In 2008 the banks broke, and someone quietly published nine pages that answered them.
As the 2008 financial crisis unfolded, an anonymous author published the Bitcoin whitepaper on October 31, and Apple had opened the App Store that July. India launched Chandrayaan-1 in October, beginning its first mission to the Moon.
2008 was the year trust in the old system cracked in public. Banks that were supposed to be eternal collapsed, and governments printed money to catch them. On the 31st of October, while the world watched the fire, someone calling themselves Satoshi Nakamoto published nine pages describing money that needed no bank at all.
Almost no one noticed. The same summer, Apple had opened the App Store and turned the phone into a platform anyone could build on.
I did not know in 2008 that I would be holding Bitcoin two years later. But looking back, the door I would walk through was built in the exact month everyone else was staring at the crisis.