My Bitcoin Journey: Mistakes, Lessons, and Conviction
Since this is my first blog post, I wanted to share my personal journey to Bitcoin—how I discovered it, misunderstood it, got burned, and eventually found conviction. It all began back in 2014 during the takedown of the Silk Road. In case you’re unfamiliar, the Silk Road was a major online marketplace, best known for enabling the anonymous sale of drugs and other illicit goods.. Yes - it also sold legal merchandise, but that’s not what made it famous. During the takedown of this website, Bitcoin’s price CRASHED… and it crashed hard. I remember reading on websites like Reddit at the time that this would be an amazing entry point and a great long term investment at these prices. Did I buy? No.
Fast forward to 2017 and Bitcoin has gone through yet another halving. Bitcoin’s price was booming and this time I was not going to miss out. During this same period of time, the altcoin & ICO (initial coin offering) mania had really taken off. After creating a Coinbase account, the idea of focusing solely on Bitcoin quickly disappeared. Why buy Bitcoin when there’s all these new and potentially better coins out there? Ethereum, Litecoin, Omisego, etc. This is where the real money could be made! Long story short, I got burned—bad. The altcoin craze quickly sold off and I was left holding essentially garbage.
In 2020, during the pandemic, I watched Bitcoin begin another post-halving run. This time, I made a decision to truly understand what it was all about. As I dove in, I learned the fundamentals of blockchain technology and the principles of self-sovereignty—but more than anything, Bitcoin taught me about hard money. It opened my eyes to the realities of inflation, monetary debasement, and the ever-rising cost of assets in our current financial system. That year, I bought and held Bitcoin for the first time. The insights I’ve gained since—from sound money principles to global macroeconomics—have been some of the most important of my life. It completely changed how I view money, economics, and personal responsibility.
