I remember it like it was yesterday. It was 2014 and I was 29 years old, living off of 1.750L bottles of Georgies Vodka every single day. I would usually chase it down with an energy drink or an ice cold soda. I would also try to stock up on a good amount 50ml $1 shots of 100 Proof Smirnoff Root beers just incase the bottle ran dry on me in the middle of the night while the Liquor Stores were closed.
I wasn't too picky about my liquor though, anything that was cheap and high proof would do the job. I didn't really care about the taste, as I tried to always keep a chaser nearby.
I touched a good bit on the subject of how downhill I went in an earlier post of mine, so I don't want to get too in depth about it again. The short story is, I almost died, ended up sobering up in the hospital for two weeks and never went back to alcohol again.
But that didn't necessarily have to be the case. And my sobriety probably would have never lasted hadn't I found Bitcoin.
I was at my Niece's Birthday party when I remember flipping through a News App on my phone. I have heard about Bitcoin throughout the years but I was too busy drinking and drugging to really get into anything. At this point I was sober for a little over 3 months and I was falling back into a rut. I was bored. As I flipped through the news articles an article about Bitcoin popped up. I didn't realize it then, but I was about to fall in love.
I had no idea what I was doing so I just looked up Bitcoin Wallets on the Play Store for my Android phone and came across the Coinbase app. I registered the account and linked my bank account to it. When I checked my account, I had $4 and change in the bank, haha! I placed my first order that night for $4 in BTC.
I am autistic, so I easily find myself becoming obsessed with new things, and now I was bit by the BTC Bug! I found myself adding more and more into Bitcoin as I joined a bunch of forums and just started reading everything I could on the subject. Bitcoin was doing nothing but making me profit at this point also.
Then came the end of 2015/beginning of 2016 and BTC was pushing $500. I was excited! I had alerts set for when I was asleep and in the middle of sleeping my alert goes off, Bitcoin is dropping! I quickly check the most recent articles on Bitcoin via Google News. I read "Bitcoin is Dead" and I am reading about Mike Hearn announcing his leaving and selling all his coins. I panicked and sold.
As Bitcoin came tumbling down I started hearing more and more about this Ethereum platform. After doing a bunch of reading I was excited as hell! I never even realized the possibilities of blockchain outside of moving value. Suddenly my mind was flooded with possible contracts, DAOs, and all sorts of applications no longer needing to depend on a central server to host it.
I was part of the Lisk ICO, which I put a good amount of the profits into the Steem Platform. I have been seeing more and more great ideas out there dealing with blockchain applications.
The really exciting thing for me though are seeing these ideas come into fruition and actually grow and succeed as real world applications.
SteemIt is definitely a killer blockchain application. One that hasn't excited me so much since I first got involved with Bitcoin & then Ethereum. SteemIt is going to be going good places if the devs stay on track.
If it were not for these awesome, revolutionary new systems being made I don't know where I would be. For me, blockchain is more than just an exciting new technology... it's a life saver!
As always, Steem on my friends!
-The Hatter