TLDR: I saw Hive Open Days on meetup.com last Thursday, but the journey began with a BTC ATM 2 months ago; or even a story about ETH in 2017.
Preface
In 2017, there was a digital nomad meeting in Barcelona where new friends were excitedly telling me to buy ETH at less than $200. I wasn't totally convinced and put it on my to-do list. I didn't buy any. Big L.
Fast forward a couple of years and as an entrepreneur, I was following GaryVee, who told us to get in on NFTs. This time, I listened.
I didn't buy any until I understood how blockchain worked and whether it had any use beyond crypto. I studied Solidity online with Patrick Collins, a Chainlink developer educator, who I eventually met at the Chainlink Hacker House in Barcelona.
The Ethereum blockchain convinced me that Web3 is the future because of practical use cases, like DIDs and supply chain. In Australia, I met a founder who is tracking the provenance of seafood.
But over these past few years, I was focusing more on AI and had not been active in Web3.
Until strange things started happening in the last couple of months.
The Bitcoin ATM
One typical sunny afternoon in Alicante, after admiring the Rolex watches on the corner, I noticed a sign I'd first seen a few years ago.
It was a Bitcoin ATM.
I went in and had a nice chat about the bear market with the local guy and asked if he knew of any crypto/Web3 groups in the city. Apparently none.
He showed me some cold storage options. I thought nothing more of it.
Do You Have a Wallet?
A couple of weeks later, I was dealing with a family matter that involved a cross-border transfer.
After looking at our options, my older relative casually asked if I had MetaMask. He suggested doing the transfer via our Coinbase accounts and I happily agreed.
I never knew any of my family had crypto. Apparently I was the last to know.
Recovering My Crypto Winnings
During this exchange, I remembered that my team AcquaChain won a special prize for a non-fintech project at the 1st EBC Hackathon.
I emailed the Founder/CEO to track down my missing XDC. I couldn't even remember where it was.
He sent me the block details and I spent a couple of hours transferring it from the XDC blockchain to MetaMask.
Worth it as it came to around $80. The project also won a contract with a Dubai bank, so worth it to HODL for now.
A Web3 Incubator
A week later, a prominent Web3 founder in London DM'd me about a brand new incubator she's setting up for Web3 projects. I replied that I'm interested in impact projects but had no current Web3 idea.
That changed this weekend at HOD. More on that later.
A Blockchain Expert
Last weekend I saw on IG that a friend who consults on global blockchain projects was in town, for the first time.
I'd recommended her as a speaker at the first Web3 conference in Tenerife, where I was a volunteer.
The Web3 world seemed to be calling me back. Loudly.
Hive Open Days
Last Thursday, after a month of not attending any events, I decided to check the Meetup app.
The first event that popped up was Hive Open Days. It was about to start in three hours.
On a whim, I signed up.
It piqued my curiosity. A Web3 social network! I honestly thought nobody had built one successfully.
After a quick deep dive online, I changed my schedule and attended for the next three days.
That same evening, I already had a use case for a project I'm now working on. I'd initially ruled out blockchain because of gas fees but 
I was genuinely amazed.
I came with zero expectations and left having met authentic humans IRL who are not the usual crypto bros.
The HOD gang have varied interests and I definitely spotted some neurospicy, kindred spirits.
Muchas gracias to all the lovely souls I met last weekend and I hope to see you all in Barcelona!
It will be interesting to see where this leads. I'll share more about what I'm building in future posts.
For now — hello Hive. I've got a feeling this wasn't an accident.
Have you ever stepped away from Web3 and had something (or someone) call you back? I'd love to hear your story.