The narrative of the diamond-handed early (cpu) miner who never sold is romanticized, but the reality for the majority was more pragmatic: take profits on 5x-10x moves, cover costs/hardware upgrades, and often get back in or keep mining during dips. Anecdotes from early participants often mention selling thousands of BTC in the $10–$30 range in 2011 to buy apartments, pay bills, or fund life, then regretting it later when it went parabolic in 2013. Others reinvested profits into better hardware and kept the cycle going. Selling after a 5x–10x was extremely common and rational for people treating this as a hobby/side project. CPU mining was still viable for many at the start of the year but quickly became unprofitable as GPU mining exploded (Laszlo Hanyecz and others popularized it in 2010–2011). By mid/late 2011, difficulty had risen sharply, and CPUs were getting pushed out.