Chapter 1 - A Byte of History
Well hello my friend! If you are here you are basically where I was in 2013. There I was browsing the internet when the internet broke. This magical currency called the Bitcoin was worth upwards of $1,200. Yes you read that right…$1,200 for one Bitcoin. Now most people’s first thought might be what the heck just happened? Where did this come from? Is this for real? My immediate reaction was a head smack and a look to the heavens.
See not too long before that, in about 2010, I was in college studying Computer Science and a buddy of mine mentioned how I should start looking into trading bitcoin or mining bitcoins. At this point all I knew about Bitcoin was that it was a cryptocurrency or simply a digital currency. So I did a bit more digging and I set up my own mining rig to mine Bitcoins. It took me about a week or two to set up the rig and then I let it run, sort of a set it and forget it thing.
So a few months passed and I had gathered a decent number of Bitcoins. I decided to go and sell the coins that I had mined. I had gathered about 27 Bitcoins. The Bitcoin Rate at that point was $1. That is right, you read that right, ONE DOLLAR. I basically let the mining rig run for a few more months and then killed the operation. The last time I checked I had about 42 Bitcoins. – Below you can see the price graph of bitcoin from April, 2010 to October, 2011 as well as some key events that took place.
Now back to why I smacked my head. You are probably thinking I should be celebrating right? I mean if I sold 42 Bitcoins at $1,200 per coin that would make me a very happy person right… an additional $50,000 would make anyone happy right? Well you see I was one of those early sellers that sold all of his Bitcoins when they hit $20.
For a while after that I felt that I had missed out on a major opportunity. But then very soon I started to realize that many other opportunities were coming and going every second. For instance take a look at the price graph below, back in August 2015 if you wanted to buy Bitcoin it would cost you $209 for one Bitcoin. If you look at the Bitcoin Rates today (as of March 2016) you will see that you can Buy Bitcoin for $415. That’s a great jump and many traders have profited from trading within the Bitcoin Market.
So what are you going to get from BitGeeks? That’s an amazing question! We here at BitGeeks will provide you with the most important thing needed…..and that’s knowledge. I am sure you have seen tons of sites or courses or PDF’s or random strangers on the street telling you about the new “Get Rich Quick” scheme(s) with Bitcoin. We will be doing nothing of that sort.
What we will be doing for you is cutting through the crap and giving you the meat and potatoes of Bitcoin. Starting with what it is and how it works, to setting up your own Bitcoin Wallet, to all the different places you can buy/sell/trade your Bitcoin as well as the different merchants that accept Bitcoin as a payment – For instance, did you know you can book flights from Expedia using Bitcoin!
We here at BitGeeks believe knowledge is power and with the right knowledge, a person can be as successful as they want to be. So lets get started!