From Miami Car Shows to Smart Contract Audits

This post is a bit different. No technical deep dives or security writeups today. Instead, I wanted to share how I actually got here - the messy, unfiltered version.

2018: The Accidental Introduction

It all started at a car show in Miami. I was there taking pictures, doing my thing, and someone offered to pay me in this thing called Ethereum. I had no idea what it was, but money is money right? Made a wallet real quick, received 2 ETH (about $300 at the time), and honestly thought it was pretty cool. Reminded me of in-game currencies - you know, the kind you'd grind for in MMOs.

Bought a few more tokens over the following months, then my trip ended and I went back home to the Caribbean. Crypto sat in the back of my mind, mostly forgotten.

2019: The NFT Phase

Started telling my high school friends about these NFTs - pictures worth thousands of dollars. Looking back, I was pretty ignorant about everything else Ethereum could do. I was just the "NFT guy."

Traded a bunch, got burned on a few (classic), so naturally I decided to launch some myself with the basic JavaScript I knew. Got bored pretty quick once I understood how the game really worked. The space felt more like a casino than innovation at that point.

2021: Twitter and Expensive Lessons

Peak bull run. Crypto was everywhere. Everyone was an expert. Naturally, I joined Twitter because that's where "all the crypto people" were, right?

Got caught up in the excitement of 1000x promises. Lost a bunch on memecoins. That's when it hit me - I was flying completely blind. I didn't actually know anything. I was just gambling with extra steps.

So I pivoted. Stuck to utility tokens and upcoming L2s. Started actually reading documentation instead of Twitter threads. Stepped back from the timeline because you can never really tell who's shilling vs who actually knows their stuff.

2022: Everything Falls Apart (Then Gets Interesting)

As if the market sell-off wasn't bad enough, I had funds stuck in FTX when it collapsed. To make things even better, my local banks decided to blacklist payments from crypto exchanges. No way to cash out. No way to buy in. I ended up roundtripping whatever gains I had made.

But here's the thing - this is also when my interest really peaked. The Merge happened in September 2022. Not only did it sound cool, but it sparked something in me. I wanted to understand how this all worked under the hood. That's when my technical journey into Ethereum really began.

2023: Stacking and Learning

Got offered a remote position as a Database Admin at a startup. Moved back in with my parents, kept expenses low, and started stacking seriously.

Joined the Chainlink and ZKsync communities on Discord. Dove deep into their technologies - not surface level "what does it do" but actually understanding the problems they solved and how. This was the year I stopped being a spectator and started becoming a builder.

2024: Humbled by Hackathons

Participated in my first hackathon, put on by the Chainlink team. Met some of the smartest people I know to date - innovative minds from Singapore and India who showed me just how much I didn't know. Humbling doesn't even begin to describe it.

Started the Cyfrin Updraft course by Patrick Collins. Finally, somewhere with structured material instead of piecing things together from random YouTube videos and documentation. Oh, and I went back to University. Better late than never.

2025: Doing It Right This Time

Realized I went through the Cyfrin course just taking notes without putting in the practical work. So I decided to redo the entire thing, this time tracking my progress with Git.

Participated in my second Chainlink hackathon - way more prepared this time, but still realized I had more to learn. The knowledge gap felt significantly smaller though. Progress.

Then came the Intellibus hackathon where I thought of a novel way to use blockchain to solve a real-world problem. And finally, I decided to track my journey more intentionally by building this website and writing these posts.

The Point of All This

I'm sharing this because I think there's value in showing the full picture. Not the curated "I've been building since 2018" flex, but the actual messy path - the losses, the ignorance, the slow realization that you need to actually understand what you're doing.

If you're earlier in your journey and feeling lost, that's normal. If you've made expensive mistakes, join the club. The difference is whether you let it push you out or pull you deeper in.

I chose deeper. Let's see where it goes.

// From clueless to curious
contract Journey {
    uint256 public yearStarted = 2018;
    bool public stillLearning = true;

    function keepBuilding() external pure returns (string memory) {
        return "wagmi";
    }
}