Did you know DeFi exists because of video games?
WoW and Minecraft are not just games, they can be considered digital societies.
And like every society, they need a way to exchange real value.
This is in essence Satoshi's vision.
A $500 billion blockchain exists because a 15 year old cried himself to sleep over a World of Warcraft update
In 2010, Blizzard nerfed Vitalik Buterin's favorite Warlock spell in World of Warcraft
His own words: "I cried myself to sleep, and on that day I realized what horrors centralized services can bring"
Quit the game. A year later his dad showed him Bitcoin.
He couldn't mine it and couldn't afford to buy it.
So he started writing articles for a crypto blog for 5 BTC each, worth about $3.50 at the time.
Those 5 BTC are worth $335,000 today for ONE article.
Co-founded Bitcoin Magazine at 17.
Applied for a job at Ripple.
They accepted him but couldn't sponsor his visa.
At 19 he proposed major changes to Bitcoin.
The community said no.
So he wrote his own whitepaper. Called it Ethereum.
30 developers reached out within weeks.
Dropped out of college. Got a $100K Thiel Fellowship. Sold ETH at $0.31 in the ICO and raised $18 million.
One person spent $310,000 on 1 million ETH in that sale worth around $4.3 billion at peak.
Another one invested $263 and got 850 ETH now worth over $1.7 million.
Ethereum launched when Vitalik was 21. Peak market cap: over $500 billion.
All because Blizzard nerfed a Warlock spell.