This reflection on the 'lessons from 2017' was great! It just goes to show—we didn’t get “lucky.” If anything, those buying their first #Bitcoin today might be the lucky ones. They’ve got access to a wealth of hard-earned knowledge, signal-rich resources, and battle-tested communities. We had to learn it all the hard way—through pain, confusion, and costly mistakes. They get to skip the fire we had to walk through - they are lucky.
I began my journey as a Bitcoiner—because that’s all there was. Everything else, from Bit Gold to Hashcash, was a prelude to Bitcoin: stepping stones toward sound, sovereign money. When Ethereum launched in 2015, I mistakenly believed it was the next logical step in that same cypherpunk lineage. I had yet to understand that Satoshi didn’t just contribute another breakthrough puzzle pice—he solved it. The Byzantine Generals Problem was the final piece. The puzzle was complete.
In those "early" days, the space wasn’t driven by hype or deception. Builders respected each other's work—stacking bricks toward a singular goal. The mission was clear: freedom through code.
But by 2017, the ethos had shifted. Greed had replaced integrity. The signal was hard to find. There were no “Bitcoin-only” podcasts, newsletters, or signal-boosting immune systems like we have today on Bitcoin Twitter or Nostr. I trusted voices and legal opinions that I didn’t realize were simply chasing "the next big thing." I got swept up in the noise of smart contract fantasies and I got burned, badly.
It was a brutal, humbling lesson. Bitcoin doesn’t need reinventing. It’s not a prototype or a stepping stone—it’s the endgame. Everything else is distraction or deception.
I came out of 2017 scorched—but reforged. Since then, I’ve dropped “crypto,” stopped trusting, and started verifying. The revolution doesn’t need upgrades—it needs understanding.
@knutsvanholm @Prince Filip
