Thank you for sharing your story — I can really relate to it. Like you, I also started out on the outside of traditional finance, being driven more by purpose than profit. I built my career in digital forensics and e-commerce, earned an MBA and a JD, and eventually founded my own Web3 start-up, Shegby, Inc., which is a KYC SaaS and an early-stage Network State project.

I agree that Bitcoin (and crypto more broadly) demands proof of work in the truest sense. That's how I operate too — learning, building, shipping and sharing openly. The beauty of this space is that we no longer need permission to contribute — we just get on with it and let our work speak for itself.