“Hey, have you heard about bitcoin?” a friend asked me.
I had, but only through online poker, where peers had mentioned the Seals with Clubs site; an online poker room which popped up after Black Friday, transacting in this new digital currency called bitcoin.
I responded with little thought, but quickly became intrigued by his story of how this new digital currency would take away power from banks. Neither of us understood even 10 seconds worth of information for the platform it was built upon. I didn’t even know how any of it worked.
It was early March, 2013.
My friend said he was about to spend $500 to pick up a dozen bitcoins, to which he said he expected each bitcoin to hit $500, “within the next couple years.”
I went home from the DISH office that evening, and spent a little over an hour reading about bitcoin—there wasn’t much out there that I could understand. But I decided that risking $200 wasn’t a problem. Later that week, he bought his and mine. Almost overnight, the price doubled.
I had him buy more bitcoins for me as he bought more himself, and by the end of April 2014, I had almost a dozen bitcoins.
I thought I was a hot early adopter when the price kept soaring (big gains at the time were 4-6x), but sold a few here and there with some smaller jumps in price.
By 2016, I had 0 bitcoins left.
No longer having skin in the game, I lost touch from cryptocurrency and 99% of the news surrounding it. The 1% represents the thousands of Dogecoin I had, now sitting in a black hole on a crashed hard drive.
And then, as my 30th birthday approached in July, some year-and-a-half after being cryptocurrency free, I noticed more and more people on my Twitter feed were talking about bitcoin. They kept mentioning an upcoming “fork” which would cause bitcoin to soar in price.
1 Bitcoin was already much higher than what I had sold mine for, but hindsight is 20/20.
I once again became intrigued, and while talking with friends who were early adopters of other cryptocurrencies, I jumped back in. But only after I began educating myself on the technologies these cryptocurrencies were being built on.
After reading about the potential upsides (there are many) of blockchain, I took these stances.
- We could be in the early 1990s age of the internet. Blockchain could be as large as the internet when it comes to disruption, when thinking about business and consumer applications. Who knows the power it could hold 15 years from now.
- We could be in the early 2000s age of online poker. Cryptocurrency investing and trading could be as profitable as a 2004 online poker tournament, if you would only stick to a simple mathematical strategy of playing the right hands.
Those 2 stances are what brought me to feeling the necessity to, once again, attempt to help impact many people in a positive way. For KinoSol, it’s about food waste and development. For Nebullam, it’s about sustainable food production and automation. For Young Entrepreneur Convention, it’s about driving entrepreneurship as a career choice and helping bring people together.
But I didn’t want another heavy, hands-on venture, having to worry about revenue and scalability. Instead, it would be an educational platform of sorts to help put Iowa on the map for embracing a newer technology, via community. A true passion project, like Entrepreneurs of Ames (which is relaunching in January 2018 - https://web.facebook.com/EOAmes/?timeline_context_item_type=intro_card_work&timeline_context_item_source=1373992505&pnref=lhc).
I pitched the idea to some friends, included that I would play a somewhat passive role in this project once it was launched, and ended up with 2 friends saying yes. The perfect 2. Andrew Zalasky has been a business partner with Young Entrepreneur Convention since its beginning, and is a very talented creative writer with an early adopter mind set. Nate Rippke is a true community builder in Ames, and being one half of the Rippke Design founding team (shout out to Ashley Rippke for being the amazing other half), he brings the clear and professional look to any new venture’s branding and design.
With a writer and designer, Blockchain Gospel was born.
Blockchain Gospel’s mission is to educate the masses on blockchain technology, capabilities, and products.
We’re absolute beginners, and if you’re looking for expertise or technical know-how, we’re not the platform for you. But we hope to bring the basics to as many people as possible, beginning in Ames, Iowa.
I suggest you check out the first article, at https://blockchaingospel.com/education/what-is-internet-anyway/.
If you like it, you’ll have to create an account to access the others. There will be 5 posts a week for now. And before you worry about the cost, don’t. We’re trying a pay-what-you-want approach. If you want your subscription to be $0, no problem. We appreciate your support and are happy to see another person learning about blockchain. Thank you.
Here’s your chance to be an early adopter. To embrace the next revolutionary platform and its potential, before the other 98% of the world jumps in.