Nostr Web Client

For a lot of reasons, August has been the month where I divide my Bitcoin journey into years.

I moved to Finland 4 years ago, in August. I took the orange pill in the process of moving, with the idea first planted before the move, and fully solidifying into toxic maximalism in the year following.

I started collaborating with Knut Svanholm in August 2022 by releasing our first podcast together, and shortly after I attended my first Bitcoin conference at Baltic Honeybadger.

In August 2023, we made the decision to become independent and start a new channel for our show. This started us towards forming an independent publishing house, re-editing and republishing all of Knut's books, and setting up a web shop accepting Bitcoin.

In 2024, we released Bitcoin: The Inverse of Clown World, a book I'm still incredibly proud of, and I hope more people get the chance to read it.

And finally, in 2025, I was a part of the team that put on the BTC HEL conference in Helsinki, my adopted home. This was by far the biggest thing I've done in the Bitcoin space. I'll share some thoughts about that awesome event here soon. Coincidentally, I received my permanent residence permit to Finland just before the conference, solidifying my place in the country for the foreseeable future. For all its flaws, it's the best place I've ever lived, and it's my home now.

Each year, I seem to do more, and the craziness intensifies, some years more than others. Some years, new adventures have just been starting. Others, like this one, a major project has come to fruition, and I get to take a short rest.

This upcoming year is still not fully clear, but this time I think I'll finally take a bit of a pause to focus on my family life, and to make sure the projects I'm working on are at their best. Time is the only thing more scarce than Bitcoin. I'm happy with how I've spent my time up til now. I have great things to spend my time on in the coming months and years.

I'm grateful to everyone who's helped me on my Bitcoin (and Nostr!) journey. I look forward to collaborating on our shared goal of advancing Bitcoin. I'll be balancing that goal more with my family life this year, but I'm still fully committed, and excited for all the great things coming up.

Onward!

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Discussion

Rachel 4mo ago

It was a pleasure working with you. What drew you to Finland in the first place?

Luke de Wolf 4mo ago

Very glad to have you along, Rachel! I hope the collaborations continue!

I've always had a bit of a nordic streak. I liked a lot of the music from the region (not just Finland, also Norway especially, and Sweden to a lesser extent) since I was in high school. I also had a bit of a thing for languages, and I studied Finnish and Norwegian to varying degrees in my spare time, purely as a hobby.

My wife and I were open to living either in Finland or Norway, just to experience living abroad, and I looked for jobs in both countries. The company I worked for at the time was looking for people in the Helsinki office, and we decided to go on an adventure. I've loved it here ever since, and very much can't imagine going back to Canada at this point. I still have a lot of love for Alberta (and a lot of ...not love... for much of the rest of the country), but I'm very much used to life here now, and I think I would have a much harder time going back than moving to Finland in the first place.

So to a certain extent, it wasn't ever Finland specifically, but once I arrived here, it really stuck. And now, of course, I'm advocating for Bitcoin here through BTC HEL. I feel grateful to be here, and this is one of the ways I'm giving back. I'm really excited and hopeful that what started at BTC HEL 2025 continues, and we just build on it, not just in Finland, but in the Nordics and in all of Europe as well.

Thanks again for joining us for this Rachel!

Rachel 4mo ago

I also felt right at home there. Can’t imagine what the winters must be like though. Don’t mind cold. But darkness?