Laid asphalt for ten years. Never got ahead. Then I started mining Bitcoin and figured out why.

I paved roads for a decade.

Hard work. Outdoor work. The kind where you're up before the sun and your back knows it by the end of the week. I was good at what I did.

Still felt like I was running in place.

Every two weeks I'd look at my check and think where does it all go. I had some savings but they just sat there doing nothing while everything around me got more expensive. Groceries. Gas. Rent. All of it going up. My check wasn't.

I kept thinking I must be doing something wrong.

Heard about Bitcoin in 2015 from a guy I worked with. Had no idea what it was and honestly didn't care. Wasn't on social media, didn't follow the news, just didn't look into it. Moved on.

Years later I started mining crypto. Had GPUs running in my spare bedroom, then got into ASICs. Electric bill jumped. Didn't care. Wasn't doing it because I understood anything about Bitcoin. Was doing it because I was pissed off. Jobs don't pay enough. Everything costs more. The government's not helping. I wanted something outside all of it.

And then I actually started reading about what I was mining.

I remember the moment I got it. Not fully, but enough. There's a fixed number of Bitcoin. 21 million, ever. Nobody can make more. No emergency meeting. No printing. When I figured out that my paychecks for ten years had been stored in something that quietly loses value while I sleep, that was a weird feeling.

Not angry. Just like. Oh. That's what was happening.

I don't do the paving anymore. But I think about those years. All that work. Stored wrong.

Doing it different now.