How a painful history led me to personal freedom and bitcoin

I was named after the heroine of Ayn Rand’s book, “The Fountainhead,” though I wasn’t much treated as one. I was raised in an incredibly toxic and abusive family environment, so much so that after reading Ayn Rand’s works during my critical, teenage years, very suddenly out of the blue, I packed my bags and left my parents’ house. It was like a switch turned on which made me single-mindedly decide to finally stand up for myself. Turns out, reading “The Fountainhead” again and again didn’t help with the emotional damage that resulted from a traumatic childhood.

I experienced depression for a few years, which motivated me to put a great amount of effort into trying to understand my feelings and motives, through journaling, seeking out resources on self-awareness and talking to a therapist. A helpful resource I found was freedomainradio.com (FDR). I listened to the podcasts about psychology and self-knowledge everyday, as I traced back my emotional responses and behavioral patterns to how I was treated by my parents. I would note, though, that my early influence from Ayn Rand’s philosophy fostered an interest in rational tools in gaining self-knowledge, rather than the mystical self-help stuff. This gave me a better understanding of myself and a level of awareness which enabled me to process my feelings and develop values which were never taught or shown to me as a child, such as empathy and compassion. I made strong connections within the community, and sought comfort in the fact that I was not alone. Since then, authenticity and personal freedom became a central pursuit in my life.

Bitcoin came to me as a strange-sounding word in 2012, as it became a frequent topic of discussion on the forums. While I was only vaguely reading bits and pieces of it in the beginning, a friend of mine from the FDR community, Kristov Atlas, spoke about his interest in bitcoin at great length. My curiosity only grew after that. I got some bitcoin and kept a keen eye on the space.

One day, while doing research, I came across an article about Roger Ver, a bitcoin evangelist known as “Bitcoin Jesus,” who renounced his US citizenship and moved to Japan many years ago. More interestingly, I saw that we have mutual friends from the FDR community, and that we share similar values based on the Non-Aggression Principle. I immediately thought, “I’m gonna try to meet this guy.”

Coincidentally, a conference was happening in my city a couple weeks later where Roger Ver was speaking. I went to the after event, approached him and introduced myself as the person who had written him an email saying that we have the same “Borders are Imaginary Lines” t-shirt. He was friendly and invited me to join him and his friend for dinner.

After listening to enthusiastic discussions by Roger, I later looked for the bitcoin meet-ups in my locality and started going regularly. I eventually wanted to be more involved, and volunteered to help at the Scaling Bitcoin conference in Hong Kong. In my daily life, I passionately talk about bitcoin, emphasizing that because of its decentralized nature, it can take away control of a big chunk of money from the hands of the government and prevent the funding of wars. As someone who grew up in aggression and violence, this idea was most appealing to me.

As my involvement in the bitcoin community grew, I was asked to be a director of the Bitcoin Association in Hong Kong. I was thrilled about the opportunities to contribute to a very exciting project which I truly believe will change the world.

I recently spent six weeks in San Francisco immersed in the bitcoin community. I lived in the bread wallet hacker house, visited a few bitcoin offices, went to eight bitcoin events, co-organized the SF bitcoin devs meet-up and met key people in bitcoin who’s given me great advise and insight on the bitcoin ecosystem in Silicon Valley. On top of that, I made great friends out of like-minded people who’ve inspired me to arrive at a better understanding and renewed perspective of the industry, community, people, and ultimately, myself.

I had often asked myself the question what value I wanted to offer the world. Now I transitioned to the question, “how do you know you have the value to change the world?” I’d think, “Well, because I was able to change myself.”