A private story of gaming {hardware}, misplaced Ethereum, and the layered nature of human progress
Bitcoin: An Concept Whose Time Had Come
There’s something unusually humbling about human progress: brilliance alone will not be sufficient.
You possibly can have the blueprints for an airplane, however with out industrial aluminum, it stays a fantasy. You possibly can invent the best cryptographic algorithm, however with out world networks, it gathers mud.
Concepts should look ahead to the soil of civilization to be prepared. When it’s — they bloom seemingly in a single day.
Bitcoin was a kind of concepts.
I. Progress Is a Layered Cake
I as soon as knew a pointy techniques engineer again within the late 90s. In 1996, he spent six grueling weeks putting in Sybase database software program — through floppy disks.
Not hours, not days — weeks.
Simply to get a primary enterprise database working was an epic of cables, patches, and endurance.
Quick ahead to 2015: the identical job might be achieved in ten seconds with a Docker container. Or immediately, with a Helm chart spinning up Kubernetes pods within the cloud — totally automated.
Why? As a result of progress is a layered cake. Every technology builds on the layers of the final.
Take airplanes. Even when Leonardo da Vinci had possessed excellent blueprints for a Boeing 747, he’d have been caught. Why? No aluminum.
Industrial-scale aluminum processing is just a few centuries outdated. With out it, there’s no airframe robust and light-weight sufficient to fly.
Right here’s a pleasant historic twist: almost 2000 years in the past, a intelligent service provider demonstrated a shimmering new steel to Roman Emperor Tiberius.
It was made, he claimed, from sand — and extra stunning than gold.
Tiberius, whose wealth was largely plundered gold, grasped the menace immediately. If this “sand steel” unfold, his riches can be devalued. He had the service provider executed — and humanity forgot about bauxite-derived aluminum for an additional 1500 years.
The ethical: progress waits for readiness. And even then, it typically faces resistance.
II. Why Bitcoin May Not Have Been Born Earlier
Bitcoin isn’t just “software program” or “magic web cash.” It’s an emergent financial phenomenon — the kid of many converging applied sciences.
Bitcoin couldn’t have emerged in 1990. Nor in 2000. It required an ideal storm — which lastly arrived in 2008–2009.
The important elements:
1️⃣ Cryptography Maturity
SHA-256, digital signatures, Merkle bushes — the Lego blocks of trustless computing needed to mature and standardize.
2️⃣ World Networks
A dependable, quick, inexpensive web was required — not fragile dial-up.
3️⃣ Inexpensive Compute
CPUs and GPUs needed to be widespread sufficient for common customers to run nodes and mine.
4️⃣ Cultural Catalyst
2008’s World Monetary Disaster shattered belief in fiat cash and central banks.
Satoshi’s Genesis Block contained a sly message: “The Occasions 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.”
Bitcoin was not simply code — it was a response to a damaged system.
5️⃣ Theoretical Breakthrough
Satoshi lastly solved the Byzantine Generals Downside — reaching consensus throughout a trustless community by means of Proof of Work.
For the primary time in historical past, people had a scarce, decentralized, uncensorable digital cash.
III. Why Bitcoin Needed to Emerge Precisely When It Did
If Satoshi had launched Bitcoin in 1995, it might have failed. The web wasn’t prepared. Cryptography wasn’t mature. The cultural second hadn’t arrived.
If Satoshi waited till 2035? Maybe state surveillance and monetary repression would have blocked it totally.
2009 was excellent:
The know-how was ripeCultural mistrust in fiat was highThe want for an “exit” was visceral
Briefly: Bitcoin was an thought whose time had come.
IV. How Bitcoin Helped Delivery the Fashionable AI Period
Right here’s a pleasant hidden chapter of this story:
Bitcoin’s rise not directly funded the GPU revolution — which in flip made trendy AI doable.
Early Bitcoin miners used CPUs. However GPUs — with their parallel structure — quickly dominated.
Then got here altcoins like Ethereum, driving much more demand for high-end GPUs.
This GPU demand sustained NVIDIA and AMD by means of years when gaming alone wouldn’t have justified huge R&D into graphics {hardware}.
And right here’s the kicker: with out these GPU advances, we might not have ChatGPT immediately.
Coaching ChatGPT-3.5 reportedly price billions. In 2010, it might have price trillions — or just been infeasible, taking months or years to finish.
You could possibly have thrown infinite cash on the downside in 2005 — it wouldn’t have mattered. The muse wasn’t there.
Thus: No Bitcoin → no GPU arms race → no trendy giant language fashions.
Applied sciences don’t evolve in silos. They evolve entangled, like threads in an important tapestry.
A Private Detour
Personally, I stumbled into Bitcoin totally by chance.
All of it started with a quest — not for financial sovereignty, however for frames per second.
Again when PUBG dominated PC gaming, I coveted the fabled NVIDIA 1080 Ti — a beast of a GPU, excellent for buttery-smooth gameplay.
However it was costly. I reasoned: “Maybe if I mine a little bit of Ethereum or Bitcoin on the aspect, I can offset the price.”
So I purchased the cardboard, mined diligently… and managed to supply about one Ethereum.
After which — in a basic crypto story — I forgot the pockets password.
Sure — my first foray into crypto ended with a strong GPU, many hen dinners in PUBG, and a misplaced ETH.
Mockingly, my gaming card was unknowingly fueling two revolutions: crypto and AI.
Such is progress — typically unintentional, typically poetic.
V. What Bitcoin Actually Is
Let’s be clear: Bitcoin will not be merely an “funding.”
Right here’s what it isn’t: ❌ Only a speculative asset ❌ Only a tech curiosity ❌ Simply “quantity go up”
Right here’s what it’s: ✅ The primary completely scarce, censorship-resistant, self-sovereign digital cash ✅ A financial community managed by no authorities and no company ✅ Freedom encoded in math
Makes an attempt to “ban” Bitcoin are like attempting to ban math or vitality. You may make life troublesome, however you can not uninvent an thought whose time has come.
VI. The place Do We Go From Right here?
The long run? Unimaginable to foretell. However tantalizing.
We stand on the cusp of recent frontiers:
AI is accelerating rapidlyRobotics and bioengineering are mergingMoney is coming into a brand new period
In 10–20 years, many people could function as cyborgs — people augmented by AI brokers dealing with all the things from funds to creativity.
In such a world, trustless, impartial cash turns into ever extra vital.
Think about AI brokers transacting in your behalf — would you like these transactions mediated by central banks? Or settled freely on a impartial protocol like Bitcoin?
Bitcoin could not merely be an “various funding.” It might evolve into the bottom layer of worth for our rising machine-augmented civilization.
VII. Classes from Historical past
Bear in mind the story of Tiberius and the “sand steel”? Concepts that threaten present energy constructions face suppression — however solely quickly.
Aluminum was as soon as extra valuable than gold. At present, we fly as a result of such suppression finally fails.
Bitcoin immediately is ridiculed, feared, banned, embraced — however it’s merely the following stage of financial evolution.
Simply as the commercial world wanted low cost aluminum, the digital world wanted Bitcoin.
Now that it exists, there isn’t any going again.
VIII. A Bigger Philosophy of Progress
Zooming out, Bitcoin reminds us: Progress is layered, contingent, and deeply fragile.
Sensible concepts fail when the world will not be prepared. Weaker concepts succeed when the infrastructure occurs to help them.
Bitcoin succeeded as a result of the world was lastly prepared — technologically, culturally, politically.
And it speaks to one thing profound in us — the eager for freedom, equity, and sovereignty.
In an age of rising digital management, Bitcoin provides a uncommon counterweight: Company restored.
It’s not excellent. It’s not completed. However it’s right here.
IX. Closing Reflections
In 1996, my pal wrestled with floppy disks. In 2025, youngsters spin up world infrastructure with a couple of traces of code.
In historic Rome, a disruptive steel was suppressed. At present, we fly as a result of such suppression fails within the lengthy arc of historical past.
Bitcoin was an thought awaiting fertile soil. Now, that soil is world and digital — and rising richer by the day.
And in a scrumptious accident, the GPU arms race spurred by Bitcoin helped allow the AI revolution we now witness.
No Bitcoin, no ChatGPT. No Sybase, no cloud. No aluminum, no flight.
Concepts don’t dwell alone. They’re entangled, woven into the nice cloth of civilization.
The place this all leads? Nobody is aware of.
However I, for one, can envision a future the place people and AI brokers transact in seamless worth exchanges — with a humble protocol referred to as Bitcoin quietly buzzing on the coronary heart of it.
Freedom encoded into math. An thought whose time had come.
And whose time is, maybe, solely simply starting.
The long run is unsure. However historical past rhymes. We’re lucky — or maybe fated — to witness the daybreak of digital cash. It’s price paying consideration.
PUBG, GPUs, and the Unintentional Highway to Bitcoin was initially printed in The Capital on Medium, the place individuals are persevering with the dialog by highlighting and responding to this story.
