The very first time I ever heard of bitcoin was back in college, around 2014. My priority was getting a summer internship and I was too focused on starting my career to start looking into it.

My very first exposure to crypto was in 2017, which I believe was one of the very first bull runs. All of my friends and coworkers were talking about crypto and were buying random coins. I took the easy and safe route, creating a Coinbase account and bought only bitcoin and ethereum. It was also the time when CryptoKitties launched and it was too complicated for me to get started. All of my disposable income and time outside of work went into traditional investments, and enjoying my post-college life.

The last run-in I had with the space (before it pulled me in) was in 2018 - where in another universe, I would’ve joined a prominent blockchain infrastructure company. I wonder how different life would be if I made that move.

My web3 journey truly began around early 2021, driven by a combination of a blog post, NBA Top Shot and a whitepaper for a web3 game.

1. Around February, a friend of a friend mentioned something about ‘cryptoart’ and NFTs. One night I decided to look into what the heck NFTs were, and stumbled upon this blog post by Justin Cone:

   https://justincone.com/posts/nft-skeptics-guide/

   I was so engrossed in the post that I pretty much stayed up the whole night reading the post and poking around different marketplaces - Rarible, SuperRare & OpenSea.

2. A few weeks later I got access to NBA Top Shot. Like many others, it was the first exposure I had to NFTs and I was hooked. It was March 2021 and it was the peak of the platform. There was way more demand than supply and everyone was going crazy for pack releases. Digital collectibles made sense for me so it was easier for me to understand as I grew up collecting and selling sneakers.

   I couldn’t get enough of Top Shot moments and I wanted more, which led me to seek out NFTs on Rarible. I felt that Rarible’s UX was more intuitive vs OpenSea and the NFTs were more affordable than what I saw on SuperRare. I ended up buying 2 NFTs for the art and was really thrown off that I had to pay gas fees that cost as much as the NFTs themselves.

3. A couple weeks later I randomly stumbled upon a whitepaper for a web3 space MMO game called Influence. I don’t recall how but I remember that after I read that whitepaper, it clicked for me as I grew up spending way too much time playing games. I spent the whole night setting up my Metamask wallet, figuring how to send ETH over and how to mint.

That was the major tipping point for me. From that point forward, after my first minting experience - I found myself spending all my free time on twitter and discord. Although I didn’t know anyone else in the space, it was so exciting that it didn’t feel intimidating at all.

I jumped into the web3 gaming and metaverse rabbit hole first, with my curiosity leading me to explore and poke around different ecosystems (outside of ETH) - WAX, Avalanche (AVAX) and ENJIN. It was inevitable that I would soon find myself getting sucked into PFP NFT projects which led me to Tezos (XTZ), Stacks (STX) and Solana (SOL).

My first 8 months or so in the space was a solo journey. I didn’t make any meaningful connections and I didn’t really have a group of web3 friends to bounce ideas or talk shop with. I took a short break away from the space and came back just in time for my first IRL NFT event in November 2021 and it hooked me back in.

I found the web3 space exciting and I wanted to do more than just support projects by buying. I wanted to contribute and I didn’t know how. I started to be a tad more active on twitter - tweeting, replying and eventually started a couple of threads. It still amazes me how a simple tweet would eventually lead to some meaningful connections in the space. Long story short, I found myself a solid group of web3 friends (shoutout to the AOHS group) and then found myself contributing to a web3 learning DAO.

Unfortunately, the DAO wasn’t really a fit for me but it made me realized that I wanted to be part of a community where I can learn, contribute and making meaningful connections in the space.

In January 2022, I joined JUMP, a web3 community for marketing and advertising professionals. The community was welcoming and it was easy to connect with other like minded individuals. I had countless virtual coffee chats with other members and even had the chance to meet some of them IRL. I met builders, founders, investors and other hobbyists like myself which made web3 feel even more special for me.

Around April and May was the moment where I was debating whether or not to take the leap and jump into web3 full-time. I spent almost every waking minute thinking about web3 and I couldn’t sleep at night because I was either reading or talking about web3. A couple of my friends were telling me to take the leap and I was hesitant because it was such a fun hobby, I was worried I would lose all the fun if it was a job.

A buddy of mine told me to check out Safary, a community of world-class growth experts and community builders exploring the Web3 ecosystem, since it was right up my alley and they were taking applications for their new batch of cohorts.

In May 2022, I was accepted into Safary’s batch 3 of cohorts and I’m grateful to be in such a supportive and strong community. Shoutout to Justin for creating such a wonderful community of growth professionals.

Then came NFT NYC in June, a week full of events, networking and parties. NFT NYC still feels unreal - meeting everyone IRL for the first time. Talking to random people IRL and realizing that we were twitter friends or had mutual friends. It was truly an amazing experience and one that I never imagined myself having. I’m not going to go into it but here’s a recap.

I met so many passionate and talented builders, founders, artists and web3 enthusiasts. I felt so inspired that I knew in that moment, I was ready to make the leap.

With that, I am excited to share that I’m jumping the web3 space full-time, joining Mona to help grow its metaverse world building platform and social network which enables creators to build the open metaverse.

I’m super pumped for my next chapter and I’m grateful for everyone I met during my web3 journey that ultimately influenced me to take this leap. I wanted to shout out the JUMP community, Safary (Justin & community), Quintin, Matt, Cody and Aaron for making my web3 journey special. I’m looking forward to continue learning from you all.