⚡️✍️ FLASHBACK - He just scribbled a few words on an old notepad... and it changed thousands of lives.

"BUY BITCOIN"

With these few letters scribbled in a hurry on a notepad, and presented live behind the chairwoman of the FED, this unknown man would never have thought that this July 12, 2017 would go down in Bitcoin history.

Discover the incredible story of the "Bitcoin Sign".

It all begins in July 2017, in Washington.

The Congressional hearing room is packed, the cameras focused on Janet Yellen, Chairwoman of the US Federal Reserve.

She's about to give a speech on monetary policy, inflation and the stability of the dollar.

But behind her, a young man in a suit, looking studious, has strategically positioned himself so as to be perfectly in the camera's field of vision.

And suddenly, as Yellen begins her speech, he raises a yellow notepad high, on which it reads, in large letters:

"BUY BITCOIN"

The legend of the "Bitcoin Sign Guy" was born.

The young man was Christian Langalis, 25 at the time.

An analyst at a macro fund, with a passion for libertarian philosophy and Austrian economics, he was already convinced that the global monetary system was a house of cards.

He spent his evenings devouring the writings of Schumpeter, Rothbard and Hayek.

For him, Bitcoin is THE way out of the inflationary policies of central banks.

And that day, he acted on a whim.

"I knew I was going to get kicked out of the room, but I just wanted a little screenshot for a laugh later..."

What he didn't know was that this image would become one of the most famous in Bitcoin history.

Christian was fired live... then propelled to iconic status.

As soon as his sign was raised, congressional security swooped down on him. Langalis is escorted out of the room.

The cameras continue to roll.

The journalists, for their part, don't immediately understand what has just happened.

But on Twitter, Reddit and the Bitcoin forums, the scene explodes. The "Bitcoin Sign Guy" meme was born.

Christian receives messages from all over the world, but also... donations.

7 BTC flowed into his wallet in just a few days. At the time, that was still around $16,000.

But that was just the beginning.

Langalis wasn't content to rest on his laurels.

He continued to buy Bitcoin. In his own words, 99% of his fortune remained invested in BTC.

He also co-founded Tirrel Corp, a startup developing Lightning Network wallets on Urbit, to further strengthen users' financial sovereignty.

He has also raised funds for Coin Center (a Bitcoin advocacy organization in Washington), and has become a popular speaker at crypto events.

And all this time, the famous scribbled yellow notepad sat quietly at home, in a sock drawer, almost forgotten.

I took it out after 6 years," he says, "and I felt really weird about it.

In April 2025, Christian finally decided to part with it. He put it up for auction on Scarce City, a platform specializing in auctions paid for in Bitcoin.

The result?

16 BTC, or over 1.1 million dollars at the time.

The buyer, a collector known under the pseudonym "Squirrekkywrath", even specified that he intended to display it in his family office.

This poor yellow notepad, which could have ended up in the garbage can, has become a historical artifact of Bitcoin, on a par with Satoshi's notebooks.

When Langalis is asked how much a Bitcoin will be worth in 10 years' time, he answers without hesitation: "Over a million dollars, for sure."

📢 Don't hesitate to share if you learn something, and check out the comments where I'll post several photos illustrating this note.