the american government shut down my online poker sites (full tilt and pokerstars) in 2011. after this happened, it became difficult for americans to deposit/withdraw from poker sites. there was some discussion on the 2+2 poker forums about bitcoin and its capabilities, and a bitcoin poker site called seals with clubs emerged. in 2012, i eventually bought some coins p2p on the forum and tried it out. unfortunately, player liquidity was awful and there weren't enough games to make any real money. so i forgot about bitcoin for a while.

the following april, i had a co-worker who asked me if i knew about bitcoin. i had no idea the market was bubbling at the time. when i saw the charts, i was immediately hooked and started trading. i lost a bunch of money at first, but over the next year i learned how to trade profitably and started becoming enamored with the technology. can't believe it's been almost 7 years!