On his way to the seminar, Rahul stopped by the campus canteen. The smell of hot oil and roasted chicory hit him instantly—a flood of nostalgia. He ordered a crisp medhu vada and a tumbler of steaming filter coffee, strong and slightly sweet. As he balanced the stainless-steel cup and saucer, he realized just how deeply he had missed this. Not the food alone, but the pace of it—the quiet hum of a pre-lecture morning, the light clatter of steel plates, the warmth of something familiar.
A few feet away, someone lit a cigarette. The scent curled through the air—sharp, bitter, oddly grounding. In his previous life—which now seemed like just minutes ago—Rahul would have instinctively reached into his pocket. Filter coffee and a sutta had been his morning ritual. It was almost a personality trait. But today, he didn't feel like it. Not revulsion exactly—just an absence of craving, like the edge of a habit had been quietly sanded down.
Without thinking, he flipped the coin.
It spun once and landed silently in his palm.
Heads.
Rahul frowned, just slightly. The gesture had been unconscious. The result, strangely comforting.
Rahul walked into the seminar room ten minutes early. The metal chairs were still mostly empty, the projector screen still blue, and a faint echo of footsteps carried down the hallway. He took a seat near the back, angled slightly toward the door—an old habit from years of late arrivals and quiet exits.
The tag on the poster outside the room still floated in his mind: "Guest Lecture: Cryptographic Currencies and Distributed Trust—Dr. Elia Theodorou, University of Nicosia."
In his last life, he hadn't even read it properly. He'd gone to the CFD seminar in Room 105 instead—sat through 45 minutes of incomprehensible turbulence modeling, nodded politely, and forgotten it all within a week.
But this time, he had chosen differently.
The professor entered a few minutes later—a tall, wiry man in his forties, Cypriot by accent, with a crisp white shirt and an easy academic manner. He set up his slides methodically, nodding at the few students trickling in.
Rahul's mind raced. March 11th. The blockchain fork bug was going to hit the Bitcoin network tomorrow. The price would drop, people would panic, and then it would bounce back stronger than before. All of that would happen in less than 48 hours.
The professor cleared his throat and began.
"This morning, one Bitcoin is worth roughly forty-seven dollars. That will seem laughable to many of you in ten years. Or terrifying, depending on whether you bought any."
A few students chuckled. Rahul didn't. He leaned forward slightly, eyes locked on the projection.
"This lecture isn't about how to get rich. It's about how trust, for the first time, can be decentralized. Cryptographic proof replaces institutions. Incentives replace regulations. Consensus replaces enforcement."
The slide advanced: a simplified blockchain diagram, followed by charts of early market adoption.
As the lecture unfolded, Rahul began jotting notes—not just about the content, but about the timeline. He knew what was coming. Ethereum hadn't been proposed yet. Dogecoin was still a joke on Reddit. Exchanges were janky, regulations were nonexistent, and wallets were as secure as damp tissue.
But opportunity was everywhere.
After the lecture, a few students hovered near the professor to ask follow-ups. Rahul waited until most of them had left. Then he stepped forward.
"Professor," he said, voice calm but deliberate, "if someone wanted to invest in Bitcoin discreetly, what would you recommend?"
The man studied him a moment, then smiled faintly. "Discreetly? Cold storage. Paper wallets. And buy off-exchange if you're nervous."
Rahul nodded. "And if someone didn't have access to an exchange?"
"Well, you'll need someone who does. Or you mine it yourself, if you have the hardware—which you probably don't."
Rahul thanked him and stepped back.
That evening, Rahul sat cross-legged on his dorm bed, laptop open, fingers tapping rhythmically. He couldn't mine—not from here, not with university restrictions. And he couldn't open an international exchange account either. But maybe…
He flipped open a tab for LocalBitcoins.
Yes. Peer-to-peer trading was still active.
He had around ₹3,000 left from his stipend advance. About $55. Enough for a single Bitcoin, maybe. If he could verify the seller. If he could meet them.
He stared at the screen.
Then he looked down at the coin on his chest.
Heads.
Always heads.
Maybe, just this once, that was enough.