Wine is fragile and difficult to ship.

Bitcoin is volatile internet money.

Neither seemed like a foundation for a business—

until I found my best customers: Bitcoiners.

🧵 How I took my winery from zero to all-in:

2021

I’d just started selling my wine at farmers markets.

One day, a guy asked, “Do you accept crypto?”

I said, “I’ll take your bitcoin,” and had no idea how I’d actually do that.

He walked away.

But it stuck in my mind.

The first person who ever asked.

I was a Bitcoiner, but didn’t think that had anything to do with wine.

Bitcoiners were 0% of my sales.

2022

I joined Twitter. Went to my first Bitcoin conference.

And the people in it? They were my people.

Honest. Curious. Genuine. Driven.

A few folks started asking if they could buy wine with bitcoin.

I said yes—not because I saw a business opportunity.

I just wanted more bitcoin.

I added a little Bitcoin logo to my wine bottles.

Put up a “Bitcoin Accepted Here” sign at the farmers market.

But that was mostly for my own obsession.

I mostly had old men come up and warn me about bitcoin’s volatility.

But sometimes, real ones would trickle through.

One woman saw the sign and said:

“You accept Bitcoin?? I HAVE TO GO GET MY HUSBAND.”

I could tell she was married to someone who couldn’t stop talking about bitcoin, like me.

Sure enough, I now consider him a friend.

Bitcoin sales still felt more like a fun side quest than a real channel.

Bitcoiners were ~10% of my sales.

2023

This is when I felt the shift.

Early in the year, bitcoin sales started covering my living expenses.

By the holidays, the momentum was undeniable.

Still not everything—but enough to make me pay attention.

Bitcoiners weren’t just buyers.

They were thoughtful. Loyal. Fun to talk to.

It didn’t feel like marketing—it felt like alignment.

Bitcoiners were ~50% of my sales.

2024

Things got wild.

I released Satoshi’s Reserve, a wine I’d quietly been setting aside since 2021.

The auction blew past anything I’d seen before.

In dollar terms, it beat the entire prior year of online sales.

Then I dropped HIGHER, my second bitcoin-focused wine.

Another record. Same story:

Enthusiasm. Loyalty. People telling other people to support me.

Meanwhile, I was still at farmers markets.

Twelve-hour days every weekend.

Pitching the same story to strangers who’d never come back.

Bitcoiners were showing up, rebuying, and selling for me.

That made the decision easy.

Bitcoiners were ~75% of my sales.

2025

No more farmers markets.

No more trying to reach “everyone.”

I’m all in on Bitcoiners now.

I’ll probably make less money this year.

But I’ll be fired up by everything I do.

And I’ll have complete alignment between my job and my mission.

Selling wine for bitcoin isn’t just good business.

It feels like doing my part to make the world better.

And the fact that I get to do that with wine from my family vineyard?

That’s about as soul-filling as it gets.

Bitcoiners didn’t just become my best customers.

They joined my mission.

Bitcoiners have high expectations, are discerning and HATE deception, but if you have that, then they are dying to become your best customers.

Plant a Flag.

Bitcoin Preferred.

PeonyLaneWine.com 🍷

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Discussion

Can I get a taste?🍷✌️👀

Its kind of hard to do small shipments and a decent amount to commit to for an order if you dont know whether you like it or not. Thats the struggle with selling wine online.

I'm looking to do more events where bitcoiners can try the wine this year and hope that you can join for one! Alternatively, I stand by my product and if you legitimately dont like it, I'll refund you, no questions asked.

Love it bro

were gonna win

Game set match

When are you bringing back rose?

Maybe rose of Pinot once the new vineyard starts producing

Yea please

I will buy your first case.

Also…It’s a summer drink and the summer of soak needs a summer drink.

U speaka my language

We made a similar transition nostr:npub1sweetl0gskmka0n5qevt7v2wj9q56ntwkmaeywffw4ftaucmcakquhns6h from farmer's markets to 100% online via nostr.

Same idea: Sending glass jars of honey and maple syrup around the country definitely has it's drawbacks. But dealing 100% with Bitcoiners makes it totally worth it, and we have managed to pay our bills now for over a year selling in sats only. And we've never once raised the price of our products (prices in sats trend DOWN only) unlike our peers in fiat denominated businesses.

At first it was just a crazy idea I had to use my node more and test out nostr:npub155m2k8ml8sqn8w4dhh689vdv0t2twa8dgvkpnzfggxf4wfughjsq2cdcvg, but bit by bit we've totally leaned into it and plan to focus all of our efforts going forward selling high quality products to Bitcoiners only. 🤙

That's fkn awesome.

I'd love to feature this story on my new page, nostr:nprofile1qqsqkaay6mxplgv3f9z0ep0rq4w8jrte3rvcm43xd2cgehsjevglmdcqewx80 . Would you be willing to just brain dump about this story?

I want to keep the lift low for you and can edit it myself. Just need context and a picture or two

Hell yeah, I'd be glad to contribute. LMK what you need, feel free to DM.

DMd

❤️ Great to hear. maybe keep the farmers market still.

That decision has been made and the whole summer has been booked with Bitcoin events. V clear I made the right decision

Looove it.

We're gonna win

Need more of this! Need merchants to take it

Need merchants to realize that bitcoiners are a powerful customer base to lean into.

Yes 🙌

🫡🙌

💪🍷

Love what Ben is doing, get it amigo, look forward to supporting you and meeting in person soon! Working on doing the same within my biz 🤙

nostr:nevent1qqsyfugxjmdxnd6mpdtcsmc7lfl9m6g7pe8fyffp79gypj0rghehzlqpr3mhxue69uhkummnw3ezucnfw33k76twv4ezuum0vd5kzmq4ngxp6

Next step might be only accepting bitcoin as payment lol

That's def the goal, but everything has to go through my liquor compliance provider and who processes my payments and they don't like Bitcoin.

Rn I have to manually input every Bitcoin order through their system.

Plus I need dollars too. It's nice to not have to sell Bitcoin and I have a great balance of the two rn

I understand totally lol. Just the face on a normies face when you refuse their worthless paper currency would be priceless

Lolol for a brick and mortar business, that's suicide rn, but yeah I can't wait for that moment too

Great story here. What is your fiat job? Maybe you should try to integrate bitcoin.. you will probably be rewarded by Bitcoiners sooner than you think.

nostr:nevent1qqsyfugxjmdxnd6mpdtcsmc7lfl9m6g7pe8fyffp79gypj0rghehzlqpr3mhxue69uhkummnw3ezucnfw33k76twv4ezuum0vd5kzmqzyzjym0y64g6hza486n6uxyrggm4qj6mxmc94pm3e4l65h24kcjl5kqcyqqqqqqgs86gkv

Awesome story! I am working as hard as I can to integrate bitcoin into my Fiat profession. I dream of a day that majority of my clientele are Bitcoiners. 🧡

You can do it and don't be afraid to start v small. Follow your heart

Bitcoiners know quality when they taste it. Ditch the farmers markets, embrace the future. 🍷

Done 🤝

"It didn’t feel like marketing—it felt like alignment."

🎯🔥

Bitcoin solved my Byzantine General problem

inspirational

We're gonna win

That really is an inspiring story. I am trying to do the same with English classes / courses, so your tale resonates with me. I'm confident I will follow in your path to Bitcoin glory!

Start small. Follow your heart.

Keep going.

This is definitely the way my friend. Your story is both admirable, as well as inspiring.

Makes me extremely bullish knowing more and more merchants, producers, service providers, etc are hopping on this train that will not stop.

I only accept Bitcoin for my soap, as you know, and will never accept fiat for it. You are absolutely right when you speak of alignment. Bitcoiners are my people, and your reputation is everything in this space.

We are winning, and just have to keep creating, building, and grinding!

My goal is to be Bitcoin only one day.

Can't wait to try your soaps!

Will be shipping tomorrow brother 🫡

🔥

I wish I liked wine 🍷…. Too bad you couldn’t make an exclusive batch of beer 🍻 totally would buy with BTC

There's Bitcoin beer out there. Totally different things

where are you located?

Usa

Thank you for sharing such a great story 🙏

Thanks for being part of it

Didn’t strike me until now, but I might feature Peony Lane in the sequel to 24 that I’m writing now, if you’re ok with that

Of course!

We found you through nostr and your wine was a big part of our halving party! 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽 Most people had no clue they could buy good wine with bitcoin. Since then we've had people repeat buy your wine.

Bitcoiners supporting bitcoiners is true v4v

Y'all rock. Anyone who cares enough to go hard on Nostr is a real one

In Vino , Veritas !

Same with the bitcoin

Love that story man. Keep stacking!

We're gonna win

Legendary story Ben! A prime example of how honest, fair, high quality businesses should thrive.

We're gonna win 🤝

Just the start for you!

We're gonna win

I love this story!! Here’s to more & more success in the future!

We're gonna win. Appreciate ypu

That's nice but you shouldn't give up on farmers markets. That's your actual real life community and no online community no matter how much money you can make from them will ever replace real life community

They weren't tho. I was selling to tourists in ski towns a few hours from me. This move keeps me in my community, both local and Bitcoin much more

Love it! Best of luck my man

We're gonna win

Very full of inspiration!

Do you ship outside US? EU here

Wish I could! Us only

I'll wait, long time horizon wtf ;)

We gonna win

I’m only sad I don’t drink wine! Your story is an inspiration.

Appreciate you! And no worries on that front

Cool story.

Anyone running US-Europe smuggling? The velvet pipeline for wine🤔

Wine as a typical PoW product sold for the PoW money. Great story. All the best for this year, Ben!

Appreciate you sir!