In the summer of 2015, in a café in Zhongguancun, Beijing, the air conditioner was blowing cold air, but it couldn't dispel the programming anxiety that filled the room. 28-year-old Zhang Ming stared at the computer screen, his fingers typing out a series of codes on the keyboard. As a backend programmer at a medium-sized internet company, his daily job involved dealing with Java and databases, earning a monthly salary of 15,000, barely considered a middle-income in Beijing.
"Zhang, have you heard? Bitcoin has risen again." Colleague Xiao Wang came over with a cup of coffee, speaking mysteriously.
Zhang Ming looked up and adjusted his glasses: "Bitcoin? Isn't that the electronic currency? Didn't it collapse long ago?"
"That was in 2013," Xiao Wang lowered his voice, "and now it has come back to life, I heard many people abroad are playing it. My cousin invested 50,000 last year, and now it's tripled."
Zhang Ming smiled dismissively: "It's all a scam, right? There can't be such easy money-making opportunities."
But that night when he returned home and lay on the single bed in his rented room, Zhang Ming inexplicably opened the Wikipedia page for Bitcoin. As he delved deeper into the reading, his eyes brightened—decentralization, blockchain technology, a fixed total supply of 21 million... these concepts struck him like electricity.
"Isn't this just the digital gold of the internet age?" Zhang Ming murmured to himself.
In the following two weeks, he became obsessed, working during the day and spending his nights immersed in various Bitcoin forums and English technical documents. He even found Satoshi Nakamoto's groundbreaking paper published in 2008 (Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System) and read it repeatedly.
"Honey, I want to buy some Bitcoin." One evening during dinner, Zhang Ming suddenly said to his wife.
Wife Li Ting was feeding their two-year-old daughter when she heard this, her chopsticks paused in mid-air: "What coin?"
"Bitcoin, a digital currency, I think it will..."
"Are those just scams again?" Li Ting frowned, "It's not easy for us to save money, don't mess around."
"Just invest 20,000 as an experiment." Zhang Ming insisted.
In the end, Li Ting reluctantly agreed, on the condition that "if it loses money, don't bring it up again." In August 2015, Zhang Ming registered an account on Huobi and bought 3 Bitcoins with his savings, each priced at about 4,000 RMB. After buying, the price began to decline, dropping by 30% by the end of the year.
"See? What did I say?" Li Ting sighed every time she checked the family ledger.
Zhang Ming was surprisingly calm: "The technology is fine, price fluctuations are normal."
In 2016, Bitcoin began to slowly recover. Zhang Ming continued to study blockchain technology in his spare time and even attempted to write a simple cryptocurrency wallet program himself. He began to pay attention to every technological upgrade and fork of Bitcoin, gradually forming his own investment logic.
At the beginning of 2017, Bitcoin broke through 8,000 RMB. One night, Zhang Ming suddenly burst out of his study, excitedly telling Li Ting: "Japan officially recognizes Bitcoin as a legal payment method! This is a significant positive news!"
Li Ting was coaxing their daughter to sleep when she was startled: "Be quiet! What good or bad news..."
Zhang Ming ignored his wife's complaints, his eyes shining: "I want to sell that small house back home and buy Bitcoin with all the money."
"Are you crazy?" Li Ting stood up abruptly, "That's our only retreat! What if..."
"It won't happen, this time is different." Zhang Ming excitedly explained the entry of institutional funds and the progress of the Lightning Network, but Li Ting couldn't hear a word.
In the end, Zhang Ming compromised; he didn’t sell the house, but he started to invest 20% of his monthly salary into Bitcoin. By September 2017, China suddenly announced the closure of all cryptocurrency exchanges, causing Bitcoin’s price to drop by 30%.
That night, Zhang Ming didn't sleep at all, constantly refreshing the prices on overseas exchanges. At 4 a.m., he made a bold decision to transfer all of his Bitcoin to a personal wallet and continue to hold it through over-the-counter trading.
"Aren't you giving up? The country has banned it!" Li Ting was both surprised and angry.
"What is banned is the exchanges, not Bitcoin itself." Zhang Ming was surprisingly calm, "The true value will not disappear due to short-term policy fluctuations."
It turned out he was right. In December 2017, the price of Bitcoin surged to nearly $20,000, equivalent to about 130,000 RMB. The 3 Bitcoins Zhang Ming bought were now worth nearly 400,000 RMB.
"Sell it, " Li Ting looked at the price on her phone, her hands trembling, "It's enough for the down payment."
Zhang Ming shook his head: "Just wait a little longer."
The next two weeks felt like a roller coaster. Bitcoin first broke through $18,000, then began to fluctuate wildly. On December 18, Zhang Ming finally decided to take partial profits—selling 2 Bitcoins while keeping 1 as a "belief position."
"360,000 has arrived!" When the bank SMS notification sounded, Li Ting hugged their daughter, crying and laughing. They used this money to pay the down payment for a two-bedroom apartment in the suburbs of Beijing, ending their renting life.
In 2018, the cryptocurrency market entered a winter. Bitcoin's price continued to drop, breaking below $4,000 by December. Zhang Ming's "belief position" shrank by 80%, but he remained surprisingly calm.
"Now is the time to accumulate." He began to invest a fixed amount of spare money every month, not only buying Bitcoin but also starting to study emerging projects such as Ethereum. He created a crypto investment community, meeting like-minded friends to study white papers and technological advancements together.
In 2019, Zhang Ming made a key decision to switch jobs to a blockchain startup, taking a pay cut but receiving some project tokens as compensation. Li Ting strongly opposed this, leading to the most intense argument they had since their marriage.
"Have you been brainwashed? Why give up a stable job for a blockchain company?" Li Ting questioned with red eyes.
Zhang Ming was silent for a moment, then softly said: "I believe this is the future. Just like the internet in the 1990s, entering the market now may be a bit early, but it is definitely not wrong."
In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic broke out globally, causing a panic sell-off in the financial markets. Bitcoin was halved in a single day, dropping from $8,000 to below $4,000. The tokens of several projects Zhang Ming invested in plummeted by more than 90%.
That night, he sat alone on the balcony smoking half a pack of cigarettes. At 2 a.m., he made a surprising decision to mortgage his property for a loan of 1 million, using it all to buy Bitcoin and Ethereum.
"Are you crazy?" This time Li Ting really cried, "Our daughter is about to enter elementary school, what if..."
"There is no 'what if'," Zhang Ming hugged his trembling wife, "This time I see it very clearly. With global monetary expansion, scarce assets are bound to rise. Trust me, just this once."
In the next six months, Zhang Ming transformed. He worked during the day and studied DeFi (Decentralized Finance) projects at night, often staying up until dawn. He discovered Uniswap, a decentralized exchange, and became one of the earliest users to provide liquidity.
In August 2020, the DeFi summer boom erupted. The tokens of several projects Zhang Ming participated in early on skyrocketed by dozens of times. His investment portfolio soared from a low of 500,000 RMB to over 5 million.
In January 2021, Bitcoin broke through $40,000. Zhang Ming began to gradually cash out, first paying off the mortgage, then liquidating most of his Bitcoin holdings at $58,000. By the end of 2021, at the peak of the bull market, his total crypto assets exceeded 20 million RMB.
"We are free now." When Zhang Ming showed his bank account balance to Li Ting, his wife was stunned for a long time, then suddenly burst into tears.
Now, Zhang Ming is still active in the cryptocurrency space, but he is no longer all-in. He established a small crypto fund, managing only the money of friends and family. He summarized his experience: "Be greedy when others are fearful, and be fearful when others are greedy. The most profitable aspect of the crypto space is not technology, but human nature."
During the bear market of 2022-2023, Zhang Ming began to quietly accumulate again. He recently became fascinated with NFTs and metaverse projects, but this time he learned to control risk.
"Financial freedom is not the end, but a new starting point." Zhang Ming wrote in his investment notes, "The real challenge is to stay awake and remember: the market is always in cycles, there are no eternal myths, only eternal cycles."
