In 2013, a classmate of mine excitedly told me he had just bought a Bitcoin for a hundred bucks.

That evening, the hallway smelled like instant noodles. He was the one cooking them.

I remember it very clearly. He was holding a fork and said to me, "Bitcoin, decentralized, total supply of 21 million."

I asked him, "Can you eat it?"

My monthly living expenses were 800. I topped up 100 yuan worth of Q coins and bought some Zuan for Dancing World.

His Bitcoin was stored in something called a "wallet." He showed me the screen—a string of garbled characters, like an address.

I asked, "What if you lose this thing?"

He said, "Private key."

I still don’t know what a private key is. Back then, I thought he was chanting a spell.

Later, he would watch the price every day. A two-dollar increase could have him talking about it all afternoon. A five-dollar drop, and he’d bury himself in the cheapest noodle soup in the cafeteria.

In 2018, he sold some of it and bought a used Civic.

That night, when he threw the car keys on the table, the smell of instant noodles was back. He made them himself.

I didn’t say anything. By then, I had already spent all my Q coins.

Last year, a term became quite popular: "Cognitive Realization," which kept making me think of that bowl of noodles.

Actually, he later told me that in 2013, there was a Silk Road website in the US that was already buying pizza with Bitcoin. I didn’t believe it.

At the time, I thought pizza had to be paid for in cash.

It wasn’t until I read the Federal Reserve’s 2023 digital currency discussion document that I realized there was no framework back then. He really read through dozens of pages of white papers and believed in something invisible.

That dorm room was shaded, and in winter, socks hung for three days without drying.

His screen’s blue light reflected on his face as he recited Satoshi Nakamoto’s message in the Genesis Block.

I was busy snatching BOSS.

Back then, I didn’t feel time was passing.

Now, he’s long stopped trading. Occasionally, he posts moments on social media—photos of his kids building blocks.

We’re not in the same city. Last week, he asked me, "Are you still playing Zuan?"

I said, "Not anymore."

The chat window showed "The other person is typing" for a long time.

Finally, he sent a meme.

It was a cat.

Bitcoin has surpassed $100,000. The Civic he sold has long since depreciated.

But this isn’t a story about whether we should have bought back then.

It’s about how I truly gained months of happiness by exchanging that 800 yuan. He used that hundred bucks to find a reason to believe in himself.

No one lost out.

Later, I realized that some people dare to stake part of their lives on an uncertain future at twenty.

And others need to smell the heat of instant noodles before they dare to upgrade their cognition.

In this life, the most valuable thing isn’t the money missed, but the moment you missed the "courage to believe" in yourself.

The world is always changing, new things keep emerging—Bitcoin, AI, the next wave...

Many hesitate, smelling the noodles and hesitating. Few pick up the fork and take a first bite.

Don’t wait until everything makes sense before jumping in. Sometimes, the opportunity is that steaming bowl of noodles—something you don’t fully understand yet, but it smells pretty good.

May we all stop just looking down at the BOSS and miss the moment to look up and see the future.

And you? What were you doing back in 2013?