It was the first epoch, and not long had passed since block 113800 was mined. Plato looked around him at an empty room. No chairs, no television set, no more silver coins. All his most prized possessions, sold. What did it matter if he had these material possessions, which he couldn't stow away in the trunk of his firebird, anyway? A tent, a sleeping bag, some food and safety supplies, a reliable connection. He had bought an ill-fitting pinstripe suit for when he would need to turn salesman, lecturer, consuultant or interviewee of whatever news broadcaster might be interested to cover the momentous event.

He could hardly wait since the idea came to him. He was unable to sleep. The thought had consumed him entirely ever since mpkomara posted bounty to the forum offering 400 coins to anyone willing to live entirely off bitcoin for one month which he cancelled when he decided it was too easy. This struck a chord in PLATO. This haphazard post would change the course of his entire life, sending him barreling down the highway along the Hudson river, down to Florida, crossing over New Orleans, Austin, west thru Salt Lake City, south past San Fran and finally up the coast to all the way to Seattle. Everything conspired to lead him toward the road, every thought, and he could almost hear the radio fuzz as his midnight black firebird edged over mountain peaks to coast down over the foothills into his destination. Mpkomara walked back his bounty, and besides, would not offer it to him unless he purchased his car completely using bitcoins. Whatever....Nothing would stop Plato. There were clearly enough forum members interested in the idea of going on the road entirely on bitcoin, and there was even some mention of selling ad-space on the bumper of his car for bitcoin businesses. He pledged to do it, never touching fiat currencies along the way, but it felt as though he had fallen into it, as though it just as easily could have been anyone else. His car would be one exception, which was not entirely paid off, and had a lien denominated in dollars but this he could stomach as long as it served his mission of spreading the Good Word.

He heard of others working themselves into a fever when they discovered it-- stories circulated of one developer, Gavin Andresson, hospitalizing himself by not eating food but voraciously consuming information and excreting code, another user went blind from overexposure to his computer monitor, which, due to a manufacturing flaw, produced too many lumens and singed out his retinas. Luckily, the he had managed to mine some before then, but no one really know if he managed to sell those, or how he could trust anybody to do it for him. Plato couldn't make very much mining, though he tried, and besides his hankering for adventure made him too impatient. He sold his belongings and watched in his rearview mirror as Hartford shrunk out of sight.

Packing List
Here’s my packing list. What am I forgetting?

• Snazzy suit (you’re more approachable in a suit)

• 3’x4’ whiteboard - for advertising if when I get stranded. I’m thinking ‘BUYING GAS, NO $ $, ONLY BITCOINS’ or maybe a simple ‘STRANDED, ASK ME ABOUT BITCOINS’. Got a clever sign idea? Leave a comment.
• A kickass tent
• Sleeping bag
• Cell phone, laptop, Nintendo DS, mp3 player
• Inverter for charging those from my car’s 12v socket
• First aid kit
• Car safety kit - maglite, fire extinguisher, flares, reflective triangle
• 5ish gallon jugs of water
• Plenty of trail mix

Bitcoin pitch from therealplato.com blog

so let's say you want to transact some business with someone in another country and you're probably going to send dollars to them you're probably going to use the internet maybe you'll use Visa maybe you will use PayPal maybe a bank transfer all these are intermediaries and some of them are better than others but they all have their own fees they all have their own restrictions and none of them are really perfect Bitcoin is a way to remove these intermediaries so I can directly send money to you it's it's the people's currency MH and I think I think that in itself is really one of the most important things that you can grasp about Bitcoin

He didn't 'spend' bitcion per se, not in the sophisticated sense one might imagine it nowadays, where businesses can spin up Lightning QR codes, and presto, you're only left scratching your head for two or three minutes until the proprietor comes to you to explain that they actually had no idea they even had the option. These were the days of a fledging community. Members of Bitcoin Talk made their locations available on a public Google Map of his planned route. Forum members volunteered their time and space to provide PLATO with lodging, food, and gasoline, all paid for in bitcoins.

It was early April when he began his trip, not long after the first time he posted about it on Bitcoin Talk. He left on April 9th toward Boston then tl Schenectady NY. It looks like he was in NYC on April 16 to record the inaugural episode of The Bitcoin Show (Video), and then in Huntsville AL on the 26th to give a talk (part 1 and part 2) on Bitcoin at the University. Toward the end, he mentions he hadn't yet had to set up camp.

Haiku from his blog

Tried to zip zipper
Dark tent, by feel, come on, zip
Oh, two halves, wrong half

A tornado ripped through Alabama while he was passing through, and he mentions on the forum that he spent some time there volunteering to clean up from the damages. Also, he started a disaster relief fund donating proceeds to victims of the disaster. The above forum link mentions a donation address that he set up on mybitcoin.com (https://web.archive.org/web/20110714142059/https://www.mybitcoin.com/). He also mentions this e-wallet service during his interview with Wagner. The latter allegedly lost 25 000 bitcoins when this service was taken down, which he mentions in a video released shortly after the incident. Wagner advocates against reversing the transactions, emphasizes the importance of not leaving funds in in service providers or exchanges, expresses regret for having promoted mybitcoin.com to his friends and family, and reiterates that bitcoin was not hacked but a trusted intermediary went AWOL with people's coins. To my knowledge, there is no record as to whether PLATO lost funds on mybitcoin.com, which happened 27 July that year, at which time when he was nearing the end of his journey.

June 13th he posted that he was in LA and then the details of his trip start to become sparse. Pete Rizzo shared a video of him visiting Casascius, who buys him gas, and then it seems they go into his house to check out his mining rigs and they even hit a block, which gets donated to the trip. He says he is still in SLC at the time, where he did a rado interview (?). From then until the end of August, he becomes less active sharing the status of his journey on the forum. His last post on the journey is about how he wants to begin living off of bitcoin exclusively, suggesting he must not have lost all of his coins during MyBitcoin.com debacle.

The last post from his blog:

I was gonna keep travelling up to Washington and Vancouver, CA but I’m strongly tempted to stay here. This is apparently a common temptation, and the reason behind the impressive unemployment levels and homelessness in Portland. I’ve been starting to look for housing (preferably to be paid in bitcoins) and a job (preferably an engineering job in the solar sector.) If you happen to have leads on either of those, drop me an email - plato@subvert.me

From then on, there are a bunch of shitcoining posts from his account on Bitcoin Talk, although it would seem that his account got hacked.

All posts by me after 2012 were a compromised account. Probably by "BBOD The Best Futures Exchange". SORRY Y'ALL

Whatever happened, if he was using BBOD, it seems he did fall to the allure of the shitcoining siren song.

Where is PLATO? Did he settle down in Portland or continue is adventure? What happened to the firebird?

I like to think he got out with a good chunk of change and found a way to continue his evangialism, continuing to attend meetups. He was passionate about making Webs of Trust, which, I believe, was his main motivation for the road trip. I do think he toucj the shitcoining stove, but I have no idea how badly he got burned.

Archive link to therealplato.com