Thanks for sharing! Thinking about doing Calyx or Graphene, why did you choose Calyx? How has your experience been with it?
No longer using a traditional phone carrier. I bought a used phone with cash and did the rest paying with Bitcoin. I've set up my new phone to work by using CalyxOS, a silent. link eSIM, and the XMPP protocol. The instructions I used to use XMPP (via JMP. chat & Cheogram) are here:
https://www.makeuseof.com/replace-your-carrier-on-android-with-cheogram-and-xmpp/
I'm sure there will be lots of headaches, but so far I've been able to use it as a daily driver and spend less than I did with my old phone plan.
Discussion
My understanding is Calyx is (or was) a little easier to work with apps that require Google Play Services. Graphene may be better now though - they added a sandbox element a while back.