In 2013 Bitcoin was widely unknown to the world and consisted of technology enthusiasts and hardcore programmers working on mining and setting up the network. The community that surrounded these technologists was composed of Reddit forums and the Bitcoin Talk forum where people would go and post about developer updates, and tech support and talk about hodling their Bitcoin. Much of the communication was text-based and many users were anonymous, but when Bitcoin started to get more traction, and eventually crossed $100, a user by the name of Isaac Miller uploaded a video of him reacting to the milestone and became an internet sensation overnight.
The Origins of Bitcoin
Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous creator of Bitcoin began to post about the project he created in 2009, writing in his first post, “Bitcoin open source implementation of P2P currency,” along with a whitepaper and open source code for the project.
Still to this day, no one knows exactly who Satoshi is, though it is rumored that he lived in the US or Japan and is either no longer involved in the project or has passed away. A year later, Nakamoto would go dark on the forum, with his last public message stating, “There’s more work to do on [denial-of-service] DoS.” While some have recently released private messages with Nakamoto in the past weeks, this is widely regarded as his last public post.
Bitcoin Surpasses $1
In 2011 Bitcoin started to gain traction, increasing 30x from a $1 in February to around $30 in June, just a five-month timespan. This price increase caused the community to grow and more bitcoiners to ‘buy more and hodl.’
But speculation of competitors to Bitcoin started to pop up, raising concerns that the digital asset could be replaced by a more efficient, flashier ‘next thing.’ The price fell 90% over the rest of 2011 and fear began to spread in the community – Had Nakamoto just rugged his followers?
Today, that theory is widely unproven as we have a pretty clear idea that Nakamoto still holds around 1.1M Bitcoin ($73B) and hasn’t been active in trading or sending it anywhere on the network. But back in 2011 when Bitcoin exchanges and other protocols were few and far between, many believed that there was a bad actor rooting against from within.
Shaping the Digital Currency Landscape
With the expansion of the Bitcoin community and network, 2013 was set to be a breakout year for the digital asset. As wallet sizes grew and prices increased, community members looked for places to store their newfound currency, away from hackers and scammers in the Bitcoin Talk forum.
The introduction of exchanges where Bitcoin could be sent between users, bought and sold proved to increase the volume of transactions and provide a space for large whales to hold their crypto safely. Mt Gox, a now-defunct exchange based in Japan, accounted for 70% of all Bitcoin transactions in 2013. Bitcoin’s price increased 80x during the run, passing the $100 mark in April, and $200 by October.
Enter Isaac Miller
Isaac Miller, a musician and YouTuber who uploaded cover videos of him and his friends singing and playing guitar, became interested in cryptocurrency and decided to document his process of investing for his small amount of YouTube viewers. When Bitcoin hit $100, he uploaded the video Me reacting to Bitcoin breaking $100 in 2013:
Did Miller Hodl?
One question that permeated through the comments on the original video was if Miller had held his Bitcoin from 2013. Miller answered the comments in a separate video titled, ‘Did I HODL? The question on everyone’s minds.’
Miller still uploads to YouTube periodically, filming videos from his car on the topic of money doesn’t buy happiness and what he wants from life. It’s safe to say that Miller did hodl, bought more, and hodled to this day.
