Alright THREAD... Bitcoin STONKS.

*This thread is about events ~7 years ago now and there's less than ample record of it available on the interwebs now so excuse any inaccuracies that may come up. Just fill in the inaccuracies in the comments

1. First off what are Bitcoin Stonks and why were they suddenly a thing for a brief period in late 2012 early 2013. To understand this you need to understand the great GPU -> ASIC migration.

2. ASIC mining was always the logical conclusion for mining but it wasn't until mid/late 2012 that we saw this actually start to become a reality. One of the issues with developing an ASIC is the large upfront costs in getting out a chip.

3. Couple corporates gave it a go and raised funds a couple of ways, there was the pre sale model which was largest with Butterfly Labs turned into a fiasco since machines largely arrived late and the BTC price skyrocketed in the interim and many people paid in Coin.

4. One entrepreneurial titan of industry decided to effectively sell equity in their offering via Bitcointalk, your shares would be tied to a BTC address and mining rewards would pay back to it in the event their chip worked and they harvested the bounty, farm sayings are in.

5. Friedcat and Asicminer were born, whole thing is still here if you want to read it https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=99497.0 . BTW this really worked out because people got multiples on their BTC they invested and BTC also hit a huge multiple, this success is not usually the case on bitcointalk

6. Now what happened during this timeframe was definitely mining mania, after BFL / Asicminer success you saw a ton of copycats. Note there was def other early hardware presales with BFL I think avalon was the other biggie, not sure if associated with current avalon.

Side story doesn't get a number. Avalon had some fiasco where all the chips got "stuck" in customs and people were losing their minds cause everday diff was just skyrocketing

7. So mining mania combined with the fact these ASICminer shares were worth a lot now, think peak print i saw was 5 BTC a piece from a price of like .1 BTC, people started swapping this shit around on IRC and Bitcointalk and back alleys.

8. As all things in decrentralized finance we created a centralized middleman for our woes THE BITCOIN STONK EXCHANGES. At the peak there was Bitfunder / BTCT / MPEX / Havelock / GLBSE and probably some im forgetting. But they couldn't just swap ASICminer shares

9. Someone had to feed the ducks and we saw a nice little explosion of additional type trades some mining some not some that come to mind were Neo & Bee / Labcoin / ActiveMining / Satoshi Dice (much earlier) and many more. Some even did effectivle ipos on the platforms

10. Ipos were hilarious just giant walls put up a lot of time but BTCT did some that were pro rates. These exchanges were huge too BTCT would sometimes move more BTC then MtGox.

11. They even had options believe it or not, though crude. Anyway the point is this was a huge mania and really set the stage for that diligent level headed investing that would come in the ico boom in 17.

12. Tragically the SEC shut it all down, yea they were watching I mean these things were called shares and they paid dividends no one was claiming otherwise, but this idea the SEC only showed up on the scene in 17 is a farce clearly. Bitfunder guy actually got arrested.

13. Almost every asset went to 0 but it was a great ride and if you're bored search the bitcointalk thread of any of those names or exchanges and you can sort of read a car crash in slow motion.

14. I might do a longer form podcast about this because each of these bullets is a great half hour story in itself. @VentureCoinist