The last time someone did this, they mistakenly used "0-5 BTC" as the lowest cutoff. You've made the same mistake. There should be "0-0.25", "0.25-0.5", "0.5-0.75", "0.75-1", "1-2", "2-3", "3-4", and "4-5". Extra poll options are better because now we've lost valuable information at the low end. In 20 minutes, 65 people say they own 0-5 BTC. That's anywhere from $0 to $1385. That's a <i>massive</i> range. We now have no idea how many "casual" bitcoiners there are, because casuals will only have like $200 max.<p>EDIT: Here's what your poll looks like as of t=35min:<p>▆▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂<p>Leftmost bar is 0-5BTC. Rightmost bar is 100+BTC. Oh look, now we know basically nothing about the two most interesting ranges.<p>EDIT2: As of t=44min: <a href="http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=bar+chart+154+21+26+15+7+2+3+1+3+2+3+35" rel="nofollow">http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=bar+chart+154+21+26+15+...</a> ... Pretty hilarious.
So, given that article about a guy that bought $17 in BTC in 2009 and found out recently that it was worth 5 figures, should I feel like an idiot for not getting in on this while BTC were cheap a few years ago? My logic at the time was "I don't really know that much about Bitcoin, so buying some would basically be speculating, which seems like a bad idea."
This whole poll just serves to illustrate the problems with bitcoin. Bitcoin is supposed to be a currency, but people are treating it like an investment. The more relevant statistic to bitcoin's popularity as a currency would be how many bitcoin transactions people have participated in over the past year.
I threw away 30 coins during the first year of mining when you could get a coin a day on a half decent box... It's always made me annoyed at myself because I could buy a lot of pizza with those coins.
I own half of a Bitcoin. I purchased about two weeks ago. In the intervening time, the value of Bitcoin has gone up 40%. I can't complain, and I'll probably buy more in the near future. It is somewhat disappointing that they can't be used for anything, though. Without practical applications, Bitcoin is subject to massive volatility and doesn't have any sort of foundation to prevent against collapse of the market.<p>Incidentally, I also developed a Bitcoin Twitter ticker. If anyone would like to keep up with hourly prices via Twitter, I suggest that you check it out.<p><a href="http://twitter.com/bitcoin_ticker" rel="nofollow">http://twitter.com/bitcoin_ticker</a>
In 2010 I chose an amount of money that I wouldn't feel too stupid about spending on a silly web lark. That was $30, and the price was $1. It took me a week to get them, during which the price hit $4, so I got 7. It's quite possible (/likely?) it goes to 0 at some point but I still think of it as a $30 option with an uncapped upside.<p>And that's the point - the exchange rate has no underlying fundamental except supply is limited and demand is unpredictable. If you're unsure whether you should get some, choose a figure you don't care about and just buy some tiny amount. You might get 0.01 btc but you won't care if it goes down and you will if it goes up.<p>Admittedly I'm not sure I'd follow my own advice because the price always seems insane. $280? Madness. But much easier than getting emotionally invested in the whole mining route, which for the majority is destined to fail since you have to be on the leading edge of performance to make anything.<p>If I were to do it now I'd probably buy a tiny amount now and a bit more if it drops a lot. No amount I'd care about.<p>I've tucked mine away, took it off mtgox ages ago and no wallet on my computer. Don't care if it hits 0, it was only $30 anyway. It's either a new thing or a bubble, but this feels less stupid than a lottery ticket.
I bought 50$ of bitcoins a year ago. I have sold them this week for 100$. I'll buy back when it's low.<p>At first I thought a deflationary currency was the future. The more I think about it, the more I think bitcoin is just the first step on a bumpy road. I don't see the point anymore in buying bitcoins to then buy goods/services. What always ends up happening is that someone somewhere hogs them and waits for the price to go up. I'm then stuck to buy at a premium, every time, unless I had a stash of coins to begin with, something which most potential adopters don't have. I'm also not convinced that the early adopters should get a bonus from having mined so many coins when it was easy. I don't have a silver bullet, but I think this problem could be fixed by a new cryptocurrency. Either dampen the bonus to early adopters or remove it entirely. This should be a goal of crypto-anarchists, I think...<p>Or maybe I'm wrong and we'll be seeing a lot of trade going on with different denominations of one BTC in the near future. Maybe people don't care to give a premium to early adopters.
I bought 10 BTC in April @ $220 each. The next day, it crashed to $150.<p>I sold 5 BTC this week @ $220 each. The next day, it reached $280.<p>I suck at this.
1-2. I got a mobo and graphics card for free and mined lightcoin sometime last year. bought some usb asic's and sold all but one for break even, then bought 10 more at the final ASICminer wholesale price. I've mined those to breakeven.<p>now I have a coin, some anachronistic blinking doo-dads, and a slightly firmer grasp on my own ubuntu box and btc as a whole. had fun to boot. I did buy a usb hub for 50... but now it holds my blinking doodads!
0 now. I made some money from buying low selling high from the first bubble. I sold out all of them when the price was at $144 a couple weeks ago under the belief that mtgox was becoming too unstable. I still haven't received any money from them after cashing out so I'm not feeling to bad about losing out on the current bubble. The market is just too sketchy to stay in any longer, I have no faith in the exchanges.
0.000001<p>I withdrew my funds from Mt Gox over a month ago. Still waiting for it to arrive back in my account. The price of bitcoins has risen significantly since :(
I own 1, but I lost it amidst some hard drive reformatting earlier in the year :-|<p>A couple of years ago, I was trying to get others to invest in my mining operation. Then it tanked, I shut down and sold the rigs, and eventually cashed out - I let the 15 or so coins I had climb back up to $7 or so before I sold. If only ....
What about negative amounts? It's possible... Sometimes.<p><a href="http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/14260/negative-balance-after-sendfrom-bitcoind" rel="nofollow">http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/14260/negative-ba...</a>
I had 0.5 and just cashed out. It's really too volatile to do any business on it right now. Its great that there is a current upside, but it has to be predicted that there will be a downside just as big at some time.
Zero.. I recently owned 10 but sold them all when the price jumped to $200. I guess I was too quick on the trigger, but what can you do. Will be buying again in about a month when this hype cycle dies off.
I have an increible hard time to get started with bitcoin. Which website? How? Can someone pull through the right path for me? I want to start investing in mining and buying.
All 'yall need to be ashamed of yourselves if you don't own even a US penny's worth of Bitcoin. I'm not even kidding. If you've never witnessed a bitcoin transaction or held a bitcoin on an electronic device this far into the game, just hang your heads in shame.