Everyone knows someone who bought or mined bitcoin back in the day, but it’s always interesting to look back. Although it’s a depressing notion, the “what if” question can also be motivating.
What would have happened if you had mined Bitcoin in 2010? What is your current market value?
To avoid confusion, the following essay is based on the opinions of a miner who used a Pentium CPU and disclosed his operations to Satoshi Nakamoto during Satoshi’s period.
A conversation with Satoshi
Even though the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, has remained silent for years, this was not the case in the year 2010. Let’s go back and look at some of his early encounters with early adopters, as Bitcoiners do all the time. weather.
Bitcointalk was the go-to site for information and discussion at the time of writing. On December 30, 2009, Satoshi described the first proof-of-work network automatic difficulty adjustment, which was implemented on the Bitcoin network.
On December 30, 2009, the first automatic adjustment of the Proof-of-Work difficulty was performed.
Difficulty stays at 32-bit zero regardless of how many users are running a node. For most of the year, we were below the minimum. On December 30, we had a breakthrough and made adjustments to the algorithm. Since then, each adjustment has proven to be more difficult than the last.
The Bitcoin network, which is unknown to many, changes in response to the total effort put forth by the community. As a result, as the number of nodes increases, so does the level of complexity.
One individual claimed to have produced five Bitcoin blocks in a single day using a Pentium III processor:
The following was written in response to the difficulty adjustment post in 2010. Miners earned 50 Bitcoins for successfully uploading a block to the network before subsequent halving incidents, to put things in perspective.
The block reward on the Bitcoin network is halved every four years or so. Currently, miners receive 6.25 BTC for each block they mine.
Every day 250 Bitcoins are mined, which represents a profit of 11 million dollars
The user mined 250 Bitcoins in a single day using a Pentium CPU.
Although it is difficult to assess the exact value of the coins at the time, it is safe to assume that each BTC was worth a few cents if ever traded. In February 2022, the value of 250 Bitcoins will be about 11 million dollars.
This is a considerable sum of money, but it is impossible to conceive of someone keeping that amount of Bitcoin for such a long period of time.
Finally, we will discuss the “what if” story and how it can serve as a powerful motivator in many situations.
It’s not too late yet
Many newcomers to the world of Bitcoin worry that they are too late. However, even as the barriers to entry to efficient Bitcoin mining have grown, I would like to offer a quote from the same conversation with Satoshi.
Someone commented on the topic, stating:
Satoshi, 20 hours of nonstop work on my current core 2 pair has resulted in the production of 50 BTC! Older computers take a long time to load. People want to be able to “own” something as soon as they can….
This shows that even in the early days of the Bitcoin system, many people were worried about not getting money fast enough on the network.
The computational effort made on the same day is now worth millions of dollars. In other words, patience is a virtue. The supply of Bitcoin will not increase over time. A person who buys Bitcoin secures a section of the network, thereby becoming the owner of the first digitally scarce asset, which should indicate more than just “BTC is already too expensive.”
Nothing in this post should be construed as financial advice; rather, it is meant to be just informative and fun. Don’t put more money into your investment than you can afford to lose, be it in Bitcoin or anything else.
