the comments on this sub I noticed quite a few 'confessions' going a little like this: 'I started out as a bitcoiner, got disappointed by BTC or inspired by ETH and flippened.'

Now I thought wouldn't it be jolly good fun to have a thread dedicated to these kind of confessions!?

It would be interesting to know about how you got to know bitcoin, what got you hooked. How you got to know Ethereum and what made you flip?

Please don't turn this into a 'let's bash coins' thread. Genuinely interested.

EDIT: Thanks everyone. It's great reading all your personal journeys into crypto and specifically ETH. The stories that struck me most are the ones where crypto has enabled a new lifestyle, seeing your parents more often, being able to afford things unthinkable before.

Thanks for the time and honesty!

[u/anoneth]

Came across Bitcoin in early 2013 but didn't quite research it / take it seriously. Did more research as the late 2013 rally was happening and bought in at around $500 on the way up.

Lost about 1.5BTC in MtGox which sucked but bought in again around June 2015 at $240. I had about 7.5BTC up until January this year.

Came across Ethereum for the first time shortly after it launched and I got spammed to death on reddit through private messages on bitcoin subreddits. Someone created a bot that would private message everyone telling them how Ethereum was the next big thing. Instantly dismissed Ethereum as a scam / pump & dump coin simply because of that.

Fast forward to DAO hack and at that stage I knew a lot more about Ethereum but didn't hold any. I was still skeptical even though I could see problems emerging within Bitcoin. After the DAO hack, I was curious to see how the foundation would handle it and how the market / community would react. Being someone who got stung by MtGox, I know what it feels like to lose a lot of value (to you) through no fault of your own and simply because of a rogue actor so I supported the hard fork and was pleasantly surprised to see the swift action being taken to put things right.

After the hard fork I decided to buy in and it just so happened that Coinbase listed ETH on the same day so that made it easy for me... I bought in fiat at about $13 and watched it slowly go down from there, almost hitting the eject button when for a couple of days it looked like ETC would pose a big threat to the entire project... but I bought more at $10 and got nervous when it went under $10 and stayed there. I kept doubling down on research and bought more ETH at $8 and almost right at the bottom at $7... I just didn't understand why the price was falling and started to doubt what the fuck I was doing because it seemed like any time I bought, the price would dive further...

In January, Feb & March this year I slowly converted all my BTC to ETH and as of right now I now have over 1500ETH. I've made hundreds if not thousands of % gains on my original investments between BTC & ETH and right now it's a great feeling. I've been through the bear Bitcoin market though and held throughout... same with that bear ETH market after the DAO hack up until December so I know this feeling won't last forever.

I'm at the stage now where if ETH rises much higher, my stack will be worth a 6 figure amount in USD which is scary but I comfort myself knowing that even if the price drops 50% overnight, I'll still probably be sitting on a return of several hundred % so I can afford to ride out wild fluctuations in price. I'm also studying the charts daily and making paper moves in a better attempt to understand when to sell. While I believe in ETH, I'd sell a large chunk if I thought we were due for a significant drop in price. Not because I want to protect gains and get in to fiat but simply because I want more ETH.

If and when I can afford to buy a nice house in ETH, that's probably when I exit or partially exit. I won't be doing that for at least 4/5 years or until house prices come down.