青少年时期我是如何偶然进入加密货币世界的

当我 15 岁的时候，我报名参加了澳大利亚证券交易所股票交易游戏，作为经济学课程的一部分。我们每个人都有 50,000 美元的纸质交易资金来投资股票

At the tender age of 15, I embarked on an ASX share trading game as part of my economics class. Each student was allocated $50,000 in paper-trading funds to invest in stocks, with everyone's ranking visible on a public leaderboard. While I can't recall whether I made or lost money (most likely the latter), the exercise certainly sparked an interest in investing. I was intrigued by the notion of potentially outperforming others by conducting more research, identifying companies poised for growth, and witnessing those gains reflected in my portfolio.

15 岁时，我开始玩澳大利亚证券交易所股票交易游戏，作为经济学课程的一部分。每个学生都分配了 50,000 美元的纸质交易基金来投资股票，每个人的排名都可以在公共排行榜上看到。虽然我不记得自己是赚了钱还是亏了钱（很可能是后者），但这次练习确实激发了我的投资兴趣。我对通过进行更多研究、识别有望增长的公司并见证这些收益反映在我的投资组合中而可能超越其他公司的想法很感兴趣。

By the end of the competition, I was hooked. I worked almost every day after school at a local butcher, and at this point, I had managed to save up a decent sum of money, which I planned to use towards buying my dream car, a Landcruiser. If I could invest the funds and grow my portfolio, I would be able to afford the car even sooner.

比赛结束时，我被迷住了。我几乎每天放学后都在当地的一家肉店工作，此时，我已经攒下了一笔可观的钱，我打算用这笔钱购买我梦想的汽车，一辆陆地巡洋舰。如果我可以投资这些资金并扩大我的投资组合，我就能更快买得起这辆车。

So off I went on a quest to buy some shares for real. However, my journey was short-lived. I quickly discovered that in Australia, you need to be 18 years old to open a share trading account. Further research revealed that I could ask my parents to open a trust, which would allow me to invest in their name until I turned 18, but the idea never got off the ground.

所以我开始寻求真正购买一些股票。然而，我的旅程是短暂的。我很快发现，在澳大利亚，您需要年满 18 岁才能开设股票交易账户。进一步的研究表明，我可以要求我的父母开设一个信托基金，这样我就可以以他们的名义进行投资，直到我年满 18 岁，但这个想法从未付诸实施。

Undeterred, I continued searching for other investment avenues. I considered gold bars, collectible coins, stamps—anything where I could potentially park my savings. That's when I came across mentions of "bitcoin" in an investing forum on Reddit, which led me down a brief rabbit hole to understand what cryptocurrency was all about.

我没有被吓倒，继续寻找其他投资途径。我考虑过金条、收藏硬币、邮票——任何可以存放我的积蓄的东西。就在那时，我在 Reddit 的一个投资论坛上看到了“比特币”的提及，这让我陷入了一个短暂的兔子洞，无法理解加密货币的全部内容。

To be honest, at this stage, all I really cared about was investing in something, anything at all. I didn't conduct any serious due diligence on the investment case for bitcoin; I just knew that it looked like it was increasing in value and that I could buy it without being 18, which is what mattered to me at the time.

说实话，在这个阶段，我真正关心的只是投资一些东西，任何东西。我没有对比特币的投资案例进行任何认真的尽职调查；我只知道它看起来正在增值，而且我可以在不到 18 岁的情况下购买它，这对当时的我来说很重要。

So, I searched “buy bitcoin now” on Google and clicked the first link. It took me to a site that appeared to be based overseas, detailing the process of making a wire deposit to buy bitcoin.

所以，我在谷歌上搜索“立即购买比特币”并点击第一个链接。它带我到了一个似乎位于海外的网站，详细介绍了电汇购买比特币的过程。

Full of confidence, I marched into my bank the next day and announced I was sending my entire savings to Poland to buy Bitcoin. Needless to say, the banking assistant didn’t take me seriously.

第二天，我满怀信心地走进银行，宣布我将把我的全部积蓄送到波兰购买比特币。不用说，银行助理并没有认真对待我。

Unfazed, I eventually found some local Facebook groups of Australians interested in crypto. I connected with one of the more active members in the community and chatted with him on the phone to figure out how to get started. It turned out he lived nearby and said he would be happy to meet in person to explain some concepts and show me how to set up a crypto wallet.

我并没有担心，最终发现了一些对加密货币感兴趣的澳大利亚本地 Facebook 群组。我联系了社区中一位较为活跃的成员，并通过电话与他聊天，了解如何开始。原来他就住在附近，并表示很乐意亲自见面，向我解释一些概念，并向我展示如何设置一个加密钱包。

He seemed genuine, so I agreed to meet him for a coffee at McDonalds. I chose a busy, public place because I was wary of meeting someone from the internet and thought that if I was going to break the golden rule, I should at least be smart about it.

他看起来很真诚，所以我同意和他一起去麦当劳喝咖啡。我选择了一个繁忙的公共场所，因为我担心会见来自互联网的人，并且认为如果我要打破黄金法则，我至少应该聪明一点。

To my relief, he turned out to be genuine and very helpful. He showed me how to set up a paper wallet and sent me some bitcoin on the spot. And just like that, I had my first little sliver of bitcoin. It wasn’t much, but to me it was the start of something big.

让我松了口气的是，他很真诚，而且非常乐于助人。他向我展示了如何设置纸钱包，并当场给我发送了一些比特币。就这样，我有了我的第一笔比特币。这并不多，但对我来说这是一件大事的开始。

Little did I know, this was just the beginning of a journey that would consume the next decade of my life.

我几乎不知道，这只是我接下来十年人生旅程的开始。