Bitcoin: The Technology that Pivoted My Life
We live in a centralized society, one where power is concentrated on a small group of people. ‘’Decentralization’’ to me was something unheard of. My first experience with Bitcoin came early 2015 when a friend whom I lent money to paid me back in Bitcoins. Not understanding crypto, coupled with the thought of not being able to find him again, I was forced to download a Bitcoin wallet and receive my lending’s in the form of Bitcoins. Never looked at it for months since I could not find anyone I knew to sell it to.
It was late 2015, when I picked up trading Foreign Exchange and to my surprise, I found out my broker offered crypto asset trading. Ahaa, guess what, I had Bitcoins at my disposal. Converted some of my Bitcoins to Ethereum and sold off most of it. As the market hype caught on not too late after, so did my curiosity in understanding this new disruptive technology.
Money is trust. We trust its value will be honored by the government who issues them.
My journey to understand crypto landed me on the Satoshi’s Whitepaper (Bitcoin: Peer to Peer Electronic Cash System) which completely changed my perception on money (Yes, the paper was technical, but you see, I’m an engineer who studied computers). Its trust. Money is trust. We trust its value will be honored by the government who issues them. This is how money works (just in case you didn’t know). Bitcoin completely unplugs this trust from the government and plugs it into something else…. Mathematics!! My sanity was challenged.
All these findings opened my eyes to the world of technology (which had always been my passion), taught me about markets, economics, and how the conventional financial market works. Its ironic that we have gotten used to trusting pieces of papers issued by governments. The danger lies if we were to continue to be stuck in this eggshell. Get this, the world runs on debt. For the first time in history, the common man has an option not to participate or partially participate in the conventional market. This means you and I can exit the market to an uncorrelated asset class at the slightest hint of danger. Where you and I can be on the side-lines, in control, decentralized.
Action had to be taken as I began feeling a sense of responsibility to educate and make crypto and its technology accessible to everyone around me (with great powers come great responsibilities). More importantly, letting everyone know that they now have an option to exercise if they needed to.
My journey in crypto has also led me to the brilliant minds and profound individuals in this space. The status quo is definitely being challenged. It’s interesting and exciting to see how far this industry has come and how most of my life revolves around this technology nowadays.
So, here’s to the past and cheers to the future. As for me, I’m going to be sticking around contributing to the growth and acceptance of this industry. I hope you will too.
