I lived on Bitcoin for a week. In 2013.
Bitcoin was surging to record highs of $100. (That doesn’t seem that high anymore!) An editor at Forbes Magazine, where I was a reporter at the time, said someone should try to live on the cryptocurrency. I volunteered.
I lost 5 pounds. I had to move out of my house. And I was living in a haze of caffeine deprivation. But I came to understand Bitcoin and the ecosystem of people around it. The journey started here.
The Final Night
I celebrated the week’s end by throwing a dinner at Sake Zone with my remaining crypto-stash. I extended an open invitation on Meetup and to a community of Bitcoin enthusiasts on Reddit. The night was captured by videographer Taylor Soppe. And I later wrote about it in The New York Times. I spent a little more than 10 bitcoin on the dinner. As of this writing, that amount of bitcoin is worth $500,000.