The first time I knew about bitcoin was about 3 years, I read an article in The Economist. I did not take it seriously. The bitcoin has grown a lot since then.
The first time I found out about Bitcoin 3 years ago, I too was an occasional reader of The Economist. I stopped taking The Economist seriously.
Lol, I also found out about Bitcoin 3 years ago because I saw it on TV. They were talking about how it was a tool for terrorist and drug dealers on the "dark web" and the price was at about 700 dollars the first time I ever opened Bitcoinwisdom.com. Good ol times. Luckily i saw the light and stuck around waiting for a lower price to buy as much as possible. I knew even at 1.2K was insanely underrated.