Hello Steemit Community!

I must say I am proud to be part of such an innovative and creative group of people. We are the pioneers leading the way into uncharted lands, fighting strange beasts,(hackers) paving new roads, settling new lands, taming the unfettered wilderness. We are the crazy ones and here's to us!

I have always been an introverted and highly intellectual type. I'm the kid who prefers to hang out in the library consuming the philosophy section over socializing in the cafeteria or in the crowded halls. I assume many of us are like that here.

I've always been attracted to novelty and profundity. I seem to always be in search of world-shattering, big-picture, paradigm-shifting ideas. So here I am.

Bitcoin and the blockchain technology that underlies it is certainly a world-changing paradigm-shift of an idea. I see it as a shift from the age of debt-based, fiat economies, dependent upon a fundamentally fraudulent fractional-reserve banking system, into a new golden age of sound-money based, decentralized, self-organizing free economies that run smoothly and efficiently without the need for a trusted central authority to police and control the network. And I was drawn to this beautiful idea the moment I heard about it in June 2011.

I first heard the word "Bitcoin" spoken in a YouTube video on a quite popular philosophy Youtube Channel. It was very recent after a large sum of Bitcoin had been stolen from someone's computer and the price had crashed from an all-time high of $32 down to $2. The youtuber was arguing that the theft did not prove that Bitcoin was dead, but instead it proved that Bitcoin had value, as thieves only want to steal things that have value.

I agreed with the argument the youtuber was making, and reasoned further that not only did Bitcoin have value, but it was actually twice as valuable as the US Dollar if the price was $2. I proceeded to do quite a bit of research, I read the White Paper and started interacting on the Bitcoin Talk Forum, and convinced myself to invest.

A few months later I earned a large bonus from work, so I decided to take $1500 of that and put it into Bitcoin. The process was not easy. I had to use a site called Dwolla to send money from my bank account, which took about a week or so, and then I sent the money from Dwolla to an exchange called TradeHill (something about Mt. Gox didn't sit right with me, though it was the biggest and nicest exchange around at the time)

The price was around $3 per Bitcoin and I got about 500 Bitcoins for my $1500.

(a screenshot from a wallet still on my computer, which I believe I used as a transition wallet to transfer the Bitcoin from my TradeHill account to my cold storage wallet)

Then I decided to buy a few of those nice Casascius coins to show off to my friends. I bought one 25 BTC one, and 10 single BTC ones. The site only took Bitcoin so I paid in Bitcoin, and even had an email conversation with Mike who made them.

Then I transferred the remaining Bitcoins into a secure USB drive which I encrypted, and saved on a brand new Bitcoin wallet that I created on an Ubuntu Live CD on a computer that was not connected to the internet to create my unhackable cold storage wallet. And then I created two copies, on two separate encrypted USB drives, and I kept one in my safe and the other in a close friend's safe.

My Bitcoins were as secure as I could possibly make them, now all I had to do was wait.

Well I waited for what seemed like forever. The price barely moved. An entire year later I had almost completely forgotten about Bitcoin, the sparkle and shine had faded, and I was beaten down and worn out by conversation after conversation with skeptical friends and family and internet people telling me Bitcoin was a Ponzi scheme and was dead, etc. etc.

And then my best friend decided he was going to buy a motorcycle. And then my parents decided to buy a motorcycle, and suddenly all I could think about was how bad I wanted a motorcycle. I was watching youtube videos about motorcycles and browsing craigslist for motorcycles, and then I found it: An all black on black Kawasaki Ninja 250, barely ridden, virtually brand new, on sale on craigslist for $3000. The perfect first bike.

After an entire year of waiting, sometime in 2012 the price had risen to $6 per Bitcoin, and I sold out.

Yes, just one year after making arguably the best decision I've ever made in my life by purchasing 500 Bitcoins when they were only $3, I followed that up by quickly making arguably the worst decision I've ever made in my life by selling all of them when they were only $6.

I had doubled my money, so it wasn't a bad investment in my eyes. It isn't every day that you flip an investment in less than a year, plus I needed that motorcycle soooo bad.

It was not long thereafter that Bitcoin hit $20 and I started to get a little worried. When it hit $40 I was flipping all the way out. I remember calling several of my friends and family members when the price was at $40 and telling them how I was feeling.

It was mixture of getting punched in the stomach and getting kicked in the balls. That's how it felt. Like I wanted to throw up but couldn't.

By the time the price hit $200 I was already numb to the pain. I had stopped doing the math months ago. If I didn't think about it, I didn't have to deal with the reality that I had essentially thrown away $100,000. When the price hit $1200, the idea that I would have held out to that point was a pretty far stretch to me anyway. If had held out, I would of had about $600,000 and I'd be half a millionaire off of a $1500 investment, but who are we kidding? I'd have sold at some point along the way.

It's a sad story, but at the end of the day, I doubled my investment, and I still have these to show for it:

I consider my experience a valuable lesson in Bitcoin. My investment strategy is now very different. It goes like this: Buy low, and buy high. When the price of Bitcoin is low, I buy Bitcoin with my fiat money. When the price of Bitcoin is high, I buy nice things with my Bitcoin. I go to NewEgg or Overstock or any store that accepts Bitcoin and I reward myself with a little shopping spree.

But I NEVER under any circumstances, ever convert Bitcoin back into fiat. I've learned my lesson for good the hard way.

Since then I have discovered to things arguably just as exciting as Bitcoin. Those are Ethereum, the decentralized world computer, and Steemit, this here website on which you are reading these words. There is also OpenBazaar and BitNation that have garnered my attention as well. There is just so much happening in this space I am honored to be witness to it!

My hope is that I can apply my skills in some way to assist the revolution that is happening in this space. I am a writer by nature. I plan to write a book about my Bitcoin adventures, but also I plan to write as many informative and helpful posts here on Steemit as I can churn out.

My work comes from the perspective of philosophy and the Austrian School of Economics. I am a Student of Bastiat, Bohm-Bawerk, Menger, Mises, Hayek, Hazlitt, and Rothbard, which I think illuminates some key insights about the inner workings and economics behind why Bitcoin and the Crypto space is working the way it is. (beautifully)

If you're into philosophy, and Austrian Economics, and Libertarianism, and Anarchism I invite you to follow me as I plan to pump out some quality content on a consistent basis! Glad to be part of the community!