$BTC
If we say that the cat roaster is the one selling shovels during the gold rush, then Chang Jia is the one running a tavern selling information.
However, perhaps due to being overly idealistic, Chang Jia's Bitcoin career has not been smooth; whether it's Babit or the later Bitmain, both experienced a brief explosion of popularity but faded quickly.
Compared to those early entrepreneurs who were contemporaries of Chang Jia and have long achieved financial freedom, Chang Jia is clearly not as 'successful'.
So why do we spend so much time introducing the story of Chang Jia? Not just because he is a preacher of Bitcoin in China, but also because his Babit almost connected the entire cryptocurrency circle during those years.
Let’s put it this way, during that wild era of Bitcoin, almost all the early entrepreneurial big shots got to know each other through Babit.
One day in 2013, a person named 'GGGGG' posted a thread, the core content of which was about an offline meetup.
And the venue was set at the sacred place for grassroots entrepreneurs in Beijing: Garage Cafe.
That offline meetup was full of losers, but most of them became big shots later, such as Shen Yu, Zhao Dong, Li Xiaolai, Pumpkin Zhang, and so on, discussing the future of Bitcoin.
From then on, cryptocurrency players from all over the country began to frequently organize offline meetups, connecting resources, pulling people together, and creating one cryptocurrency myth after another.
For example, Wu Jihan met Zhang Ketuan, who came from an integrated circuit background, and together they founded Bitmain.
Pumpkin Zhang met Li Jiaxuan and established Beijing Jianan Yunzhi Innovation Information Technology Co., Ltd., which later became a giant in mining machines.
Li Xiaolai met Zhu Fangyi and also began to set up his own mining farm.
Li Lin met Du Jun and started planning to create a platform.
Of course, there was also the cat roaster, a significant portion of mining machines were sold on the forum.
These people often gathered in a small courtyard, talking all night, and then left with great ambition.
The night was as dark as ink, the lights dim, and the road ahead was completely unclear, but everyone still felt full of enthusiasm.
Under the connection of the early cryptocurrency enthusiasts, mining machines and farms began to bloom everywhere on the market, with names like Silverfish, Little Bee, Rand, TMR, SmarT, 42BTC, etc., marking the arrival of China's Bitcoin golden era.