Highlights:
- Was on the original Cypherpunk mailing list and was very active on Bitcointalk when Satoshi was posting.
- Almost bought the famous pizzas for 10,000 Bitcoins. I was sitting on the forums when it went live that evening, but I needed money for beer since I was in college at the time. (I traded Pabst for 10,000 Bitcoins)
- I was a CPU then GPU miner in 2010 and learned a lot of tough lessons during that time. I bought risers from China, used Ubuntu to manually configure each GPU and turned my house into a massive fire hazard. I also bought and experimented with early FPGA miners, blockeruptors, ASICs – like BFL Jalapenos (which I never received), Avalons, KNC and Cointerra. After learning and playing with mining for nearly a decade, I have come to conclusion that I will never mine again.
- I lived through the Pirateat40 and Bitcoinica scams and never lost fascination after getting Cryptsy’d, Mt. Gox’d, Bitfinex’d, BTC-E’d and Poloniex’d. It’s debatable if it was poor timing or poor decisions. I became more active in the community after these events, attending meetups and conferences, like Dogecon back in the day.
I saw the first ICO, their subsequent rise, participated in the first DAO, the bubble of 2017 and can’t wait to see what’s next.
– Richard Li