From Shipwreck to New Course: How Can I Reshape the Future Using Blockchain?

Original Title: The Genesis Story: How Crypto Found Me
Original Author: @hmalviya9
Original Translation: zhouzhou, BlockBeats

Editor's Note: @hmalviya9 recalled how he was inspired by his friend Rish from Google and MIT, creating the blockchain platform Itsblockchain.com, and combining it with Digital Gorakh to build a global digital identity system. In communicating with team members Mehul and Jeet, he found that they struggled to understand the potential of blockchain. Faced with a heavy debt and a team that could not see the future, the author decided to leave the old project behind, pursue the opportunity of blockchain, and ultimately chose to let go of the past, focusing on building a brighter future. Blockchain became his new mission.

The following is the original content (slightly reorganized for better readability):

I turned to that teacher who had always helped me understand things of value in the future—my teacher was Google.

Google is not just a search engine—it is the greatest teacher for anyone curious enough, and who knows how to ask questions. If you know how to ask questions, Google can open doors that the traditional education system doesn't even know exist.

And you only truly ask questions when you are driven by a problem you want to solve. Not to pass an exam, not to show off, but to truly solve that problem that keeps you awake at night.

The problem I wanted to solve was simple yet challenging—how could I find a technological moat for Digital Gorakh?

Not just a feature or product, but a defense layer, strong enough to make investors excited about us even if they see our messy equity structure and willing to fund us.

I understood the game—it's all about making money here, not charity. But if I could show them the future we are building—a future that only we can achieve—then that ugly equity structure would be like a small dent on a Ferrari.

For weeks now, I have been working day and night to improve the Digital Gorakh product. I'm not waiting for a miracle to happen—I'm making calls, sending emails, reaching out to potential clients. I successfully found two teams that have developed incredible technology in the mobile biometrics space.

One of them even applied for a patent, allowing smartphones to scan thumbs and irises — a technology that was once only achievable through expensive equipment during UIDAI's AADHAR registration activities.

The deal I closed means we can now deploy the same biometric capability at a lower cost globally — no bulky devices, no long queues at a central location. Just your smartphone in hand.

It was at that moment the true vision of Digital GorCard started forming in my mind:

"What if we could create a universal identity system — like AADHAR — but for the entire internet?"

We wouldn't need a physical center but would have 10,000 DG devices set up globally, creating a million new digital identities for real people each year, ensuring security and global portability. This would become a new layer of the internet — a real, verifiable digital identity.

That's when I realized: Digital GorCard wasn't just a visitor management system. It could become a global platform for creating internet identities.

As the vision became clearer, the underlying hardships were equally brutal. I sent hundreds of emails every week trying to establish partnerships across continents. Through these efforts, I secured potential clients in Mexico and Kenya. These teams loved our product idea and actively promoted it to local customers. Theoretically, our sales pipeline was building. However, to scale this business to the next level, I needed one thing — funding.

And to attract real funding, we needed not just a product but a vision supported by technology that others couldn't easily replicate. So I turned once again to my teacher — Google — with a bigger question: "How do we build the world's most secure global identity system?"

That's when Google quietly replied to me with an answer — Blockchain.

As I delved into researching blockchain, I had a sense of déjà vu. That strange feeling, as if I already knew this thing.

Then, suddenly, it clicked — Bitcoin.

I remembered the days in college, when we were madly trying out various things in Jalandhar's small apartment with an Alienware laptop. Back then, my friend helped me mine a few bitcoins, when bitcoin was still very cheap, almost worthless.

However, during the same period, I suffered a significant loss due to a scam called Liberty Reserve. I foolishly thought that Bitcoin was also a scam, so I hesitated and gave up.

The last time I saw the price of Bitcoin was $50, and now, when I checked again, it had risen to $400.

I sat there, staring at the screen, starting to blame myself for not having enough curiosity back then. If only I had trusted my gut, learned more, my life might have been entirely different now.

But this regret only lasted for a few minutes.

Because soon I realized — "This time, you are still early."

I realized that the blockchain was still in its early stages, and this was the moment for me to be ahead again, to seize the opportunity — just like the hacker era, like the early days of blogging, like every wave I had caught before.

Being a step ahead, learning something that the world wouldn't realize for years seemed to have become part of my DNA.

I knew that the best way to master a technology is to learn and share.

Because when you teach others, you learn it better, tenfold better.

I wasted no time, opened up GoDaddy, and started looking for a domain name containing the word "blockchain." After an hour of searching, I found it — Itsblockchain.com

I immediately booked the domain, created Twitter and Facebook pages, and decided: I will start writing down everything I have learned.

Not as a professional blogger, but as a curious individual, sharing what he is figuring out — sharing with the world.

At the same time, I knew I needed technical prowess to truly integrate blockchain into the digital Gorka. So, I called Rish, my old friend, who was studying at MIT at the time — possibly the smartest brain I could reach out to then.

When I presented this idea to him, he was immediately excited. We decided not only to write articles about blockchain but also to co-found Itsblockchain.com together and start building a global blockchain community in India — all of this happening while others still didn't understand what blockchain really meant.

Rish has also provided me with tremendous help on the technical front. He has custom-built for our product a detailed architecture of a blockchain-based universal identity system. I quickly integrated it into the new investor pitch deck I was preparing. Now, as I pitch the digital Gorka, it is no longer just a mundane visitor management system—it is an entry into a globally digital identity secured by blockchain.

Everything started to make sense—except the people around me.

Mehul and Jeet just couldn't grasp it. They are still stuck in the franchise model and local transaction thinking. For them, blockchain is just "extra work"—not a transformative opportunity.

I tried to explain, "We are already recording verified visitor data every day. With biometrics, we have a real opportunity to build a decentralized identity network!" But it's like explaining the Internet to someone still stuck in the fax machine era.

And it's not their fault. In 2016, blockchain was indeed too early. Most people hadn't even heard of it. Even fewer could understand how it would permanently reshape the internet. In those frustrating moments, I realized something powerful—I was on a sinking ship.

A debt of 500,000 rupees was suffocating us. A team that couldn't see the future.

And only 2 months left until everything collapses.

I faced a choice: to stay on the sinking ship out of loyalty or start building a new ship to meet the person I was becoming—the person ready to create greater things than oneself.

As I delved deep into my heart, the answer became clear: blockchain is my mission now.

I must keep moving forward. I must leave behind the old chaos and pour everything into building a future enterprise, so I never again miss out on opportunities due to fear or ignorance.

"Original Post Link"

Welcome to join the official BlockBeats community:

Telegram Subscription Group: https://t.me/theblockbeats

Telegram Discussion Group: https://t.me/BlockBeats_App

Official Twitter Account: https://twitter.com/BlockBeatsAsia