My First Purchase With Bitcoin: Buying a $1 Game Bundle for 0.009 BTC in 2013
I recently had a chance to make my very first purchase with Bitcoin (I wrote about Bitcoin earlier on the blog). I still had 0.05 BTC (around $6 at the time) sitting in my wallet from older experiments, so I decided to spend a bit on entertainment and grab the Dead Space 3 game bundle for a symbolic $1.
Checkout page for the game bundle in September 2013: $1 or 0.00890500 BTC
When I got to checkout and selected Bitcoin, a payment screen popped up showing the amount in dollars ($1), the Bitcoin equivalent (0.00890500 BTC), and the destination wallet address. At the time, 0.00890500 BTC looked like a funny little fraction.
How the Transaction Went and What the Fee Cost
I launched the official Bitcoin client and sent the payment. Because the transaction amount was so small, the network required a mandatory transfer fee – which cost me another 0.0005 BTC. All told, the $1 bundle came out to 0.009405 BTC.
Payment confirmation in the Bitcoin wallet client showing the 0.0005 BTC network fee
Everything worked smoothly: click, pay, and get the game keys. The only annoying part back then was syncing the desktop Bitcoin Core wallet and its disk footprint (in September 2013, the blockchain already took up around 11 GB). I avoided web wallets because of stories about hacks and stolen funds, so I kept the official local client and synced it from time to time.
What That Purchase Is Worth Today (November 2026)
Looking back at old posts like this years later is always eye-opening: in September 2013, one Bitcoin traded around $126–133, so 0.008905 BTC for the bundle really was about a dollar, and the 0.0005 BTC fee was roughly 6–7 cents.
- Bundle price: at roughly $69,100 per BTC in mid-November 2026, 0.008905 BTC is worth around $616.
- Network fee: that modest 0.0005 BTC fee would now cost about $35.
- Total spent: the full 0.009405 BTC sent for a $1 game bundle comes out to roughly $650 today – nearly the price of a current gaming console, while the 0.05 BTC left in the wallet back then would be worth around $3,457.
Where People Buy and Store Crypto Today
Since the days of syncing an 11 GB desktop node just to buy a game, crypto tools have become much simpler: for everyday purchases and transfers, many people use major exchanges like Binance (affiliate link), while self-custody or hardware wallets remain the safer choice for long-term holdings. Keep in mind that cryptocurrencies are volatile assets and carry the risk of financial loss.
That $1 bundle easily became the most expensive “discount” in my game library – though back in 2013, simply paying for licensed PC games with digital coins felt like pure magic.