FROM SOLO TO SHARED

Guest Written by Martti Malmi

I discovered Bitcoin in April 2009. I was a 20-year-old computer science student at Helsinki University of Technology.

Apart from attending programming courses, I wasn’t wasting too much time on my studies, leaving me with plenty of time to live on the Internet and think about the world.

Freedom and self-sovereignty were ideals I was quite passionate about, but I wasn’t optimistic about convincing the masses to embrace them and vote libertarian. Instead, I was inspired by the idea of using disruptive technology to change the world—without having to beg the boomers for permission.

Money struck me as the most impactful thing you could change. Everything depends on it, and whoever controls money wields far too much power over everyone else.

Governments and banks could confiscate savings, monitor every transaction, exclude people financially, and—most of all—print money to fund their deficits, effectively imposing a hidden tax on the rest of us.

Arguably, bad money can even ruin the culture as a whole, sowing distrust and driving immediate gratification instead of sustainable long-term planning.

So, I began exploring alternative currencies. There were options like Pecunix, e-Gold, Liberty Dollar and others, but all of them were centralised. In time, they were either shut down by governments or just vanished along with their customers’ funds.

What we needed was a decentralised, peer-to-peer solution. I Googled “p2p currency” and stumbled upon Bitcoin, which had just been released a few months earlier. I read Satoshi’s whitepaper and soon after emailed him, offering to help.

Satoshi first asked me to write an FAQ for the Bitcoin website. Later that year, I helped develop the bitcoin.org website and forums. I also contributed to the Bitcoin software release 0.2.0, improving the user interface and porting the Windows-only application to Linux.

I coordinated bitcoin.org translations by volunteers and managed a list of services that accepted Bitcoin. Back then, the Bitcoin Forum lived at bitcoin.org/forum, but we eventually moved it to bitcointalk.org to avoid the appearance of being some kind of “official” Bitcoin forum.

In the early days, the forum was very small and cosy, filled with idealists who dreamed of a better monetary system. I loved the atmosphere.

Things started to change in 2010 when Bitcoin was mentioned on Slashdot, sparking massive growth. Suddenly, it wasn’t just idealists anymore—miners started pouring in.

By 2011, when Silk Road appeared, things had gone completely wild, and keeping up with all the new forum posts became impossible.

Satoshi had also asked me to keep my Bitcoin node running so new users would always have peers to connect to. At the time, the Bitcoin network typically had only 3–5 peers online at once.

I also ticked the “generate coins” checkbox, which made my CPU fans roar as usage shot to 100%. Back then, I could mine 200–300 bitcoins per day on my laptop. Over time, I mined more than 55,000 bitcoins. I only turned off the miner when I wanted to play Counter-Strike.

On October 12, 2009, I made the first known BTC-USD trade with NewLibertyStandard, who was launching a site to buy and sell Bitcoin (and random items like SpongeBob stickers for Bitcoin). I sold him 5,050 BTC for $5.02.

In 2010, I launched BitcoinExchange.com, the first semi-automated service for buying and selling Bitcoin. The site calculated prices algorithmically, and euros were sent via bank transfer. For smaller amounts (€5–20), there was even an SMS payment option that fulfilled orders instantly.

I ran BitcoinExchange.com for a while but shut it down later in 2010 as the more advanced exchange site Mt. Gox started gaining traction. Finnish regulations meant I couldn’t legally operate a similar exchange service holding customer funds without a licence.

BitcoinExchange.com wasn’t about making money for me—I just wanted to help kick-start the Bitcoin economy. I intentionally avoided making a profit to avoid having to pay taxes. By the time I shut it down, I had 30,000 BTC less than when I started. In hindsight, running it like a business might have actually allowed me to contribute more to the Bitcoin ecosystem. But at least I avoided Mt. Gox-style disaster.

By 2010, I had also landed my first “real job,” which left me with less time to work on Bitcoin. I continued managing bitcoin.org and bitcointalk.org until around 2011–2012.

In 2011, when Bitcoin’s exchange rate hit $15–30, I sold over half of my remaining ~20,000 BTC and bought a studio apartment near Helsinki. For a 22-year-old, that was a big deal, and I couldn’t have been happier.

The same year I resigned from my job as a junior software developer. Finding a new job took longer than I expected, and I had to sell most of my remaining Bitcoins at a poor exchange rate as low as $3 / BTC.

Today, the 55,000 BTC I once had would make me a billionaire and one of the five richest people in Finland. I imagine it would be fun, and sometimes there are problems in life that money could solve.

Still, I can’t complain. I don’t feel like I’ve lost anything on this Bitcoin adventure—quite the contrary. I have met some amazing people and been to interesting places. I’m not rich, but I don’t think that’s necessary to live a perfectly good life. Happiness is about the basic things like health, friends and family. Pursuing something greater than yourself brings meaning in life, whether it’s your family, community, art or science.

I’m happy that Bitcoin has made such an impact on the world, and the snowball keeps rolling – we’re just getting started. It has made many people ask “What is money?” for the first time. Such a powerful culture and community have grown around it. Bitcoin is one of the few things in the current day that gives us hope for a better future.