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It was also trivial to mine it yourself back then, first with CPU then with GPU.

Some miners dabbled with FPGAs in 2012-2013, but the difficulty adjustment wasn't hit hard until ASICs started being used in 2013. Since then it's only been profitable to use the latest few generations of ASICs.

MtGox and BitStamp were the two biggest exchanges back then.

paypal worked, as long as you had a reputation (and therefore wouldn't chargeback).