Since there are many people sharing their bitcoin stories, I want to share mine.
I learned about bitcoin from a coworker soon after starting a position at NASA Goddard in early 2017, where worked to manage weather satellite algorithms. He had been using some old GPUs to mine in his basement, and showed me the genesis block, hash functions, and live blockchain transactions as they came over the network. It was clearly a side-project for him, but I began taking my own interest in it when I came home from work.
It was my first job after grad school, and I had just finished setting up my 401K benefits when I decided to buy a little bitcoin as well. I figured that if public markets were theoretically the most intelligently priced, bitcoin must have a lot of potential, because it was the freest market imaginable. This came at a time of living in the DC area and an exposure to national politics and spending time writing a personal novel downtown after work when I didn’t have many connections. I learned about quantitative easing, fiscal policy, and the move off the gold standard. It further solidified my bitcoin obsession and I wound up on Poloniex from the June 2017 altcoin season. Of course, I was a newbie and lost just as much as I gained. In the end I realized all I cared about was increasing my BTC (and EOS position at the time). Back then it was and still is only a moderate amount.
After that, I held until the end of the year when I sold a bunch of BTC and paid off my car. But all along I knew it was a short term top, so my obsession continued. I ended up leaving my job at NASA to find a blockchain group where I could use my software engineering skills. I did indeed find a healthcare startup, but didn’t have the web experience to contribute much to the team.
Last year my primarily financial obsession with Bitcoin changed, when I slowly formulated an idea. I was and still am obsessed with blockchain (eosio in particular), and I found some place to feel at peace with the price swings and missed opportunities margin trading. Applying my knowledge and understanding of climate, I started a company to launch weather balloons in West Africa to collect weather data and reward students with digital currency. I learned about micro-controllers, IoT, web development, and 3D printing and made my prototype ideas a reality. I feel compelled to do this, because I believe there are only a handful of people that have the technical background in weather, software, and climate to found a company like this.
Two months ago a press release by CoinDesk was shared on NASDAQ’s website.
Even though my BTC stacks are only moderate, I don’t feel as though I’m missing an opportunity by not leveraging long on an exchange, because I see my project as a Call option on crypto in general.
Maybe there’s someone else out there that feels guilty about not leveraging their own BTC to make even more profit. If that’s case, I encourage them to get creative and use their own background to improve or change society in one way or another. After all, we all come from different places and can bring something new to the table.
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