This essay begins at Jinwa’s wedding in Jinzhou, where the couple describe a relationship that developed without drama and has always felt natural and comfortable. That simple phrase leads the author to reflect on what allows love to endure: not constant intensity, but trust, space, and a steadiness that survives changes in fortune and identity. Jinwa and his wife have moved through the on-chain world’s sharp rises and falls together, making their calm companionship more persuasive than any ceremonial promise. The wedding also brings many members of an online crypto group together in person for the first time, revealing people who are intelligent, hardworking, and willing to take responsibility for unconventional lives. As everyone departs for different cities, the author concludes that relationships do not need frequent meetings to remain real. If the bond is still there, another message—“I’m in your city”—will be enough to begin again.
On August 30, I attended Jinwa’s wedding in Jinzhou.
It was probably the most important part of this trip.
The wedding was beautifully done. The venue looked wonderful, and so did the bride and groom. Jinwa arranged a hotel for us and took care of every meal and every detail of hosting. You could feel how much preparation the two of them had put into the day.
What stayed with me most, though, was the part when they exchanged their vows.
They said that being together had always felt comfortable. There was no clear story of one person pursuing the other, and no sweeping, dramatic turning point. They simply spent time together, gradually realised how well they suited each other, and naturally became a couple. Eventually, marriage felt like an equally natural decision.
I really loved that description.
We often imagine that love should come with overwhelming emotion. It should have a story, some push and pull, or one decisive moment that changes everything. Yet the relationships that truly last may be almost the opposite.
They may feel more like ease.
You do not have to keep proving yourself in front of the other person, or carefully maintain a particular version of who you are. Many things become understood without needing to be deliberately discussed. Two people can each do their own thing while remaining willing to face life’s mundane details together.
Every day does not have to be dramatic. You simply feel that having this person beside you is the most natural thing in the world.
Jinwa is not much older than I am, but he has already accomplished a great deal at a young age. In the on-chain world especially, many people see him as one of its standouts.
And perhaps the defining feature of that world is how quickly everything rises and falls.
One period can place you at the very top; the next can drop you to the bottom. Sometimes only a short span of time separates making a great deal of money from losing a great deal of it. Jinwa has lived through more than a few of those extremes over the years.
What I find rare is that his wife remained beside him through all of it: when things were at their most glorious, when they were much more difficult, and now, as he gradually emerges from those violent swings and returns to a quieter kind of life.
She did not leave, and neither success nor hardship seemed to unsettle her.
That carries more weight than many things said aloud at a wedding.
What truly tests a relationship may be neither poverty nor wealth. It may be whether two people can continue to relate to each other in roughly the same way as one person’s circumstances and sense of self keep changing.
Does someone change after suddenly gaining a great deal? Do they change after suddenly losing it?
If, after living through all of that, two people can still say, “Being with you feels comfortable,” then the sentence already carries enormous weight.
I envy the place they have reached.
It is very close to my own understanding of a long-term relationship.
I increasingly feel that a truly good relationship does not have to be intensely passionate all the time. It should be a stable, natural form of companionship: two people who like and trust each other, while giving each other enough room. Life will inevitably fluctuate, but the relationship itself does not need to swing violently with every change.
Cassidy and I are moving closer and closer to that feeling ourselves.
We do not need to be attached at every moment, and we do not have to manufacture some special ritual every day. Instead, it feels as though we have each entered the other’s life in a very natural way. There are many things we can talk about, and many things we do not have to explain completely. Being together feels restful rather than draining.
I hope we can hold on to that.
Another interesting part of the wedding was meeting so many members of Jinwa’s group whom I had previously known only online.
The group is essentially an on-chain meme-coin hunting chat. Most of what people discuss is opportunities, projects, tokens, and the market. When all you see in the group are avatars and IDs, it is difficult to imagine what the people behind them are actually like.
This was the first time so many of us had met offline.
They were a good group of people.
In a sense, it was also my first chance to spend time up close with the crowd the Chinese internet sometimes labels “P kids.”
There are all kinds of descriptions of this group online, many of which have hardened into labels. But once we sat down to eat and talk together, I found them genuinely interesting.
Their way of life differs greatly from the conventional path.
Many did not follow the familiar sequence of “study hard, find a stable job, and climb steadily from there.” They entered crypto while still very young and began studying on-chain activity, trading, projects, code, and every new thing that appeared.
There is certainly an appetite for risk in that world, and some people have lived through extraordinary gains and losses. But after meeting them, one impression was unmistakable: most are both hardworking and intelligent.
More importantly, they are willing to break away from certain traditions.
At the very least, they are willing to believe that life does not have only one route, designed in advance.
I have always liked that.
“Taking the road less travelled” sounds simple. Actually doing it is difficult. Once you leave a path that society has already tested for you, every reward and every risk becomes your own responsibility.
If you make it, the gain is yours. If you fall into a hole, that is yours too.
But that is also why the lives of people in this group tend to carry such a strong individual character.
I think that is a good thing.
After the wedding, I found myself returning to a question that has been on my mind lately:
When will we see each other next?
The truth is, I do not know.
Everyone came from somewhere different. We normally live in different cities, sometimes in different countries. A wedding brought us all to Jinzhou, where we ate, drank, and talked together. The next day, everyone returned to their own lives.
I may see some of them again in a few months. For others, the next meeting may be a year or two away.
But these days, I do not worry about that as much as I once did.
People do not necessarily have to meet often to prove that a relationship still exists.
If our paths are meant to cross again, they will.
One day, one of us will arrive in the other’s city and send a message:
“I’m in your city.”
Then we will go out for dinner, have a few drinks, and talk about everything that has happened since the last time.
That is already enough.
So, finally, I want to wish Jinwa and his wife a very happy marriage.
I hope that many years from now, when they look back on this day, they will feel that the sentence they spoke has never changed:
Being with this person still feels comfortable.
THE CONVERSATION
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