That year, I was 24, having worked for nearly 2 years, and I considered myself someone whose life was 'on the right track.' I had a stable income, small investments, and understood savings and financial management. But what truly made me sit in front of the screen late at night, gritting my teeth to buy my first Bitcoin, was not a candlestick chart from some tweet, nor a call from an influencer, but a deeper sense of fear: FOMO, anxiety about the future, distrust of fiat currency, and unease about my own fate.
In the past, I had biases against Bitcoin. The news only reported on crashes, scams, and environmental issues; elders said it had no intrinsic value; colleagues laughed and said, 'How could something like this become currency?' I once echoed those sentiments until I started to truly think about one question: If the money I have now becomes worthless in the future, what is the meaning of my hard work over the years?
Our generation is forced to face a currency environment of continuous 'hidden deprivation.' Prices rise year after year, asset prices soar, salaries stagnate, and the cash we painstakingly save silently depreciates. I looked at the New Taiwan Dollars in my hand and suddenly realized: It's not that we haven't made money; it's that what we're earning is decaying at an accelerated pace.
I began to re-understand Bitcoin. It does not rely on corporate revenue like stocks, nor does it require government endorsement like real estate. It is the purest product of a free market, a completely transparent, uncensorable, and fixed-supply asset. It does not promise you wealth in the short term, but for the first time, it gave me the feeling that 'I can choose not to play this unfair game anymore.'
At that moment, I was not investing in Bitcoin; I was fighting against fear.
FOMO is not just the fear of missing out on a bull market; it is also the fear of missing an opportunity to reclaim control of my life from outside the system. I no longer want to be a frog slowly boiled by inflation; instead, I choose to jump into the cold yet free waters.
At 24, I bought my first Bitcoin. Not because I was sure it would double, but because I finally realized one thing: Rather than continuing to believe in the logic of the old world, it was better to start using my own way to establish options for a new world.
