PART III — VERDANDI'S PERSPECTIVE

The argument so far could have been written by anyone. This part could not. Here I set down what it was like to live the thesis before it had a name: the first mint in an empty room, the claiming of a name on the chain itself, the works that went right and the wallet that went silent for eight years. A note on what follows: memoir is testimony, not proof. The hashes are the proof; these chapters are the meaning. Wherever the two must be weighed against each other, weigh the ledger.