In 2010 I built a new computer. I was interested in bitcoin from a “this is technically neat” category. I set it up and was able to mine dozens of coins per day.
I did. It was all set up and working. But it generated a lot of heat in my upstairs So. Cal. Apartment. So I stopped. Just deleted the coins because they were pretty worthless then.
I don’t get too upset though because I never would have held them to $50k each. I would have sold them for a buck each.
But I “could have” if it wasn’t so hot out. ;)
My friend told me about Bitcoin when it was about $8 per coin. I was young and making some extra cash from working and not really buying too much stuff so I could have easily tossed down $100 on some crypto and let it ride.
The very next time I even bothered paying attention to crypto was when Bitcoin shot up to 78k from like 60k.
So yeah, I feel this lol.
I once got a reddit DM from a guy offering to be my sugar daddy. All I had to do was give up family, friends, hobbies, career, move in with him and have his babies. He assured me I would want for nothing. I turned him down, but I was just a simple "yes" away from being so wealthy and happy. He was also highly complimentary of my looks, despite never seeing even a photo of me, so I know he wasn't shallow.
Edit: ok, that's all a lie. I got like 6 DMs like this. And that's when I turned direct messaging off for my reddit account.
I always wonder how many of those are actually wealthy men and how many are guys with low rent and high hormones.
If I had to put down money, I would bet 0% are actually wealthy with stable jobs capable of providing a spouse and multiple children with a "will want for nothing" lifestyle. I would guess 50-70% are attempting some sort of pig butchering or other scam. And the remainder are so disillusioned, they think their offer is actually a temptation for anyone beyond those trying to escape from an even worse situation.
I had the idea to offload machine learning to GPUs back in the early 00's. I was working for a company doing number plate recognition back then, so I was even in a position to act on my idea... but my boss thought I was nuts.
I'm not sure how much money I would have made, but it's got to be better than this!
OK, it was a basic pattern recognition model, nothing nearly as sophisticated as we have now, but I think it would have performed significantly faster.
Decided to OpenSource instead of Software Patent (as my employer was urging me). Nowadays, that technique is used in every decent Image CDN + compression tool. Still proud to see it everywhere. Maybe it wouldn't have made it if had been patented.
You contributed something for the common good. You can be proud of your decision
You may not have gotten rich, but at least you can say on your resume that your technique is in every decent CDN + compression tool!
In 2009 I had 13k AMD shares at an average cost basis of $2.12.
I sold them in 2011 for ~$8/share.
Those shares are worth around $1.5M today.
My parents are fairly rich but stingy and boomers. I recently stood up for my principles and my kids and I give myself 1:6 odds they’ll cut me from the will as the last surviving child.
I wanted to buy $100 of bitcoin in HS and couldn't figure out how. Would have been like $60,000,000 :ccc
I have a similar story, except the people I asked about it convinced me it might be a scam. I bought some later, but it wasn't the lifechanging amount it could've been.
I bought some GameStop when it was $10 but chickened out and sold it a few days before it went to like $420 a share cuz I thought I was being baited by wallstreetbetters. I only later found out a close friend of mine who is a generally responsible investor was heavily in that and sold at like $200~ to pay off all his medical debt. He's not rich either, but financially better off than before that happened.
I don't mess with stocks now.
I bought Bitcoin in highschool. Not much, though, because it was just a neat concept. There was no reason it would actually skyrocket in value (still isn't).
I had a teacher ask me for help investing in it, too. There was another guy in Canada at around the same time that turned that exact situation into a nice ponzi scheme.
Idk how well this would actually sell but years ago in my early 20s, I came up with the idea for a beer coozie for 40oz bottles.
40s are great if you are poor and want just enough of a buzz but unless you chug them, they get warm halfway through. Which is also why 12oz cans/bottles are probably also more appealing.
Just a big ass coozie to keep your Bud Ice cold in a Sunday afternoon of porch drinking.
35 Bitcoins back when they were $3/coin.
I bought some camera equipment off of some short-lived Bitcoin eBay clone, and decided my credit card was easier.
Did a little bit of buying/selling since for a mild profit, before swearing off all Blockchain tech as useless.
When bitcoin first came out I looked into out of academic curiosity. I owned a high end video card. I never bothered mining because "I don't have any desire to buy drugs on silkroad."
