Since I was a kid, I always wanted to know how things worked.
My grandpa was an electronics technician, so I got to see what was inside the devices he repaired: TVs, radios, my Nintendo… anything with cables 😅. That’s when I realized they weren’t magic objects, just a bunch of components working together.
Transistors, fuses, mosfets, resistors, capacitors, diodes, LEDs, inductors, power supplies… I could barely pronounce half of those words, but I was already fascinated.
From my grandpa I inherited the obsession of understanding electricity. How could people like Faraday, Franklin or, especially, Nikola Tesla create such important things without having a “manual of the universe” in front of them ⚡️
My brain was a factory of questions:
I had millions of questions, literally.
Some of them my grandpa could answer, others I found in books, and the rest… I figured out by experimenting. While experimenting I learned the meaning of “short circuit” and “electric shock”. Those lessons you never forget 😂
When I turned 9, my grandma bought me my first personal computer. I had already used PCs at friends’ houses or in cybercafés, but having my own was a different story. Now I could explore it with no time limits and no permission needed.
The first thing I tried was installing games I saw others playing: GTA, Need for Speed, Mario… That’s how I discovered they weren’t exactly free. Frustrating for a kid with no credit card 😅
To keep the long story short: that frustration pushed me into learning how to pirate software. Every week at school we talked about the latest movies or music we managed to get. Some friends gave me their SD cards so I could put songs inside, and in exchange I asked for a bag of Doritos. At that age I already understood what “traffic” meant 😂
When I was 11 my mom bought me a 3DS, a PSP and a Sony tablet. Again, I had to learn how to use them from scratch. Using a device is one thing, understanding it is another.
My grandpa’s workshop was located next to a store where a guy repaired smartphones and similar devices. I became one of his most frequent visitors. I’d go almost every day to watch how he worked and ask questions.
While he was repairing phones I saw he had programs on his PC that could access the motherboard and perform advanced operations.
Questions like:
Over time I became his little curious friend who basically interviewed him every day 😅 And of course, one day I asked him to teach me “how to hack an Android”.
When I was 12, I entered 5ème (my first year in France). That was the moment I discovered that “technology” could actually be a school subject. For many classmates it was the “whatever class”, but for me it was Disneyland.
We learned how to use Scratch, built small cars and little robots using Arduinos, and controlled them from the computer 🦾 For me, getting a robot to obey my commands felt like being Tony Stark talking to Jarvis 😅
During the whole collège period (5ème → 3ème) I spent hours experimenting. Sometimes I skipped certain classes to go to the CDI and keep playing with Scratch.
Later, in lycée (Bac) and then in post-lycée (BTS), I took a different path: architecture, engineering, and economic/management studies related to construction.
There I didn’t learn much about electronics or hardware, but I learned something important: software could be a creative tool. I started using CAD and 2D/3D animation software like Excel, Microsoft Planner, Word, Archicad, Autocad, Revit, Blender, etc.
The more I progressed, the more I got into automating things. During my BTS MEC I developed skills in Excel: functions, operations, macros… and even tried a bit of VBA. On my own I learned how to make macros for Autocad or Attic+.
In the second year we had to learn a Revit plugin called Dynamo, used to automate architectural projects. Our math teacher thought it would be better to learn Python first, so she decided to teach Python to the whole class for the entire first year.
For me, learning Python was amazing. According to her, we spent more time on Python than necessary and it wasn’t strictly required for the final program, but in my opinion it was the best decision she could have made. Math without Python would have never been as interesting for me. After every class I asked her for extra exercises 😅
At home, my curiosity expanded again: how computers worked internally, what the internet really was, what “Web 2.0” meant, what artificial intelligence was, how programming worked, etc.
I also spent time learning cybersecurity basics, how to tune a PC, and—most importantly—how to destroy Windows dozens of times 😂 Eventually I learned how to make a bootable USB with Ubuntu, and from Ubuntu create another USB to reinstall Windows.
Probably because of all that I got a good score in the PIX exam: 180 points. (One day I should put the picture here.)
After my BTS I felt I needed to change domains, so I took a gap year. (If I ever write the blog about that year, I’ll link it here.)
During that period I met my CGE teacher again and we talked about orientation. I told him I was interested in computer science and Data Science. Around that time I was obsessed with AI models and automation tools like N8N and Router, and LLaMA from Meta had just leaked so I wouldn’t shut up about it 😅
He told me a 42 school had recently opened in my city.
At first I thought 42 was some kind of legend. No teachers, no courses, no schedules, peer-to-peer, project-based, gamified learning… I had a ton of questions.
I went to the portes ouvertes once… twice… three times… four times 😅 Normally one is enough, but I needed to understand the vibe before committing.
When the time came, I passed the piscine. I didn’t expect it. I also didn’t expect to actually be selected 😅
During my first six months at 42 I had to deal with the famous impostor syndrome. I wasn’t in the top 20, and I constantly had the feeling that they had accepted me by mistake.
At the same time, I discovered something about myself: my gap year lifestyle + the freedom of 42 made it very hard for me to focus for long periods. One day I was into cybersecurity, the next into web development… too much information, zero structure 😅
Still, I learned a lot during my first year at 42: C, shell/bash, how Linux works (and its history), how to create libraries, makefiles, linked lists, programming logic, 2D graphics, and how to re-implement functions from scratch.
Projects I worked on during that year:
After that first year I realized I wasn’t performing as well as I wanted. Because of my dispersion, every project took too long. And outside of school I was also working on other things.
42 had implemented a new system called Pace. Instead of giving 2–3 years to finish the common core, you now only had the time required to finish levels. To get extra time, you had to level up. If not… the famous Black Hole.
Then came MiniShell, one of the hardest projects in the common core. I had to make a critical decision.
Not many people were left to do it. My first mate fell into the Black Hole because he had to focus on a company he was building. My second mate wasn’t far from his own deadline.
Even though I had enough time to finish MiniShell, I had taken two months of vacation and my mate couldn’t wait for me. So first decision: let him finish the project with someone else. Second (and harder) decision: abandon the ship.
Since I had been selected from my first piscine, I could still do a second one later if I wanted.
I had also watched videos like Amy Plant explaining why she left 42, and the guy summarizing his experience after 10 years in the ecosystem. Several of my friends had left too, to focus on their own projects.
And on top of that, 42 was changing its philosophy to adapt to AI, and in my campus everything was accelerating. When I looked at MiniShell and saw Cube3D coming next, I took a month to reflect and realized something important:
42 was amazing, but it wasn’t what I wanted at that moment.
I wanted to learn on my own. And although I left 42… 42 didn’t leave me 😅 That school taught me how to learn autonomously.
To my friends from 42: much love ❤️
Once I left 42, I had to make important decisions. If I wanted to build something, I had to do it from scratch and by myself.
In October 2025 I wanted to learn a thousand things at the same time: frontend, cybersecurity, data science, automation, AI models, cryptography, horticulture, English, books… too many interests, zero structure 😅
I applied the Warren Buffett principle: make a list of 25 things you want, pick 5, and say “no” to the other 20.
By the end of October I realized something: to learn as a pure autodidact, I needed to master Deep Work (see book). This time there was no Black Hole, no deadlines, no classmates pushing next to me. It literally felt like starting from zero.
So I went back to HTML from scratch. No skipping chapters. No “I already know this”. I wanted to build correctly.
I also needed a routine. In November I explored different places in my city to study: coworkings, libraries, cafés… With my gap year experience + 42, I built my own roadmap.
My plan: HTML → 3 weeks CSS → 3 months JavaScript + some frameworks. With that I could eventually offer services online.
But before thinking about clients, I had another question: since I didn’t use a bank account (I’m not a fan of centralized systems), how would I get paid for my work?
That pushed me into studying economics. Yes, I had done a BTS in management & economics, but I didn’t really understand how the economy actually worked.
I studied its evolution and discovered something I had always heard about but never understood: cryptocurrencies.
I was tired of hearing people say: “If I had invested in that tech before 2015 I’d be rich today”. My opinion: people who only think like that probably never get rich, because they don’t realize wealth is mostly the result of providing value, not just speculation.
That aside: I knew nothing about Bitcoin in December 2025.
I watched some videos and kept hearing terms I didn’t understand: blockchain, proof of work, hashing functions… Some concepts were easier like P2P or cryptography.
So I started by understanding Bitcoin and building my own blockchain. Since I was learning frontend, I turned everything into small pages and exercises.
The more I learned, the more interested I became. Every morning I woke up with new questions:
Every night I went to sleep equally fascinated. I realized there wasn’t “one” crypto. It was a whole universe of ideas: cryptography, game theory, economics, math, consensus, distributed systems… Beautiful in its complexity.
I explained what I was learning to my friends. Each of them gave me new problems or doubts, and I had to go back to studying to see if those problems were solved or not.
Many weren’t solved in a clean way. Smart contracts fascinated me too, but consensus mechanisms still had huge issues.
On one side: Proof of Work with its limitations. On the other: Proof of Stake trying to fix them, but creating new problems.
It was frustrating 😅
Then one friend told me something that changed the direction of my research:
“If you think you have an idea to solve it, then solve it.”
Not a technical invitation — a psychological challenge.
Every morning and night I kept trying to solve those problems. But every solution I imagined introduced new problems.
I know the principle: nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything transforms. But if Satoshi solved double spending without central authority, maybe I could solve consensus.
Eventually I realized thinking alone wouldn’t be enough. So I contacted a few friends. Sharing the problem made it three-dimensional.
By January 2026 I changed my routine: same cadence, same deep work, but now not alone. I contacted 5 people, and ended up working with 4.
After 300+ hours things started to connect. I saw an opportunity.
I wrote this post in mid-January 2026. After more than 300 hours studying blockchain, economics, consensus and cryptography, I feel like this will be my project of the year.
If you’re curious about what I’m building, here’s the project: SmartCoins. I’m documenting the whole process: learning, design, experimentation, and ideas.
Thanks for reading :)
Take care.