In early 2017 Naval Ravikant came for a fireside chat at Instacart, where I was working at the time. Among many things he brought up the topic of cryptocurrencies. Until that point, I had been vaguely aware of bitcoin, but I remember this being a pivotal moment for my intrigue and attitude towards it. A few months later Naval joined Tim Ferriss for a podcast episode with cryptographer Nick Szabo on crypto. It became one of the most popular episodes that year, and I was hooked.
2017 was a pivotal year for me in a lot of ways. First learning about crypto, then having to make an unprecedented move to Bangkok (fun times with the H1-B work visa ), and then starting a blog with the aim to share what I was learning about bitcoin and related technologies. Everyone in the industry has their "entering the rabbit hole" story, and mine was just that - writing about how bitcoin works.
Some selected articles for those who are curious:
I spent the next two years expanding topics to include Ethereum as well, both on the blog and by contributing to open source learning resources like Mastering Ethereum and cryptoeconomics.study. I also helped run community events in Bangkok to get local developers started on developing their own decentralized applications, working with organizations like UNICEF Innovation, Ethereum Foundation, and RSK
My focus, besides writing, is now less on events and more on building stuff. I learned to build web3 applications through Consensys' Developer Bootcamp and other excellent community resources.
Iām interested in how we can design communities that thrive off collaboration, individual freedom, and properly incentivized open-source work. We're already seeing the early stages of these with the emergence of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). These communities are remote-first, operating on tools and mediums of exchange that are indiscriminate of who you are or where you live. These communities are made possible thanks to a free flow of information (the internet), permissionless money (cryptocurrencies), and composable digital primitives that can build upon one another (decentralized applications).
You can find my more polished content at nichanank.com