I got into all of this almost by accident. Back in high school, I was annoyed by the "Activate Windows" watermark and the general feeling that Windows was watching everything I did on my own laptop. That annoyance made me look for alternatives, and I'd only ever heard the word "Linux" in passing before that.
Once I actually looked into it, the phrase "completely free and the source code is fully open" genuinely amazed me. The idea that anyone could open the code and see exactly what it does, and use it however they wanted, felt like a different way of thinking about software entirely. I picked a distro, followed a YouTube tutorial, and installed it on my laptop.
That was the domino that started everything. Linux led me to open source in general, and open source, to me, was really just another word for privacy: nothing hidden, nothing running behind your back. That need for privacy pushed me (already leaning libertarian) further into anarcho-capitalism.
I was hanging around small ancap circles on Twitter when I saw someone mention Monero. I already knew Bitcoin existed, but only in passing, I'd never really looked into it. This person was talking about Monero's untraceability and fungibility, the fact that a coin can't get "tainted" the way it can with Bitcoin, and something about that just clicked for me. I started digging into how it actually worked.
Somewhere in that research I learned Monero's mining algorithm was CPU-friendly, so I ended up pool mining from my own computer at home. First real thing I did with what I mined was buy a gift card and use it on Steam.
That gift card was a small thing, but what really hit me was the feeling of having real, solid money that actually meant something, and that no one could touch. These days, instead of just using Monero, I try to build tools around it.
I got into all of this almost by accident. Back in high school, I was annoyed by the "Activate Windows" watermark and the general feeling that Windows was watching everything I did on my own laptop. That annoyance made me look for alternatives, and I'd only ever heard the word "Linux" in passing before that.
Once I actually looked into it, the phrase "completely free and the source code is fully open" genuinely amazed me. The idea that anyone could open the code and see exactly what it does, and use it however they wanted, felt like a different way of thinking about software entirely. I picked a distro, followed a YouTube tutorial, and installed it on my laptop.
That was the domino that started everything. Linux led me to open source in general, and open source, to me, was really just another word for privacy: nothing hidden, nothing running behind your back. That need for privacy pushed me (already leaning libertarian) further into anarcho-capitalism.
I was hanging around small ancap circles on Twitter when I saw someone mention Monero. I already knew Bitcoin existed, but only in passing, I'd never really looked into it. This person was talking about Monero's untraceability and fungibility, the fact that a coin can't get "tainted" the way it can with Bitcoin, and something about that just clicked for me. I started digging into how it actually worked.
Somewhere in that research I learned Monero's mining algorithm was CPU-friendly, so I ended up pool mining from my own computer at home. First real thing I did with what I mined was buy a gift card and use it on Steam.
That gift card was a small thing, but what really hit me was the feeling of having real, solid money that actually meant something, and that no one could touch. These days, instead of just using Monero, I try to build tools around it.