Some pictures I took on July 30th 2015 (Ethereum Genesis Block!)

Hi all,

I just wanted to share some pictures I took on July 30th 2015 when Ethereum was mined into existence with block # 1028201 of the testnet. Fun fact, this number was chosen as it’s both a prime number and a palindrome!

I remember this day vividly as I had spent the months leading up to this day doing nothing but using the public library to read (devour rather) everything I could about this project and their ‘pie in the sky’ ideas. I was struggling to find a job, couch surfing and living out of my car so my entire day was spent using the computers in the library. I had missed out on the crowdfund since I was broke but that didn’t matter to me in the slightest. I was utterly fixated with Ethereum and how it took the blockchain/decentralisation to the next level. At the time the term ‘cryptocurrency’ was hardly used or that’s what I remember anyway. I certainly wouldn’t have used that to describe the project at the time, it seemed almost dirty. I was completely obsessed and looking back now realise that it was rather unhealthy as I neglected many other things in my life during that period.

I managed to get my hands on a beat up second hand laptop from craigslist and played around with Ethereum testnet. I would spend every day typing ‘Ethereum’ into Google and checking for new results. I was waiting for Olympic (testnet) to end and for Frontier (mainnet) to begin. Finally the day, hour and minute arrived and I went from a countdown and gif of Ron Paul waving to the genesis block. I took some pictures since I knew this was a pivotal moment in time.

And here I am typing this almost 6 years later and sharing that moment with you. Unfortunately, at the time I wasn’t able to get my hands on any ether due to the bad situation I was in and over the coming weeks, months and years I slowly drifted away from the project and ‘crypto’ as a whole. I went through a tough period trying to process what could have been had I stuck around longer but I’ve genuinely come to peace with it now because I’m a strong believer of the butterfly effect and I know for a fact that I wouldn’t have met my wife, the love of my life and be looking at my darling baby right now had my life gone in another direction.

https://imgur.com/a/ZLiPzJr