Seven years ago today, I quit drinking alcohol.

A week after, someone described to me what #bitcoin was at a bar. Had I been drinking that night, I probably would have made fun of them for getting fooled into speculating on the price of magic internet money before largely dismissing what they had to say.

Instead, though, I listened intently that night and spent the following three years quietly studying #Bitcoin. Come January of 2021, I published the first edition of my Substack newsletter on #Bitcoin, and to be blunt, I was fucking petrified.

“I don’t know enough about #Bitcoin to write about it,” I first thought to myself. I went to bed that night after publishing feeling like I was having a panic attack.

Within a year, I started getting job offers to write about #Bitcoin and I turned some of the initial ones down, because again I thought to myself “I don’t know enough about #Bitcoin to write about it professionally.”

I eventually took a job offer, though, and while I’ve grown more comfortable doing what I do, there are days that it still scares the shit out of me.

I share all of this because #Bitcoin has come to mean more to me than just it being pristine collateral or a currency we can use permissionlessly. Instead, it’s been a catalyst in my life, spurring change within me that I never thought possible.

While I’ll never fully be able to put into words how #Bitcoin has changed my life - or should I say how it’s catalyzed change in my life - I can thank everyone who’s supported me in my journey, including many of you on this platform.

And if you take anything away from this post, it would be to lean into the discomfort in 2025. Accept challenges in amounts that are digestible to you and speak your truth in the process.

As nostr:npub1s05p3ha7en49dv8429tkk07nnfa9pcwczkf5x5qrdraqshxdje9sq6eyhe (one of my greatest teachers over the past seven years) says, WE ARE BITCOIN, and #Bitcoin only continues to be #Bitcoin if we defend it.

You don’t need to be a technical mastermind to write or speak about #Bitcoin; you only need to intuitively understand the force that it is in the world and have a desire for other people to experience the benefits of it.

Happy New Year and much love to everyone 🧡