It all starts with a string

'Twas not even a month after birth of BCH that I was possessed to input the string "bitcoin" into a YouTube search bar and daintily press the enter key.

Quickly I was served a number of suggestions to watch, namely price prediction videos and ad hoc conference interviews. I knew that was not the kind of content I was looking for. I was set on learning what Bitcoin was, how Bitcoin came to be and where Bitcoin could end up.

I then stumbled across a short clip, "Roger Ver on the importance of #Bitcoin" .

Despite not knowing much of the matter mentioned, nor having a strong political leaning in any direction at the time, the emotion and sentiment of Roger in this clip was something that really caught my attention.

Luckily for me, the uploader of this clip linked to the full 50 minute documentary from 2015 titled "The Bitcoin Gospel". I might have missed it otherwise.

After re-watching recently, I would strongly encourage anyone else to do the same.

The production sews a number of the different Bitcoin quilt patches together, highlighting both the promises and pitfalls of a Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash system. Looking back, I don't think I could've hoped for a better "first-peek" into our wide & wonderful world. Despite some now outdated information, I still feel it holds well for an introduction to the idea behind the "investment".

CTRL + ALT + DEL

I may have skipped a small recollection I have of my beginnings with Bitcoin.

Whilst I would timestamp my entry to the space as August 27th 2017, it was not the first time I had heard of it.

Journey on back to 2011, I was just a regular video game playing high school student without a care in the world. A friend that I would play with was complaining about his computer running very slow, and that it would struggle to churn out frames like it once did.

First step to identify the cause was to launch the Task Manager and inspect what was actually running.

Upon some quick investigation, he muttered "bitcoin miner, what's that?". To which I replied "I dunno but it's using 99% of your CPU so just close it".

Turns out he had downloaded some parasitic software in the form of a Bitcoin miner, contributing hash power against his will (and without my friend reaping the reward of course).

Between the miner launching on boot and him not caring enough to wipe the program completely, I'd guess he was probably mining for 8 months!

Unbeknownst to me, this was the cat peeking its head out from the bag.

Back to Reality

So where do I find myself today?

Apart from reading the odd twitter thread, scrolling r/btc or now read.cash, I've decided to dive into the deep end that is software development.

Previously reigning from a different domain, I was met with the realisation that perhaps I was yet to pasodoble with my true passion. Now armed with the knowledge of Peer-to-Peer Electronic cash, at last I feel a calling.