I’m so proud. I spent a lot of time on this today. My OpenClaw agent and I successfully solved some complex problems and navigated a lot of bugs. We set things up right from the start. Here’s what it’s doing day 1: -it has its own computer -using 1Password to create and store sensitive account data -installed Alby Hub and using LDK -using Lightning over tor -setup a Nostr account and followed me -chatting in my admin group chat with team members on telegram -using perplexity to search and save reports for later lookup This is more than I’ve been able to do by myself and it’s just been 1 day 🤯 Lots of problems, we burnt through about $25 in credits just today, hit context limits and got throttled multiple times … but I am super heartened at the progress. View quoted note →

I was trying to buy perplexity credits for my OpenClaw agent to have a better search experience than Brave. OpenRouter is a product that uses 1 API key to aggregate all the other LLM services…but it only uses fiat and MetaMask/shitcoiners (turns out he’s cofounder of opensea. So he’s got an agenda) Is there a way to pay with Bitcoin for a service like OpenRouter? I tried getting a virtual visa from @The Bitcoin Company to pay for perplexity directly but it didn’t work.

My fitness coach (Canadian pro natural bodybuilder) is buying the dip - he wants to learn while at the gym. He’s somewhat technical and owns a jade but doesn’t really know how to use it. What’s a good resource for him, podcast or something?

You can’t have citadel wealth without citadel problems. I was using Claud co-work to organize files on an old computer and it wasn’t sure how to categorize this image. ~5-6 years ago. Grateful that I save in a money that gains value over time … surviving volatile days and weeks over time leads to higher lows like today.

I want to create an AI agent called Hex Friedbot that does an podcast with either ai bots and blocks everyone with love

Does anyone want to make a video clip for me as a simple test project? I have a handful of videos from a bitcoin giveaway I did last year with @lightsats cards. Just want an easy 1-2 min edit of the giveaways as well as the stats 1 year later of who redeemed the sats and how much I got back. Who’s up for the task!

Here’s what I know - you can’t build a citadel by yourself. I just got back from a mini Bitcoin speaking tour. First, I was at the Canadian Bitcoin Conference in Montreal where I spoke on a panel about treasury companies and then I travelled to Lugano Switzerland for Plan ₿ where I spoke on a panel about mainstream adoption, one on quantum computing & was a judge on the CyperTank show. I never enjoyed the process of traveling. I LOVE being in new places and experiencing what new cities & geographies have to offer - but I don’t look forward to the process of travelling. Packing, booking flights & hotels, researching where to stay and where to eat, sorting through what to do, adding things to my calendar, contact people and chatting about plans, chasing after people on DMs. Gag me. For this reason I don’t travel to a lot of Bitcoin conferences. However, by staying in my comfort zone at home, I miss a lot of opportunities to grow, expand and be a bigger part of this once-in-a-lifetime revolution we’re living through. In Jan 2023, I was stressed about financial markets, the ongoing wars, the Canadian political problems & all the bitcoin vs crypto drama going on at the time. I was letting that affect how I interacted with my wife & daughter, and it impacted how I looked at myself in the mirror. Without realizing it, by focusing too much on the long time preference combined with filling my mind with spam & not controlling my inputs, I had put up a barrier around my heart, preventing me from truly enjoying the present moment & tainting my view of my life. Even though I felt my ego was in check and I was a happy-go-lucky guy around friends, my logical side was fully in control, and it made me focus more on the gap in where I wanted to be than the gains I was making along the journey. One day I was thinking I needed to change my surroundings to get me out of this funk and truly start enjoying my life - a mini midlife crisis perhaps. The Bitcoin price was starting to rise & I got it in my head that I just needed to buy a nicer home in a nicer neighborhood. Then I recalled a line from Letters From Seneca. “You must change your mind, not your place. Though you may cross the sea, you carry your faults with you.” Commonly paraphrased as: “No matter where you travel, you take yourself with you.” That set me on a path to look inside myself and figure out what was causing me to feel unhappy. In mid-late 2022, I had gone down the rabbit hole of the Great Depression & read a lot about financial collapses of the past couple of centuries. I got myself to a place where I really believed Bitcoin was now inevitable, its rise to global reserve asset unstoppable even during a great depression 2.0 event. When my conviction in Bitcoin reached such a place of unshakeable strength (after 11 years & 4 brutal bear markets in BTC) - I started to think about whether or not I would have the strength to hold on for the rest of the ride. I thought about what it might be like in 20 years when 1 BTC is $20,000,000 per coin. In Bitcoin we all know about the meme of The Citadel, where bitcoiners build sovereign fortresses all over the world to protect ourselves & our vassals from fiat collapse. The citadel is kinda of a self-deprecating, ridiculous meme in its Reddit time-traveller origins. It was a troll, but we took control of it like most trollish memes like Maxi, Toxic, etc. Even though it’s a joke, what if it’s true? As I explored whether I was the kind of person who could hold on to BTC for the next 100X & whether I could handle the problems that come along with citadel level wealth - I realized it wasn’t anyone or anything else that had to change, it was me. If I was operating from a place of fear & letting myself get frustrated out of traveling to bitcoin centres & spending time with my most positive peers because of the thought of booking flights & coordinating with people, I would never be able to lead a team to build a citadel. So since then, I’ve been leveling-up as a leader, husband, father & sovereign individual. I’m building a citadel mind & body to keep pace with Bitcoin’s growth. If you’re all in Bitcoin, everyone knows about the exercise to take your current amount of wealth & 10X it - then think if you’ve got the appropriate level of security in your setup. However, I invite you to try this exercise: Take your current problems and 10X them. If the thought of 10Xing your current problems scares you like it did me, you might want to consider starting to work on a citadel mind & body of your own. I hired a lot of coaches & I started reducing the time I spent online and increasing the amount of time I spent learning new skills & putting them to work. Regarding the trips, my coach Dan Martell gave me a good blueprint for traveling. Here’s what he does: 1 To protect his time, he bought a private jet & charges a speaking fee where farther distance = higher cost. 2 He either brings his family or he sells seats on his jet to cover the jet fuel expenses. 3 He brings his media team and records content on the trip. Either lifestyle footage for his vlog, or business content for his social media. 4 He gets a driver in the city he’s going to be in, and has his Executive Assistant (or House Manager) setup his lodging so he has the right food & can get right to his healthy habits when he lands. (No stressing about what to eat or where to work out.) 5 He lines up podcasts & media shoots in the city the conference is happening in so he can get some good content on the trip. 6 He organizes a founder dinner or office tour and brings along his jet mastermind crew or any entrepreneurs in the city he’s in for some next-level private networking. If you execute this playbook correctly, all of your travel actually pays for itself & helps build your brand & increase your influence online. Imagine a life where you can just show up to what’s on the calendar & run through life trusting everything is figured out to your preferences. Snags are resolved by your team right away, and you don’t have to waste time doing things that drain your energy. This only works efficiently though if you use Playbooks & SOPs and syncs-ups & direct report coaching sessions to keep things moving forward in a positive direction. Each problem is a puzzle to solve and update the SOP/Playbook. So while I’m not quite at Dan Martell levels, I did hire an Executive Assistant and I’ve been trying to prioritize living out of my calendar and letting my team handle logistics & execution. This last trip in Montreal the team got practice organizing some events like a Bitcoin Hike & Founder Dinner & Proof of Work gym sessions. I presently struggle with executing Dan’s playbook to anywhere near his level, but I’m not giving up. It’s hard to go from 40 years of operating as a move-fast-break-things solopreneur with no need to develop leadership skills to then transition from a leader who delegates & accomplishes more by building a machine using systems & processes. However, one things’s for certain - you can’t build a citadel by yourself - and we’ve got time to figure it out. I’m lucky that I get to travel with the love of my life. My relationship with my wife of ~20 years is also at all time highs because I’ve been focusing on living a life of proof of work and inspiring those around me, rather than trying to drag everyone along on my journey. We arrived in Lugano by train we were impressed by the beauty of the area. The conference organizers put us up in an incredible room. I was extremely tired, tried to stay up but had to take a nap - after I worked out in the hotel gym to try to fix my jet lag and then we went to the POW space in Lugano. I got a full tour by Giacomo and Mir. This is probably one of the best examples of a modern Bitcoin citadel being built before our eyes by Bitcoin companies like Blockstream, Tether, Fulgur & the Bitcoiners in Lugano. I was speaking on a panel with Adam Back, Roy from Breeze & Francis from Bull Bitcoin. It was a couple of days before the actual Plan B event started, but some friends were in town. I invited Willy Woo and gave him a big heart-to-heart hug when I saw him. Was really nice to see him after what seemed like a couple of years! At the afterparty across the street at Proof of Steak, Willy took an hour of his time to have a big chat with my wife Liz. He’s so kind to sit and chat with her. I met up with Adam Back who was also staying at the same hotel as me. Adam shared an Uber back & had dinner with my wife & I. We had a long catch-up chat with him about living in Malta, his travels, our diet preferences and then we got into a 30-minute discussion about the Bitcoin spam debate which I have been ignoring. We chatted past midnight & after dinner with Adam, I went over and had a chat with Preston Pysh and Max from DebiFi + Roy from Breez about traveling, lifestyle and borrowing against your bitcoin to fund lifestyle upgrades. We chatted for 20 min or so and then retired to bed around 1 am Switzerland time. The next day was the CypherTank recording hosted by Walker America & Joe Nakamoto. I was honoured to be asked to do a short podcast with Mir, and spent the day at the POW space mingling with fellow bitcoin investors & startup entrepreneurs working out of the space or pitching on the show. After that, I walked back along the breathtaking waterfront, saw the Satoshi monument as well as bitcoin artifacts & ads here and there. I hit the incredible spa for a soak and sauna session at the hotel & my wife & I went out for a private steak dinner with Jameson Lopp, Carla & Walker, Nico & Willy Woo. BTC Archie showed up as well with his podcast producer. We had a long chat about bitcoin culture, the future of BTC as a social movement, the quantum risk, and debated the merits of selling some BTC to give lifestyle comfort guarantees vs being fully exposed to BTC price volatility & risk. On the walk home my wife ask me if I realized what a big deal it is that I am in this position to be asked to speak, have my hotel covered, invited to dinners & asked to go on this show that might turn into something special. I realized I wasn’t really internalizing it. When Giacomo first asked me to be a judge in the CyperTank show a month or so ago, initially I felt a wave of gratitude for the opportunity and immediately said yes. But then time passed, and it just became normal life - tick tock, next block - what’s the next problem to solve on the to-do list. The next morning I was reading my daily entry in “Your Big Leap Leap Year” (a daily journal compendium to The Big Leap), which was incredibly appropriate for the situation: “What’s the difference between feeling you deserve love, success, and abundance, and feeling that you’re entitled to them? Thought it may seem like semantics, the difference is profound. Deserving means feeling worthy. Feeling worthy leads to gratitude and appreciation, furthering the cycle of positivity. Entitlement has a demanding quality to it. When you get something you think is owed to you, it’s like getting a pay check. There’s very little gratitude or wonder generated in your heart at receiving it.” Along the path to building our citadels, we should become aware of any feelings of entitlement and make sure to stay in the energy of gratitude. I’ve been trying to feel genuine worthiness and warmth in my heart...to really breathe in the gratitude and sit with it before moving on. The rest of the trip I made sure to rekindle those warm feelings of gratitude in my heart any time I had a nice long conversation with someone in Bitcoin & really savoured the fact that they could have spent their time with anyone else (such as sauna sessions with Efrat & Madex, gym sessions with R0ckstar and Mir, etc). I love meeting Bitcoiners and more times than I can count I’ve met someone for the first time in real life that feels like we’ve known each other for years. It happened this time with Matt O’Dell, Paolo from Tether and Jack Mallers. 3 People I know of, respect & co-invest with in Bitcoin, in the twitter trenches for years … first time meeting in real life. I practiced the joy of being alive and being in Bitcoin when I was invited to investor dinners by BitVault, Relai & Jan 3 - had so many amazing conversations with the founders & team members & other investors at these events. I did the same when people came up to me to introduce themselves and tell me how they were a fan of mine, or they wanted to pitch me their bitcoin startup, or just get a pic and say hi. What an interesting life I get to live. I tried to take lots of pictures with people I met so I could remember them and what they told me during our interactions. I remember the feelings I had in 2013 when I was a nobody and I’d see Roger Ver or Andreas at a conference - being scared to approach or just staring awkwardly. Heck I still do it, I’m sure I did it this trip to someone. My wife also remarked that she prefers going to Bitcoin conferences than crypto events because the majority of bitcoiners are genuinely good ppl, down to earth and care about being good humans, focused on family and the things that matter in life. She gets good vibes more often at bitcoin events. Lugano is breathtaking and what the Fulgur/Tether/Giacomo & team is building here is inspirational. So happy I get to spend this time with my wife and bring her along with me to meet my bitcoin compatriots as well as share this life with her. Grateful for what I’ve accomplished while also honouring my desire to do more to fix the money & fix the world. Blissful Dissatisfaction is the state I’m striving for these days. Oh and I finished up this 12 day multi-country trip LEANER than when I left, another huge win. You can travel, have fun AND be healthy.

Jet lag has me missing my early workouts with @allen but thankfully I got a session in this evening with Paolo from Tether’s trainer Matteo, @UNCLE ROCKSTAR and Mir! Great proof of work session. If you’re ever in Lugano, you should negotiate a time to workout in the bitcoin gym in the basement of the POW coworking space.

Just because you found bitcoin before 99% of the world. Just because you’ve had the conviction to hold it through the fear uncertainty and doubt. Just because your individual decision has proven correct and it’s changed your life. Does not mean you are by-default correct on everything else. Does not mean you should overly rely on your intellect and analytical side. Does not mean your emotions are not valuable. Don’t let your ego suppress your emotions. Trust your gut yes, sniff your own farts no. Stay humble (humble enough) 💪

Are you friends with your anger? I struggled with suppressing my anger for years. I still struggle with it. Buddhists believe all emotions are from One Energy, and that you need to befriend all of your emotions. From experience, I observed that suppressing anger and avoiding my emotions actually caused me to feel less happiness & love. Obsessing over shitcoins, spending the majority of my time on Clubhouse and listening to podcasts & audiobooks was a way to distract me from my emotions. It wasn’t until I started prioritizing my mind & body through making commitments to myself and keeping them that I eventually found my emotions again. The advice from the book is to acknowledge your anger, recognize it and observe it - only then can you do something about it. If you are feeling or experiencing anything in this list, you might want to acknowledge you have repressed anger and find one thing in your life you can change to befriend all of your emotions. Is it wake up earlier, meditate more, read more books on mindset / self, exercise more, spend more time with loved ones, have more fun? For me it’s all of the above + continuing to find new good habits.

Nobody told me Paper Bitcoin Summer was actually going to be Summer of Compliance and KYC 😰 Glad that’s over with

What’s the best wallet for Lightning Authentication these days? Something that uses LNAuth that will be here in 10 years.

As a Bitcoin angel/seed investor I get a lot of investor updates from the startups in my portfolio. There are so many great Bitcoiners getting traction, making progress, generating revenue and creating value. Many of them are doing subsequent raises, some of them are on unicorn track. I get to have convos with people doing bitcoin as money, bitcoin as freedom tech, bitcoin as store of value, bitcoin as public markets speculative attack, bitcoin as a platform, and more. Grateful for being able to live a meaningful life and having followed the Orange path so early. As an entrepreneur I had imposter syndrome, was always trying to keep up with the latest marketing hack or trend, and experienced a lot of burnout and pivoting. Always finding new partners, etc. As a Bitcoiner I still suffer from activity bias, and pivot a lot, but bitcoin remains constant - and it’s my conviction in bitcoin alone that has made me succeed. I have always been inspired to be helpful and back good people - even when I was poor. I’s really easy to do that when we speak the common language of ₿. ₿itcoin gave me ₿reathing room. Thankful for my small role in bitcoin, lucky to have such high signal friends and shocked to be the source of inspiration for people who tell me they follow me and I changed their lives 🧡 🫂

I offer my bear market beard as a sacrifice to the gods of green candles. I have deployed my life shavings so the ₿ull can start his run.

Yesterday I had a call with an upstart Bitcoin Treasury Co. Very hot deal, lots of FOMO. Was hard to get a call scheduled. Potential 100X. I've been going to the gym for over a year now consistently, partly to be a good example of health for my daughter. Once in a while I'll casually ask her if she wants to come with me as I'm leaving. This time she said yes 🧡 I knew my gym session was going to run late now that she was coming, so now I had a problem - do I skip the call that I've been trying to get done all week and signal that I'm unreliable to the team, or do I try to make it work and do the call at the gym while I put my daughter on the treadmill for 20 mins and split my focus? The words of my coach dan martell (Buy Back Your Time) came into my mind. He talks about how people often tell him their number 1 priority is their family, but when he asks to see their calendar, he sees either nothing planned with the family or too much work. "Show me your calendar and I'll show you your priorities." I decided to prioritize my daughter and our time together by not trying to fit the call in. I had my team reschedule the call and I spent the focused time with my daughter. Tbh I might have missed the opportunity because it’s gonna be hard to get that call rescheduled, but I’m glad I made the right choice for what I’m trying to optimize my life for 🫂

A bunch of Bitcoin startups I’ve invested in are on the Bitcoin standard where they’ve kept BTC in their treasury. As of late, I’ve been getting actively involved in public Bitcoin Treasury companies. I participated in the private placement of Matador, the largest Canadian Bitcoin Treasury Company, my friends Sunny Ray and Mark Moss are part of that company, and I’ve recently joined David Bailey as an advisor to the company. My goal is to get Matador using multi institutional self custody and steer them towards bitcoin maximalism. I’ve also invested along with Adam Back and UTXO into H100, the largest Bitcoin Treasury Company in Sweden. There’s a few more treasury companies I’m getting involved with that I probably can’t disclose yet. I think Bitcoin Maximalists should be taking advisory seats and board positions of these companies so we can impart our long term thinking, strong hands and risk management tendencies in the board rooms of these bitcoin vacuum corps. If we get involved, we can help prevent the over-leveraging that so many are afraid of, and we can have a hand at ushering in a decade long bull market - the Orange Rush.

Any other collectors of Bitcoin Trading Cards? Some people are into coins, some people are into cardboard. I’ve chosen cardboard. If anyone is building cool physical bitcoin collectibles, board games, cards, etc - hit me up! I’m a bitcoin culture hoarder.

Been trying to get my barber to accept Bitcoin for about a year. He was interested but he is not good with technology. From the Azores but moved to canada in 2016 to work construction but his real passion is 💈 He’s a real artist and is very clearly meant to do hair and beards, he does it after work in his basement. He was laid off from his full time construction job about a month ago because of the trade war. Today, I finally got him setup to accept Bitcoin with a @Blink Wallet ! His Lightning address is maniqas@blink.sv if anyone’s feeling generous to give him an onboarding zap!

I could get behind a Canadian Bitcoin Treasury Company and stake my reputation on it. I have been in Bitcoin since 2011 and I doubt I’m ever going to NOT be in Bitcoin. I have been a fomosapien for a few of those cycles, getting sucked into ICOs and other activity bias / fomo driven cycles. I have some FOMO about the opportunity side of bitcoin treasury companies, but what’s different this time is that this is both a short term opportunity to make make in a bubble AND a long term fundamentally sound strategy built on a foundation of bitcoin. So for this reason, I’m in. ₿ 🍴 🧟

2 of my friends just released this bitcoin themed mystery podcast! Check it out! https://fountain.fm/show/RdBny3x8kiOcHY4GwEgD I’m about to start listening to it myself