I am a 19-year-old student doing my bachelor’s in Computer Science in India. I first heard about Bitcoin from my friends in 12th grade when its price grew exponentially. I heard that those who bought bitcoin became millionaires. This digital asset was changing many people’s lives, but I didn’t consider it, thinking it might be a Ponzi scheme, not knowing it would change my life in the coming year. I heard about bitcoin when it fell from 60k USD to 30k USD.
It was all over the news that Bitcoin was dead, but this time as I was bored due to pandemic lockdowns, I thought to try it. I decided to learn some basic stuff about it from youtube. After getting some basic knowledge about what it does, I became more interested in its price, and I could out-trade most people and make a lot of money from it.
I began believing other altcoins have more upside potential than bitcoin and delved into alternative cryptocurrencies. I started trading for a few days before gaining massive losses in the first two weeks. I then changed my mind and started looking more into its tech aspect. As I slowly began to understand how it works, I became more interested in learning more about it; as they say, the rabbit hole went deeper. I was fascinated by the thinking that went into creating this excellent network.
I used to learn mainly from Youtube, and I came across Andreas Antonopoulos’s channel, and there was no turning back. He thoroughly explained everything, bringing more curiosity in me to learn even more. In the beginning, it was hard to balance my college stuff and Bitcoin learning, but I got used to it and started reading more books about it, like “Inventing Bitcoin,” “Mastering Bitcoin,” etc.
After learning a few things about bitcoin, I thought altcoins would be even more exciting and enjoyable. So I started to learn about Ethereum and Cardano’s network, and I didn’t quite understand them as correctly and clearly as I understood Bitcoin. So I again gave altcoins a break and started to focus on Bitcoin again.
I started to read tweets, read books, and watch Youtube videos, everything only related to bitcoin. I felt like it has consumed me. And I loved it. I slowly started to buy bitcoin and learned that “hodling” is the way to beat all the traders, not trading altcoins. I realized altcoins are altcoins after I started understanding their economics and how they solve problems they created.
I now believe that Bitcoin is a revolutionary technology that will change the world’s monetary system. I still can’t say I know everything about Bitcoin, and I know a lot about Bitcoin right now, but I understand there is much more to tell than what I know. This is my Bitcoin story. Don’t trust, verify. Not your keys, not your coins. Learn. Stack. Hodl.
This is a guest post by Vishal Cheeti. You can follow him on Twitter @Cryptstock9. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Satoshi’s Journal or Satoshi’s Entertainment Company.
