I didn’t grow up hearing about blockchain or crypto. The only chains I knew of were the ones binding us to limited opportunities, patchy internet, and the unspoken rule that said, “Just survive.” I was just a regular Nigerian student, trying to find my path in a country where every small win feels like a war medal.
It was during a hot evening, one of those days NEPA had done its worst and mosquitoes danced freely in the dark. I was lying on my hostel mattress, scrolling through Twitter, praying my battery wouldn't die before I could save some free PDF textbooks. Then I saw a flyer “Intro to Blockchain: Free Online Workshop.” No certificates, no money required. Just curiosity. I blinked, clicked, and unknowingly stepped into a world that would change everything.
The workshop started with the words, “You don’t need to be in Silicon Valley to make an impact in Web3.” That line hit me like a spark in dry grass. At that moment, something inside me woke up. I didn’t have much just an aging Android phone, unstable light, and data that finished faster than my noodles but I had hunger. Hunger to learn. To do something different.
So I started digging. Late nights became my classroom. I would download videos with borrowed hotspots, charge my phone at church when power failed, and watch Solidity tutorials with a candle on. I remember once watching a full 2 hour course using borrowed data from a friend I still owe him airtime till today.
It wasn’t easy. Sometimes, I would question myself. What am I even doing? Will this Web3 thing ever pay off? The terms confused me DAOs, smart contracts, dApps it felt like I was trying to read Chinese in Braille. But I didn’t stop. I couldn't stop. Because every time I wrote a successful line of code or saw someone from Nigeria get a Web3 job or grant, my heart whispered, “This could be you too.”
Then came the communities Twitter Spaces, Discord groups, Telegram chats. People I had never met cheered me on, helped me debug errors, showed me how to submit to hackathons, how to write my first proposal. For the first time, I didn’t feel invisible. I wasn’t just a student struggling with fees I was a builder, a learner, a dreamer among dreamers.
My first smart contract failed. The second one too. But by the third, it worked and I danced around my room like I had won a Grammy. I didn’t care that my roommate thought I was mad. For me, it was proof: I could create. I could belong here.
I’ve worked on projects now. I’ve earned small crypto bounties that helped me buy data and even support my younger brother's WAEC form. I’ve contributed to open-source projects, written Web3 threads that got hundreds of retweets, and even got a mentor from Kenya who checks on me weekly.
But I won’t lie it’s not all rosy. Some days, the power goes out in the middle of a live coding session. Some nights, I cry silently when I feel stuck. But then I remember why I started not just for me, but for every other student like me who thinks they’re too poor, too far, too forgotten to matter in the digital world.
Now, I look back at that night I clicked on the workshop flyer and smile. That small act of curiosity changed my life.
To the world, I’m just a student in Nigeria. But to me? I’m someone who’s building a new internet, brick by digital brick, with nothing but passion, persistence, and an old phone that still refuses to die.
Web3 didn’t just teach me blockchain.
It taught me belief.
And one day, the world will hear my story just like you did.