[ExI] My personal "intelligence" failure regarding Bitcoin...

Stuart LaForge avant at sollegro.com
Sun Jan 25 06:51:51 UTC 2015


John Grigg wrote:

"How many of you not only learned about Bitcoin in time to buy/mine coins at
very low cost (and later make a huge profit), but upon learning about it,
saw an opportunity, and actually seized it?"

------

Don't feel so bad, John. You didn't profit but neither did you lose. I too have a tale of woe regarding bitcoin. I bought 120 btc from MtGox back in 2011 at about $8 per when MtGox was the only exchange with any  reputation.

Because my computer is old and slow, except for some experimentation, I never transferred the btc into my wallet. I figured I was going to be trading on the highs and lows anyway so I left my bitcoins in my MtGox account as I would stocks on E-trade or a similar online brokerage account.

When the price went through the roof back at the end of 2013, I sold off my coins for about $60,000. I was congratulating myself for having made a $59,000 profit on a $1000 investment.

But when I tried to get my $60,000 wired back to my bank account, the nightmare began. MtGox started demanding copies of my ID, bank account statements, and even some kind of letter from my bank to prove that I was who I said I was. This was all despite the fact that it was the same bank account from which I had wired Gox my original $1000.

Well needless to say, I started get really nervous about sending all manner of personal info to them especially when the forums were full of people saying they had sent all their info months earlier and still had not gotten their money. So I bought back into bitcoin at a loss, upgraded my wallet, and tried to transfer the bitcoins out of MtGox at which point, they announced that they were halting all bitcoin withdrawals. Then a few weeks later MtGox declared bankruptcy.

So I guess what I am trying to say is that I got into bitcoin early but still managed to lose $60,000 (really only $1000 & 2 yrs of waiting) and feel kind of idiotic because of it. So don't feel bad for not making money in bitcoin if you didn't lose any either.

Stuart LaForge






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