How I Followed The White Rabbit

My Rabbit Hole Story into Bitcoin

Hey, after reading this, please consider following me on Twitter at

QuestioningBitcoin?

. I’m also a host on a new and exciting Bitcoin Podcast called Rabbit Hole Stories @rabbitholetales https://rabbitholestories.co/ Also I’ll soon have some YouTube content released on my YouTube channel https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCglq5mAfSFALBAmNtCEqh2w Thank you

Preamble:

This paper is neither a Bitcoin 101 paper nor a technical analysis of Bitcoin. 

The intention of this paper is to introduce myself to the Bitcoin community. It is my Bitcoin Rabbit Hole Story. There is a saying in Bitcoin, and that is, Don't Trust, Verify. While reading it, you will see the man behind his belief in Bitcoin and hope that it will build trust in who I am.

It's open, honest and vulnerable; there is a lot of fear and uncertainty in the world right now, and I seek to connect with other Bitcoiners personally. We need each other more than ever to stand together in unity for freedom from the shackles of the state.

This paper is my trail of breadcrumbs leading up to my discovery of Bitcoin. I believe that bitcoiners have started the conversation about new hope; let's begin by showing them who we are on a human level. 

Some of you may form opinions about me after reading this paper. I expect and welcome it; that's the point of being open and honest; it may trigger uncomfortable conversations. 

Tone:

If you haven't yet researched and understood Bitcoin, it may seem tripe to say that it has changed my life and awakened me to the absurdity of money as we know it. 

To go a step further, Bitcoin offers hope, freedom and abundance for all humankind.

I haven't arrived at this belief overnight. It requires an open mind and a willingness to unlearn what you think you already know. 

You need to swallow the (metaphorical) red pill and let go of your ego as the truth reveals itself. This involved opening my heart and mind to months of gathering evidence and @QuestioningBitcoin?

Evidence gathering needs to be as unbiased as possible. You need to gather the information that will prove and disprove the case or even undermine your understanding of the truth. 

The pursuit of truth is what led me down the Bitcoin Rabbit Hole. As I dug deeper, the more fascinating Bitcoin became. It stood up to all my questions and revealed truths that convinced me of its core principles. 

I know it sounds crazy; in truth, it is a bit crazy, but as a purple cat once said, 'We're all mad here.' 

Every adventure requires a first step; will you join me in wonderland, and I will share my Rabbit Hole Story?

Before Bitcoin:

I was born in London just before the start of the 80s. It was the decade of Margaret Thatcher, yuppies, chunky mobile phones, BMX bikes and the invention of the early internet.

I grew up in a working-class, government-owned home with my Mum, Dad and Brother. All the kids in the neighbourhood played out on my street every day after school. It was great, and playing out on the street was safer than staying inside. 

My Dad had a temper and could switch at a moment's notice. My Mum had emotionally checked because she is a narcissist. She wasn't around often owing to the various affairs she had at work. 

Growing up in this environment was hard, but I didn't know better. For me, this was everyday family life. I knew some other kids on the street felt the same about their households; the street was our escape. 

Money was hard to come by. My Dad didn't work and was claiming disability allowance after pretending to hurt his back when he was working as a Postman. 

My Mum was the breadwinner. She worked on the switchboard desk at Canary Wharf, London's financial district for the world's major central banks. 

Despite the lack of money, my parents always had enough to smoke cigarettes and weed. They would also sit in the pub every weekend; my Dad's drink was Newcastle Brown Ale, and my Mum loved her Bacardi and Coke. 

My brother and I would always play the arcade machine in the pub or make up our own entertainment in the car park. Waiting for the inevitable domestic when we finally made it home. 

My parents sent us to a Roman Catholic School. My Mum was technically Church of England but favoured spirituality, and my Dad was atheist but Catholic on paper. 

Baptism was your ticket into a Church school, as these schools had a better reputation than non-church schools. 

The reality was that the school was full of sadistic nuns with God's wrath in their hands. They never had the first clue about educating children but knew how to keep you in fear of punishment. 

For me, it was an extension of my childhood home. It felt familiar in the sense that I knew my place in the world, and I knew how to survive. I learned how much I needed to do to appease the ones with the power. 

Home and school life taught me to become vigilant and constantly on guard, but it also taught me how to hide and how much I could get away with without them noticing. This was my way of assimilating myself into the world. The British culture of Keep Calm and Carry On is really Keep Quiet and Don't Complain.

I never believed in God, and I still don't. Religion felt like a way to control me, an indoctrination and surrendering to control and punishment. However, the vastness of the universe and its endless possibilities offered comfort and escapism from institutionalism. 

When I was thirteen when I joined the Army Cadets.

My friend from school started going, and I went along. The 'unit' operated out of a large hut in North West London two evenings a week. There were usually two adult leaders in charge, with a small handful of Sergeants and Corporals who were the teachers and disciplinarians of the unit. They lined us up on parade, teaching us how to march and hold and fire GP rifles and camping and survival skills. 

I learnt a lot from being in the cadets. It gave me the tools I needed to better navigate the world. It taught me how to survive better but simultaneously pulled me deeper into the system. Instead of being sadistic nuns, the unit was full of bullies using their power to exercise their anger on others who were of a lesser rank than they were. These sixteen-year-old sergeants and corporals were just as broken as I was, except they had more authority to exercise their anger in this way than I did.

This was familiar to me, except it was soldiers instead of nuns; there is no difference between the two. 

We had to participate in patriotic and statist activities involving the monarchy and the state. It was another way for the state to indoctrinate a 'Queen and Country' ideology.

Love and respect came from abuse. The adults turned a blind eye to it all. They would shout obscenities into our ears and push and shove their authority onto us. We often went camping and on military exercises throughout the year. Teenagers playing soldiers in the forest was where the real education happened. One year, two corporals dragged me into the brambles, where they kicked and punched me into submission. They put me back in line after calling one of them a dick-head (He really was a dick-head, though).

It was the late 90s when I left the Army Cadets; I was seventeen and in college. Tony Blair was Prime Minister, Princess Diana died in a car crash, and Hong Kong became independent from British colonial rule.

I was at a bad place in my life at the time. My Mum had suddenly left my Dad and the house without warning. I remember coming home one day to find my Dad smashing the place up with my Mum upstairs, packing her suitcase.

She left twenty minutes after my brother, and I pleaded with her to stay and not leave us alone with our Dad. I didn't hear anything from her for two months after that. By then, my Dad had a full-blown breakdown, and I had to grow up fast and get out as soon as possible. 

At the same time, I was secretly dealing with a stalker. He was constantly being teased at school because he was camp and very overweight. One day, I stuck up for him when he was surrounded by a large group of thugs in the playground. 

I could see how scared he was and felt compelled to help him. But from that point onwards, he wouldn't leave me alone. He would follow me home and spread rumours about me to isolate me from my friends. He found out that I fancied one of the girls in the year above me and started to manipulate me into thinking that he was friends with her. I was sending messages via him to her but soon found out that he was controlling my emotions, movements and thoughts. 

While dealing with this, a friend told me that one of the girls in my year liked me. I didn't fancy her but reflecting now, she became my subconscious escape plan from everything happening during that time. 

I was at her house more often than not. I think her parents took pity on me like you would a stray dog. They fed me, and sometimes I slept on their couch. 

It soon became apparent that this kindness came at a cost. I was in her parent's debt, and I certainly paid it back in labour and obligation over the years I was with her. Deep down, I suppressed guilt and allowed myself to have no boundaries in that relationship. Anything was better than going back to what I had already escaped. 

Her Dad, like mine, was a bully; her Mum was also narcissistic; both were alcoholics. He was a builder, and she never worked. 

I resented them, but it felt familiar, and I knew my place. And just like growing up, I knew my place in her parent's house and how to behave. That's the funny thing about familiarity; even though it might feel bad, it also traps you into reverting to type. 

Looking back in my forties, I wish I could have seen the trap I was setting myself. It's okay because I forgive myself; I was still a child; how could I have seen when I was in the thick of it? But I remembered how to hold onto the parts of myself that I could keep secret, and the secrets gave me my rebellion and power. 

I was still seventeen and working on building sites six days a week as a labourer. I worked hard for twelve hours a day and was paid £60.00 daily, cash in hand.

There was no such thing as a free lunch because her Mum used to take half of my weekly pay for 'rent'. My girlfriend didn't work, so I paid for both of us. 

I proposed to her when I was only eighteen years old after she passed a comment about wanting to be engaged, so I obliged. I am a people pleaser, which means I give people what they want while ignoring or de-prioritising my needs, which I am working through.

Soon after, when I was nineteen, her Dad said, 'you better do something with your life because there is no way I'm feeding you for the rest of your life.' He was loose with his shitty comments after a few tins of beer. 

I felt so angry when he said that, but I hid it well. I wanted to say, 'Are you fucking kidding me? I'm like a bellboy for you, doing the weekly shopping, cleaning, gardening and paying half of my weekly earnings, but I kept my mouth shut. I mean, what was I going to do, go home? 

This uninvited comment was followed up by an instruction. 'The Police are recruiting at the moment; call them up.' 

His father was a high-ranking Garde in Ireland during the 60s. Looking back, he must have felt pressure from his father to follow in his footsteps, and he dumped that expectation onto me.

I was still working on building sites at the time and was pursuing an interest in carpentry. I enrolled on a course and worked alongside a qualified carpenter at work.

We married when I was twenty-one, and I had just finished my eighteen-week residential training at The College of Policing at Hendon. It was the early 00's. The UK had a foot-and-mouth outbreak, there were riots in Brixton and in Bradford, and the UK and US governments were bombing Iraq and Syria, and 9/11 was fresh in all of our minds.

It was my second attempt at applying to the Police before I was accepted onto the course. We learnt the basics of policing in London. We swore an oath to Queen and Country to an Officer of Her Magasitys Court. We promised to fulfil our duties effectively and diligently, learning criminal law and police powers and procedures. I was being trained to be a servant to the Queen and uphold the state's laws.

As a police officer, I had state-sanctioned powers. It felt good and safe, like an extra layer of protection from the world. It felt like the state had my back.

I now knew how the teenage corporals at cadets felt. And that was both a rush and triggering at the same time. It also felt like a step up from my social and economic status in the world. 

I was reluctant to use my powers; I was always scared of abusing them like others abused their power over me.  

I told myself that although it wasn't my chosen job, I could at least try to make a difference and use my power for good. I could save people from harm and change the world from within. 

I've helped many people and have saved lives as a Police Officer. Still, I was also using my powers for things I was duty-bound to do, despite my opinions or discomfort at doing so. I was up against the state and its ideologies and traditions. I had to uphold the law of the land and ensure that its subjects are keeping 'The Queens Peace'. 

I became an agent for the Matrix, the uniform acted as a shield, but it corrupted my heart. I saw the worst in people and became discouraged and cynical. It made me angry with myself and the rest of the world.

I was no better than those who were meant to be my role models growing up. Real life hit me like a train. I dealt with death and destruction daily, and it soon wore me down to the nib, but I trapped myself again.

When I left training, the Police provided us with a flat. This was our first time living alone together, and the rent was cheap. 

It was a relief to have moved out of the in-laws, although we still saw them more often than I would have liked. It was nice having a disposable income despite having taken out a large loan in my name to pay for our wedding and honeymoon. 

Eighteen months after moving into the flat, my son was born. 

I realised straight away that he was the first person I truly loved. It was instantaneous and instinctive. He was everything to me. He made my life happier as I now had a purpose. I took to fatherhood like a duck to water. 

It made me realise how much my parents let me down, and I knew I would never put my son in that position. 

I made him feel safe. He didn't have to live in fear like I did. I wanted security for him and not to experience the pain of his parents separating. I didn't want to be a part-time dad either. In reality, I was scared of being a failure, was afraid of my own independence and tried to protect him from growing up with his grandparent's influence upon him. 

I pushed down those feelings and doubled down my commitment to my family. My wife made it clear that she wanted more children and wanted to be a stay-at-home mum until the children were in full-time education when she planned on returning to work.

Fourteen months later, my wife gave birth to our daughter. I was so happy and felt the same love and protection over her as my son. I worked shifts and long hours, but I always came home and spent all my time with them. 

Halfway through the pregnancy, the Police gave us notice to move out of the flat. They were disbanding the police housing scheme and selling off their property portfolio owing to budget cuts.

We knew that we couldn't afford anywhere in London; I was the only one qualified for finance, so we had to move out of London to find something we could afford. We had to find a new home quick. I didn't anticipate being in this situation when I took out the wedding loan and didn't have any savings to fall back on.

We found a house approx 70 miles away from London. The bank gave me a 110% Mortgage without any deposit. I didn't understand at the time how irresponsible this was, nor how much debt I was taking on. 

The repayments were much higher than the rent at the police flat. I started working overtime to sustain a lifestyle we became accustomed to.

It soon became a situation where I left the house at 04:15 every morning to drive to work to start my 12-hour shift before going back home again to get home in time to see my kids before bed. I was working to keep a roof over their heads.

I tried renegotiating the agreement with my wife about not working until the kids were in school. I explained how exhausted I was and wanted to be around more with the kids, but she was resolute. 

She was comfortable with her lifestyle. She quickly met other parents in this new and unfamiliar town and enjoyed shopping and lunch dates with her friends. Despite wanting to be a stay-at-home mum, she wanted the children to go to the nursery three days a week during the day. It was expensive, but it gave her the rest she was asking for.

I started to struggle to pay for everything and was constantly tired. I spent every hour I could with my kids and spoiled them on my days off. 

The longer this went on, the more I resented my wife. It felt like she was living her best life, and I was sustaining it. I needed a break but couldn't afford it. I was trapped and in a situation where I was working as hard as I could to keep us afloat.  

I was trapped working a job I didn't choose and living in a house I couldn't afford, but I had to keep going because I didn't want my kids to feel the same suffering I did as a kid. 

It got to a point where I started finding ways to rebel. I started sleeping around whenever the opportunity presented itself. It became an escapism for me, and it felt good to have a secret and meet some of my needs that I wasn't getting at home.

Just like my Mum, I had emotionally checked out of my marriage. However, unlike my Mum, I was still entirely devoted to my kids and played along like nothing was happening.

Some years later, my son had already started school, and my daughter was about to start the following year. I spoke with my wife about our agreement that she would return to work when the kids were in school, but she had already started dropping hints that she wanted another baby.

I suspected she didn't intend on returning to work; she had become too comfortable. You know me enough already to guess I went along and agreed to have another baby. I was the same dog as the one who lived in her parent's house all those years ago.

I knew I had to find another stream of income to pay for everything. I started a photography business. I was always keen on photography and 'borrowed' one of the Police crime scene cameras to build my portfolio. I started photographing corporate events in the City of London between shifts. After my shift, I would drive to an event to photograph corporate people having a party before driving home to edit the photos as quickly as possible to send to the client.

I also found a course in the local college to study electrical engineering. I went to night college two evenings a week for three years. I needed to compensate for the change of plan. I went into militant mode. My life was now dedicated to keeping the dream alive. I was drowning but kept going. 

It wasn't until after my second son was born that everything caught up with me. At this moment in my life, I had already re-mortgaged and had defaulted on my energy bill; I had two outstanding pay-day loans and car finance. I was also paying back the credit I took out on a handbag my wife wanted for her birthday. 

After reading this, you might have some opinions about my now ex-wife, but I ask that you reserve judgment until you have read the whole story.

I was asleep one evening when it happened. I could feel the punches in my sleep, but it was the blow to the head jolted me from my sleep. She was hitting me with such rage that I knew she must have read the texts I should have already deleted from my phone.

The commotion woke my children up. They were scared and crying, so I tried to calm everyone down. I told my wife to go downstairs and the kids to their rooms.

I took a moment to catch my breath. My heart was beating so hard I could feel it in my throat, and my guts were all twisted up. I was scared. I was so entrenched that I was willing to do and say anything to fix it.

I told her that I had slept around and was sleeping with one of her friends. It was her friend whose text she had found. She secretly kissed me at her husband's birthday party. It felt naughty and exciting; it was like playing with fire. It made me feel alive again and was the part of me I kept secrets. It felt like the only thing I ever owned were my secrets.

I begged and pleaded for her to forgive me. I told her how much I hated myself and would do anything to repair the damage I had caused. 

She insisted that I move out of the family home and that she would consider therapy. It meant I had to stop my photography business and drop out of my electrical engineering course. I still had to pay the mortgage and bills for the house, so I moved in with my brother until I got myself organised.

My wife agreed to therapy. In our first session, she admitted that she had a brief fling during our marriage and spent a few sessions together talking it through. 

After a few weeks of moving out, a friend told me they had recently seen my wife out with another man. I confronted her about it, and she said she considered herself single while we were separated. 

I wasn't willing to continue working at saving our marriage while she was dating another man weeks after we had separated.

I didn't know that it was the same man she had admitted to having a fling with until later.

I wanted a divorce because I wasn't comfortable with her dating while trying to save our marriage. However, she promised she would stop seeing him because she didn't want a divorce. I thought I still wanted to save our marriage, but I didn't want my kids to go through what I went through as a kid, and I still didn't want to be a part-time dad.

I managed to negotiate a shift change at work which meant that I had every weekend off when the kids would stay with me for the weekends.

After a few months of hard work, she asked me to move back home. We set a date, and I booked a meal at a fancy restaurant where we would announce it to the kids. 

During the meal, my wife's friend called her to ask if she wanted to go for a drink that evening. I was slightly annoyed that she said yes but agreed to tuck the kids in that night and read them bedtime stories. I was excited to go home with my kids, to be honest.

I started to get anxious when I couldn't get hold of my wife that evening and waited until she came home at 5am. I confronted her about it, and she told me that she had gone to see the man she had been dating and that they had sex. It felt like another trap. 

This was the first time in my life that I stood up for myself and said I was done. I knew that if I stayed, my children would live in a house where their parents hated each other and refused to sign them up for that life. 

My ex-wife told me that she hated me and that I would get what was coming to me. I waited for the kids to wake up and had to tell them the bad news. It was one of the most heartbreaking moments in my life. They were devastated. I promised them I would see them as much as I already was and that everything would be okay. 

I spent the next couple of months looking for a place of my own and found a place about halfway between where I worked in London and my kids. Honestly, It felt great. It was the first place that was just mine. I could do what I wanted when I wanted and didn't have to feel bad about it. I never knew such freedom. It felt like a weight off my shoulders, and I started to feel good about myself again. These were the first recognitions of the toxic relationship I was in. I even found another job and resigned from the Met Police after seventeen years of 'service'. I felt liberated. 

I had a hard time negotiating a financial settlement with my ex-wife. My initial offer was simple. I agreed to keep paying the mortgage for nine months and offered to sign the house in her and her boyfriend's name. I wanted the children to stay in their home. She refused and insisted that I continue to pay the mortgage indefinitely and that I go and fuck myself. 

I couldn't agree; all she wanted was for her lifestyle not to change in any way. She refused to engage with me and eventually stopped communicating with me altogether. 

I continued to pay the mortgage for nine months. It was a stressful period because I was forced to make a choice. I tried speaking to her whenever I dropped the kids home, but she refused. 

I explained that my money would run out after nine months, but she completely shut me out. 

I still saw the kids most weekends and once every Wednesday. They weren't happy. They didn't want this situation, and I spent a lot of time trying to hold that space for them to have their feelings and to get comfort from their Daddy. I kept in touch with them during the week, planning how we would spend our weekends together. My eldest son loved gaming, my daughter loved art, and my youngest son loved movies.  

I was visiting Edinburgh with someone I had recently started dating when I got a text from my eldest son. I was due to pick them up the following day from part of the school holidays. The text wrote:

'Hi Dad, It's ****** ,

We have decided that we don't ever want to see you again.

You are making us homeless. You don't care about us, you fucking cheating shit dad. Have a nice life we are blocking you so don't bother trying to call if you respect us, you will not come over to the house, and you will leave us alone. Bye'

My body went pale, and I felt weak. It was so unexpected; I couldn't quite believe what I had just read. I immediately tried calling him, but I was already blocked. I tried my daughter's phone but was blocked from that too. I called them from another phone, and my son answered. The tone of his voice didn't match the tone of the text. I asked him what was happening, and he said he knew I cheated and was sad. 

I told him that I loved him and that whatever happened between his mother and me did not reflect our relationship as father and son before getting disconnected. 

She was right when she said I would get what was coming to me. I never expected it to be this.

I gave it a couple weeks before I decided to go to the house to work this out. No one was home when I arrived. In anticipation of no one being there, I pre-wrote a letter to my children, pleading to talk to me so we could work it through. The letter to my wife begged her to stop this and to speak to me to resolve the matter. I never got a response.

The mortgage had fallen into arrears at the bank, and they had already told me they would soon start proceedings to repossess the house. My hand was forced, and I needed to sell it quick. 

Not selling it would mean that the bank would take the house and all its value. If I could sell it before the bank, I would be able to settle the arrears, and some money would be left over for the divorce settlement.

It was the Estate Agent who told me that they had already moved out. He managed to get hold of her on her mobile after trying to gain access to take photographs of the house. 

Walking inside the semi-empty house was upsetting. I worked so hard for that house, and here I was inside the house I had lived in for 10 years with my wife and three kids. 

It's funny how quickly your world can be turned upside down. What was sad was that my letters were still on the floor behind the door, buried under final demand notices and junk mail. 

It took me a year to find out where my kids were living. They moved to a rented house a mile away from the house with her boyfriend. I wrote letters to the kids but never got a response. 

I eventually went to the house with a witness to talk to her. Experience with the Police told me that these situations could become messy. 

I knocked on the door, and she came to the door but slammed it in my face. I shouted through the letterbox, 'Babies, it's Dad; I love you and miss you guys so much. I want you in my life and want to talk about it with you if you let me' and sat in my car for 15 minutes hoping that someone would come out. No-one did.

A week later, I received a letter in the post from the local police constabulary. It said that I had been reported for a criminal offence and that I should come to the Police station voluntarily to be interviewed as part of their investigations.

She was clearly using the system against me and was glad I brought a witness. I went to the police station and was interviewed in their custody suite. 

The officer read out a statement that they had taken from her. She alleged that I came to the house and threatened to kidnap the children. She also alleged that I had shoved her to the ground that same time. 

The Police Officer interviewing me took this very seriously and sought answers. He didn't know that my witness had filmed me when I went to the house.

I showed the Police the footage, and they dismissed the case immediately. Fuck knows how this case would have evolved if I hadn't shown the Police that recording. 

I immediately applied to the Family Court to get a Court Order.

When my application was acknowledged, COVID-19 started spreading and triggered a lockdown. The entire Court system went into a deep freeze, and it took the best part of two whole years before my case was heard in Court. 

Those two years were the most challenging period of my life (so far). I fell into a deep depression and contemplated suicide. I needed help but was too bogged down in my misery to do anything about it. 

I started going to individual therapy. I knew I had to dig deep and face the darkest parts of myself to come out of the other side. I needed to stay healthy and strong for my children; they needed me more than ever.

I managed to pull myself together but didn't do it alone.

I was now in a committed relationship with the person with me on the Edinburgh trip. She has stood by my side at the lowest points in my life. I couldn't have done it without her. We had our difficulties, and both had come away from difficult relationships. We have put the work in and have grown immensely. 

When the Court eventually heard my case, they quickly issued me the Court Order I was looking for, but only for my youngest son. My other two children were now too old for the Court's jurisdiction. Had it not been for the delay caused by Covid, they would have also been subject to the order.

I had to pay and employ a contact centre to manage the transition of reconnecting with my son. However, to this day, nearly a year after the order was granted, she still needs to bring him to the centre and has breached the Court order. The fight to see my children is still as real today as it was five years ago. This time I have found the tools I need to survive this fight, and Bitcoin plays a part in that. 

Bitcoin has given me a new perspective on life and nourishes strength. 

The Discovery:

Bitcoin came into my life when I felt depleted of hope. I struggled to get up in the mornings and plough through the day. 

It was during a moment when I reflected on the positive things that had happened in my life and remembered the friends I had made during my electrical engineering course. The tutor was a character and made the course fun. I remembered how he used to always talk about buying crypto. Sometimes he used to talk more about his crypto investments than the course itself. 

I wondered if he made money from it, so I googled 'crypto investment'. I noticed that the price of various cryptos had sky-rocketed in the eight years since college. I was instantly intrigued by it. 

I saw the potential to make some money, plus I needed a project to distract me from what was going on in my life.

I downloaded an exchange, opened an account, and deposited money on the top 10 cryptos. It was a complete gamble. I didn't know anything about the 'assets'. I started researching to better understand what I was putting my money towards. It became a welcome distraction from what I was going through. 

I started watching videos on You Tube on how to make big £££.

I was listening to traders talk about the market. It was like learning a different language, and I started to think about when I should take my profits and when to buy them. 

I didn't have the first clue about what I was doing, but something felt wrong. I started to seriously question what these cryptos were and how they worked. 

I treated it like I would a police investigation. The first thing in any investigation is to gather evidence. 

I took each of the cryptos I was invested in and started understanding what they were and where they came from. It's essential to gather evidence about the pros and cons. You need to do more than just read articles and watch videos with a vested interest in the asset. You must keep an open mind, check the validity of the information, and hold it accountable.

Bitcoin's back story fascinated me; I started reading about Satoshi Nakomoto, the Genesis Block and Decentralisation. During my investigation, I found that each crypto had a CEO with a vision and a use case. This is when I first realised that Bitcoin was different. The more I researched, the more I knew that the pump-and-dump money making mindset I started to have no longer stood up as viable.

To understand Bitcoin, I had to go back to basics. I realised that I needed to know how money worked, and asked myself, What is Money?

My mind was blown when I learned that money is backed by nothing, that it's just printed and called valuable by decree. I knew what 'global reserve currency' meant and what happened in 1971 when Nixon took us off the Gold Standard (temporarily). 

The more I read about Money, the more it looked like the shit-coins I was invested in. They are also not backed by nothing and are in control of the CEO and the corporations pushing them.

I was taking a long flight to the US and downloaded The Bitcoin Standard on audio book to listen to. This was the tipping point for me. I told myself while listening to it that I don't care about the gains any more. Bitcoin was more than money; it was freedom.

As soon as I arrived at my destination, I transferred everything over to Bitcoin and haven't looked back since.

It made me realise that the pump and dumpers were playing the system in the hopes of making fiat money. It was like a game at a casino and it was something I quickly moved away from. I no longer check the price of Bitcoin all day; Bitcoin is so much more than its price.

Conclusive Thoughts:

Bitcoin has made me see the world differently. It has forced me to reassess and re-examine everything. 

It has made me realise that money as we know it has corrupted society more than we could understand. Money truly is the root of all evil.

I am a Bitcoiner and believe that Bitcoin will free us from a system that oppresses us all for the benefit of the few. They control every aspect of your life, from food, healthcare, environment, and identity. It doesn't have to be this way. Bitcoin is Peace, Bitcoin is Freedom, Bitcoin is Choice.

My discovery of Bitcoin resulted from life-changing circumstances within my life.

Had I not struggled with money in the way I did, I wouldn't have needed to enrol on the electrical engineering course. In this course, a seed was planted in my mind. That seed started to grow when I reflected on my life after a series of traumatic events. 

Working for the state made me see the façade of the state. The state never cared about me, nor did it have my back. People like me are a resource at their disposal. 

If the state can get you to love it, it can get you to follow its commands. The Police are the enforcers of that command but grateful for that lesson and the skills I gained to gather information to fully understand it. 

Being alienated from my children has been the hardest thing I have ever faced. The support I have had from my partner was everything. 

My partner offered me warmth and support. Our long and difficult conversations about life, politics, the world, and our relationship made me see things from a different perspective. It primed me to be open-minded about other ideas. I am now in a calm place, yes I am in pain over what I am going through, but Bitcoin has given me a low time preference and has helped me pace myself.

Thank you for getting to the end and reading about my Life/Rabbet Hole Story.

Hey, after reading this, please consider following me on Twitter at QuestioningBitcoin?. I’m also a host on a new and exciting Bitcoin Podcast called Rabbit Hole Stories @rabbitholetales https://rabbitholestories.co/ Also I’ll soon have some YouTube content released on my YouTube channel https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCglq5mAfSFALBAmNtCEqh2w Thank you

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