In 2013, my roommate spent 100 yuan to buy Bitcoin, while I topped up 800 Q coins. The most heartbreaking Bitcoin story.

In 2013, a classmate of mine excitedly told me he had just bought a Bitcoin for 100 yuan.

That evening, the hallway smelled like instant noodles. He was the one cooking.

I remember very clearly, he was holding a fork and told me, “Bitcoin, decentralized, total supply 21 million.”

I asked him, “Can you eat it?”

My monthly living expenses were 800 yuan. I topped up 100 yuan worth of Q coins. Dancing purple diamonds.

His Bitcoin was stored in something called a “wallet.” He showed me the screen, a string of garbled characters like an address.

I asked, “What if you lose this thing?”

He said, “Private key.”

I still don’t know what a private key is. Back then, I thought he was reciting a spell.

Later, he would watch the price every day; a two-yuan increase could have him talking all afternoon. A five-yuan drop, and he’d bury his head in the cheapest braised noodles in the cafeteria.

In 2017, he sold some of it and bought a used Civic.

That night, when he threw the car keys on the table, again with the smell of instant noodles. He made them himself.

I didn’t say anything. By then, my Q coins were already spent.

Last year, there was a popular term called “cognitive monetization,” which kept making me think of that bowl of noodles.

Actually, he later told me that in 2013, there was a Silk Road website in the US that was already buying pizza with Bitcoin. I didn’t believe it.

At the time, I thought pizza had to be paid for with cash.

Only after reading the Federal Reserve’s 2023 digital currency discussion document did I realize that back then, the Bank for International Settlements had no framework at all. He really read through dozens of pages of white papers and believed in something invisible.

That dorm room was shaded, and in winter, socks hung for three days without drying.

The blue light from his screen illuminated his face as he recited Satoshi Nakamoto’s message from the Genesis Block.

I was busy fighting a boss in the game.

Back then, I didn’t feel time passing.

Now, he no longer trades. Occasionally, he posts a photo of his kid building blocks on Moments.

We are in different cities. Last week, he asked me, “Are you still playing Dancing?”

I said, “Not anymore.”

The chat window showed “The other person is typing” for a long time.

Finally, he sent a meme.

It was a cat.

Bitcoin has surpassed $100,000. The Civic he sold has long since depreciated.

But this isn’t a story about whether “it was right to buy back then.”

It’s that I truly exchanged those 800 yuan for months of happiness. He used that 100 yuan to find a reason to believe in himself.

No one lost out.

Later, I realized that some people dare to bet part of their lives on an unknowable future at twenty.

And others need to smell the heat of instant noodles before they dare to upgrade their cognition.

In this life, the most precious thing isn’t the money missed, but the self that dared to believe.

The world is always changing, new things emerge endlessly—Bitcoin, AI, the next wave…

Many hesitate while smelling the noodles, few pick up the fork and take a first bite.

Don’t wait until everything is understood before getting on the train. Sometimes, opportunity is that steaming bowl, something you don’t fully understand yet but smells a bit delicious.

May we all stop just looking down at the boss and miss the moment to look up and see the future.

And you? What were you doing back in 2013?

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