Jay is the BTC OG who made a meme by purchasing a Lamborghini with the cryptocurrency. He went out of a poverty-level existence to enjoying a wealthy lifestyle at a gated community thanks to mining BTC in the first days — although not without needing to worry for his family’s safety.
That’s when Jay (not his actual name), in his early 30s, and with the support of his wife who’s also a Bitcoiner, used almost 217 BTC to purchase what is believed to be the first BTC Lamborghini at the Lamborghini Newport Beach dealership. Then he provided the evidence on the anonymous imageboard 4chan.
This demonstrated that BTC had actual value — who would take fake cash to get a Lamborghini? A meme was born that found a million other memes.
„It is kind of overpowering as a person — I generated a meme.“
An archetypal BTC OG, Jay got his start around 2010.
„I had been really poor — I made like $8,500 per year while encouraging a family, and babies cost money. I’d businesses and savings earlier, but going into university and beginning a family got me damn close to $0,“ he remembers, puzzled.
„It is incredibly hard to HODL bitcoin if you eat pasta daily and earn fuck-all, and invest what you have on computers and miners. However, I had that faith, I knew that this was world shifting.“
Now, Jay lives in a gated community within a little city of under 100,000 in Southeast Asia together with his wife, three kids, and three dogs — one of these a professionally trained and imposing guard puppy whom I’d no doubt was ready to tear my face off on command once I visited.
His home really is made up of two houses on two roads, discreetly connected in the center, making an understated facade. Whereas the front garage contains“normal“ luxury vehicles, the rear holds none besides BTC Lamborghini 2.0.
„Regrettably because I had been close to $0 had children, I had to sell as much BTC so early because I needed some safety net. I could add at least one zero to my web worth if I had no family — but it’s a paradox because family is the reason why I do it“
Supplied.
Wealth worries
Jay’s fortune is crowned by a loaded 1,000 BTC Casascius“bodily BTC“ gold coin of that just a few exist. It is, in actuality, the most valuable coin in the world, with a face value of approximately $60 million dollars plus a collector premium of many millions more.
This is how we came to meet, as I behave as a broker of these rarities and wrote the Encyclopedia of Physical Bitcoins and Crypto-Currencies. For Jay, owning these coins can, however, prove stressful“if a person joins me to holding tens of millions of dollars in what are efficiently bearer bonds“ Such coins hold the private key to the stated amount of Bitcoins under a tamper-proof tag, making them comparable to bearer bonds, gold or cash.
Such privilege is“difficult to cope with“ on the family front, Jay states. Living in a state with a huge wealth disparity, he clarifies that cash could be metaphorically used to build a larger wall to distinguish himself from the masses, or a larger table in order to bring them into his side. „Honestly, I have to do both, however I would like to construct a larger dining room,“ he states. He believes he faces very real dangers, including the kidnapping of family members by international criminals.
„I had problems with some Russian oligarchs in the past, but I do not think I am a goal now.“
A loaded 1,000 BTC Casascius coin, that Jay bought for $5,000 Still, it’s hard to put stress or paranoia apart — states of mind that Jay believes natural to him. Late one night, as we enjoyed beer and burgers on the edge of town, Jay’s merriness suddenly turned into keen focus because he spied a vehicle loitering near his Lamborghini. He was clearly uncomfortable.
Initiation
Jay describes a normal childhood in an typical lower-middle-class family in the U.S. midwest. Money was occasionally tight, but basic needs were coated and faculty was OK. He awakened in geography, which only came naturally to him with no need to study.
He began working at age 12, stapling large boxes collectively at a warehouse owned by a family friend. The work was repetitive and it was illegal to use such a young kid, but Jay was there voluntarily and believes that he acquired a valuable perspective from socializing with business owners at this young age.
After high school, Jay registered at a university close to home to study international relations and computer engineering. He, nevertheless, became disillusioned, presuming that“a lot of what the university was teaching me was absolute bullshit“ and largely aimed at making him „a good wage slave.“ As he studied cash,“it blew my head that fiat money was predicated on nothing — it had been debt“ He dropped out to conduct his own book-selling company, which he later sold to a firm that itself went on to be acquired by Amazon.
„The understanding of the fiscal system and cash being bullshit helped inspire me to drop out of university at the U.S.A. and also do my own thing“
Jay used the money to travel, initially heading into Mongolia, which he felt could be a“missed gem“ and might maintain economic opportunities. Afterwards in Kazakhstan, he spent some time with a group that“trained gold eagles to hunt wolves,“ and he heard high praise of Southeast Asia from other passing travelers — knowledge he filed away for later. His money ran low, and he soon returned to the U.S. where he discovered some success trading oil futures out of home.
„When the tsunami hit Southeast Asia on Boxing Day 2004, I realized that sitting around doing the bullshit nothing I had been doing was bad and jumped onto a plane to help.“
Jay chose to stay and attended a local university, this time choosing to study business administration. Years after graduating and struggling financially, he came across the BTC white newspaper in 2010 via the infamous Cypherpunks mailing list, where it had been discussed at the first days of the cryptocurrency. He’d read a book about cryptography earlier — he adored reading — and also the project caught his eye. He found it amazing,“but I thought there was a really low possibility it might become worldwide money — it had been too crazy.“
The biggest attraction wasn’t the money aspect, but the concept that“this breaks censorship.“ He recalls someone putting Bible verses into the blockchain early on — eternally indelible. With BTC, anybody can write freely on the wall of eternity.
Jay was confounded by some of the discourse. „I was not quite well-read in the philosophy afterward, so I did not really know what the leftists saw at the thought,“ he recalls.
The culture of the forum evolved as waves of discourse and new users followed news coverage of BTC. There was a loose“core group“ of fans who considered each other close to the project;“some fresh people would be added every now and then, and some would leave“ The culture, however, grew more poisonous.
Although he reasons that the toxicity was due to some“Wild West culture“ that naturally creates at a gold rush of sorts, Jay notes that people in the modern WallStreetBets community,“appear to be incredibly polite and welcoming.“ He adds that while he“doesn’t wish to say anything bad about anybody,“ he assigns a responsibility for the culture upon the Bitcointalk forum’s government.
„I believe the direction of a community helps shape it. The individual running Bitcointalk was quite stern and pretty much dropped to the function — I wonder if it might have been different.“
By contrast, the ancient ETH community appeared friendlier at the moment, possibly due to the credit of Vitalik Buterin acting as a visible community leader.
„I advised Vitalik over Skype that ETH was likely to fail because it had been too centralized.“
Despite his worries, Jay possesses some ETH and is not an intense BTC maximalist like some of the peers.
„There shouldn’t be people who hold keys to the internet. It ought to be completely math-based, because it can be,“ he reasons, referring to what he sees as unnecessary centralization and reliance upon human characters within the ETH community.
Future directions
Already an old-timer, little more than a decade after stumbling upon BTC, Jay is cautious about newer developments, calling DeFi“definitely risky“ because of the risk of the direction of some jobs having the power to unilaterally take charge of your capital. He’s got a similar take on NFTs, stating that“99% of them are going to become worthless, but some could become cult classics,“ a line of thinking that was especially notable regarding ICOs in the 2017 boom.
Much like many people who reach their target, he has everything he could ever dream of, but it’s not exactly clear what he should do next, considering he believes he has sufficient to financially cover his descendants into the 4th generation. One thing’s for certain — he is not searching for fame. „I don’t really want this article out there, but I think overall it is fair and the story ought to be told,“ he states.
„I have reached my target, so now what? I have accomplished my life objectives but I am not dead yet, therefore I have to do something. No idea exactly what — but something…“
Jay is the BTC OG who made a meme by purchasing a Lamborghini with the cryptocurrency. He went out of a poverty-level existence to enjoying a wealthy lifestyle at a gated community thanks to mining BTC in the first days — although not without needing to worry for his family’s safety.
That’s when Jay (not his actual name), in his early 30s, and with the support of his wife who’s also a Bitcoiner, used almost 217 BTC to purchase what is believed to be the first BTC Lamborghini at the Lamborghini Newport Beach dealership. Then he provided the evidence on the anonymous imageboard 4chan.
This demonstrated that BTC had actual value — who would take fake cash to get a Lamborghini? A meme was born that found a million other memes.
„It is kind of overpowering as a person — I generated a meme.“
An archetypal BTC OG, Jay got his start around 2010.
„I had been really poor — I made like $8,500 per year while encouraging a family, and babies cost money. I’d businesses and savings earlier, but going into university and beginning a family got me damn close to $0,“ he remembers, puzzled.
„It is incredibly hard to HODL bitcoin if you eat pasta daily and earn fuck-all, and invest what you have on computers and miners. However, I had that faith, I knew that this was world shifting.“
Now, Jay lives in a gated community within a little city of under 100,000 in Southeast Asia together with his wife, three kids, and three dogs — one of these a professionally trained and imposing guard puppy whom I’d no doubt was ready to tear my face off on command once I visited.
His home really is made up of two houses on two roads, discreetly connected in the center, making an understated facade. Whereas the front garage contains“normal“ luxury vehicles, the rear holds none besides BTC Lamborghini 2.0.
„Regrettably because I had been close to $0 had children, I had to sell as much BTC so early because I needed some safety net. I could add at least one zero to my web worth if I had no family — but it’s a paradox because family is the reason why I do it“
Supplied.
Wealth worries
Jay’s fortune is crowned by a loaded 1,000 BTC Casascius“bodily BTC“ gold coin of that just a few exist. It is, in actuality, the most valuable coin in the world, with a face value of approximately $60 million dollars plus a collector premium of many millions more.
This is how we came to meet, as I behave as a broker of these rarities and wrote the Encyclopedia of Physical Bitcoins and Crypto-Currencies. For Jay, owning these coins can, however, prove stressful“if a person joins me to holding tens of millions of dollars in what are efficiently bearer bonds“ Such coins hold the private key to the stated amount of Bitcoins under a tamper-proof tag, making them comparable to bearer bonds, gold or cash.
Such privilege is“difficult to cope with“ on the family front, Jay states. Living in a state with a huge wealth disparity, he clarifies that cash could be metaphorically used to build a larger wall to distinguish himself from the masses, or a larger table in order to bring them into his side. „Honestly, I have to do both, however I would like to construct a larger dining room,“ he states. He believes he faces very real dangers, including the kidnapping of family members by international criminals.
„I had problems with some Russian oligarchs in the past, but I do not think I am a goal now.“
A loaded 1,000 BTC Casascius coin, that Jay bought for $5,000 Still, it’s hard to put stress or paranoia apart — states of mind that Jay believes natural to him. Late one night, as we enjoyed beer and burgers on the edge of town, Jay’s merriness suddenly turned into keen focus because he spied a vehicle loitering near his Lamborghini. He was clearly uncomfortable.
Initiation
Jay describes a normal childhood in an typical lower-middle-class family in the U.S. midwest. Money was occasionally tight, but basic needs were coated and faculty was OK. He awakened in geography, which only came naturally to him with no need to study.
He began working at age 12, stapling large boxes collectively at a warehouse owned by a family friend. The work was repetitive and it was illegal to use such a young kid, but Jay was there voluntarily and believes that he acquired a valuable perspective from socializing with business owners at this young age.
After high school, Jay registered at a university close to home to study international relations and computer engineering. He, nevertheless, became disillusioned, presuming that“a lot of what the university was teaching me was absolute bullshit“ and largely aimed at making him „a good wage slave.“ As he studied cash,“it blew my head that fiat money was predicated on nothing — it had been debt“ He dropped out to conduct his own book-selling company, which he later sold to a firm that itself went on to be acquired by Amazon.
„The understanding of the fiscal system and cash being bullshit helped inspire me to drop out of university at the U.S.A. and also do my own thing“
Jay used the money to travel, initially heading into Mongolia, which he felt could be a“missed gem“ and might maintain economic opportunities. Afterwards in Kazakhstan, he spent some time with a group that“trained gold eagles to hunt wolves,“ and he heard high praise of Southeast Asia from other passing travelers — knowledge he filed away for later. His money ran low, and he soon returned to the U.S. where he discovered some success trading oil futures out of home.
„When the tsunami hit Southeast Asia on Boxing Day 2004, I realized that sitting around doing the bullshit nothing I had been doing was bad and jumped onto a plane to help.“
Jay chose to stay and attended a local university, this time choosing to study business administration. Years after graduating and struggling financially, he came across the BTC white newspaper in 2010 via the infamous Cypherpunks mailing list, where it had been discussed at the first days of the cryptocurrency. He’d read a book about cryptography earlier — he adored reading — and also the project caught his eye. He found it amazing,“but I thought there was a really low possibility it might become worldwide money — it had been too crazy.“
The biggest attraction wasn’t the money aspect, but the concept that“this breaks censorship.“ He recalls someone putting Bible verses into the blockchain early on — eternally indelible. With BTC, anybody can write freely on the wall of eternity.
Jay was confounded by some of the discourse. „I was not quite well-read in the philosophy afterward, so I did not really know what the leftists saw at the thought,“ he recalls.
The culture of the forum evolved as waves of discourse and new users followed news coverage of BTC. There was a loose“core group“ of fans who considered each other close to the project;“some fresh people would be added every now and then, and some would leave“ The culture, however, grew more poisonous.
Although he reasons that the toxicity was due to some“Wild West culture“ that naturally creates at a gold rush of sorts, Jay notes that people in the modern WallStreetBets community,“appear to be incredibly polite and welcoming.“ He adds that while he“doesn’t wish to say anything bad about anybody,“ he assigns a responsibility for the culture upon the Bitcointalk forum’s government.
„I believe the direction of a community helps shape it. The individual running Bitcointalk was quite stern and pretty much dropped to the function — I wonder if it might have been different.“
By contrast, the ancient ETH community appeared friendlier at the moment, possibly due to the credit of Vitalik Buterin acting as a visible community leader.
„I advised Vitalik over Skype that ETH was likely to fail because it had been too centralized.“
Despite his worries, Jay possesses some ETH and is not an intense BTC maximalist like some of the peers.
„There shouldn’t be people who hold keys to the internet. It ought to be completely math-based, because it can be,“ he reasons, referring to what he sees as unnecessary centralization and reliance upon human characters within the ETH community.
Future directions
Already an old-timer, little more than a decade after stumbling upon BTC, Jay is cautious about newer developments, calling DeFi“definitely risky“ because of the risk of the direction of some jobs having the power to unilaterally take charge of your capital. He’s got a similar take on NFTs, stating that“99% of them are going to become worthless, but some could become cult classics,“ a line of thinking that was especially notable regarding ICOs in the 2017 boom.
Much like many people who reach their target, he has everything he could ever dream of, but it’s not exactly clear what he should do next, considering he believes he has sufficient to financially cover his descendants into the 4th generation. One thing’s for certain — he is not searching for fame. „I don’t really want this article out there, but I think overall it is fair and the story ought to be told,“ he states.
„I have reached my target, so now what? I have accomplished my life objectives but I am not dead yet, therefore I have to do something. No idea exactly what — but something…“
