Personal reflections on 2024, resolutions for 2025.

Happy new year, Anon.

Thanks for tuning in to whatever this long form post will be. I hope to make these more regular, like journal entries as we travel through "real life" and the Nostrverse together. If I'm making time for this reflective writing, then things are going as planned.

2024 was a wildly transformative year for me for many reasons... there's no way I can possibly fit all of them here. They're not all related to Bitcoin and Nostr- I've got a beautiful life outside of all that which has its own independent arc. My wife and I celebrated 7 years of marriage together, stronger than ever (don't believe that "itch" bullshit). We let go of some negative relationships and embraced some positive ones. We cut some bad habits, and we made some good habits. We worked, we traveled, we saw family, and we partied.

But damn, these two technologies have become a huge part of my life. God willing, this trend will continue until they've both eclipsed my professional capacity through our startup, Conduit BTC.

This was the year I was truly orange pilled. Until late 2023, I had traded (quite profitably) Bitcoin, "crypto", stocks, options, prediction markets and whatever else I could get my hands on that felt undervalued. I did this all in my spare time, grinding out a little financial freedom while I hustled at my fiat ventures to support my little family. I wasn't a true believer- just an opportunist with a knack for spotting where and when a crowd might flock to next. That was right up until I ran face first into Lyn Alden's book "Broken Money".

Something about Lyn's engineer/macro-finance inspired prose clicked with me, lock and key. Total one way function. By the end of the book my laser eyes had burned a hole in my bedroom ceiling. I was all in- and acted accordingly both with my capital and my attention. It wasn't long before I discovered Nostr and dove in here too, falling deep into my current orange and purple polyamorous love affair.

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles."

Despite the passion, through studying Bitcoin's criticisms (from the likes of Mike Green and Nassim Taleb) I found a hole in the utopian plot: none of this works without Bitcoin actually being used as money. Worldwide transactions must skyrocket demand for blockspace to keep the network secure/stable for the long term. Besides, if everyday folks aren't using Bitcoin as money then we haven't done shit to make the world a better place. In that world, we've only replaced old masters with new ones. Fuck that.

Whatever I did in this space needed to increase the usage of Bitcoin as money. Simple. This was bigger than passion, this was purpose. I knew that come hell or high water I would dedicate myself to this mission.

Lucky for me I found a partner and best friend in @aceaspades to go on this adventure with. I'm infinitely grateful for him. He's an incredible man who also happens to be an insanely creative and talented software developer. We'd tried for years to find the right project to focus on together, experimenting with all kinds of new techy ideas as they came across our field. Nothing had ever captured our attention like this. This was different. By March of 2024 we had formed a company and gotten to work iterating on how we could leverage these beautiful protocols and open-source tech to create something that served our mission. This is @ConduitBTC.

I've done well in my fiat career executing plans downstream of someone else's creative vision. I've learned the ins and outs of an established ecosystem and found ways to profit from it. I take plans developed by others, compete to win contracts to build them, and execute on them in a cashflow-positive way. I'm bringing this no bullshit blue collar skillset with me to the Nostrverse whether they like it or not.

The adventure we're embarking on now is totally different though. We're charting a new course - totally creative, highly intuitive and extremely speculative towards a future that doesn't exist yet. There are few established norms. The potential is vast but unknown. We're diving into a strange quest to sell a map to an imaginary place and to simultaneously architect its creation (alongside all the amazing builders here doing the same thing). This is insanely exciting to me.

We're barely getting started but a lot has been invested under the surface which will show itself in 2025. We'll be sharing updates in a proper post on @ConduitBTC soon.

As for my personal 2025 resolutions, here they are:

• zero alcohol for the entire year (did this in 2019 and had a great year, it's time for a rerun)
• more focused presence in the moment: especially with my wife
• more self care and prioritized mental/physical health - this includes daily: naps, prayer, self hypnosis or meditation, sweat, and stretching/massaging (overworked in 2024 with a fiat 9-5, a board/advisor role in a fiat business I have equity in, and my newfound passion here. Two serious burn out episodes experienced this year - zero is the only acceptable number of burnouts for long term health and success.)
• related to the above: get Conduit some mission-aligned funding partners and leave my fiat 9-5. Grow the Conduit team (have put in a serious amount of my personal capital already to get this going, which will show fruit in the new year... but I am not an island)
• more authentic and thoughtful posts on Nostr, with a solid amount of shitposting and organic home grown memes to balance it out... more zaps, more geniune connections and interactions with the curious forward thinking people on here
• more IRL Nostr/Bitcoin events
• more laughter, more jokes

Enough for now. Cheers to you and yours Anon, may 2025 bring you the magic you've been dreaming of.