dsbatten
Daniel Batten

http://www.danielbatten.co

I like turning waste into power. Landfill gas. Eroding currencies. The human potential.

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npub13lkyycj8s3da6fhndtj0wd6s3s2ahmq86s7wrruvzd4tnc66cgfqn4lpsy

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nprofile1qqsglmzzvfrcgk7aymek4e8hxaggc9wmasrag08p37xpx64euddvyyspp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduq3jamnwvaz7tmwdaehgu3wwpkx2cnrdpskjm3wdaexwqg4waehxw309ajkgetw9ehx7um5wghxcctwvsq35amnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwdehhxarjwpkx2cnn9e3k7mgpr4mhxue69uhkummnw3ez6ur4vgh8wetvd3hhyer9wghxuet59vmckw

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npub13lkyycj8s3da6fhndtj0wd6s3s2ahmq86s7wrruvzd4tnc66cgfqn4lpsy

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Last Notes

2026-08-19 16:23:18 CEST

What is most worthwhile in life?
For me it has been being a father. I have 3 daughters. One has left home. One is 18 and one is 12. In fact a few weeks ago was my 18 year old's birthday.
She has a strong circle of friends. But she decided she didn't want a big party, she wanted to share it with family, my wife and I and her little sister. (Big sister is living overseas so sent blessing from afar).
We laughed together, celebrated her together and celebrated the warmth and connection and love we have for eachother as family. She told us how lucky she feels to have us as parents.
Win for the year!
No business win, or other win in life can come close to touching this for me. Parenting is perhaps the ultimate proof of work. You cannot "proof of stake" your way into experiencing this sort of event. It requires a huge low time preference and a lot of energy and love over many many years, not expecting anything in return.
To me, no business success is ever worth sacrificing connection with family and ... thankfully if you do both with intentionality, you don't have to sacrifice either, because they draw on many of the same leadership and self-leadership skillsets.

2026-08-12 23:20:59 CEST

"Bitcoin is used by criminals"
Source: criminals
https://blossom.primal.net/474bb84c7f8853df8918d9c54610eea26bb0ce40af9101557ead172896eb3cdc.png

2026-08-12 20:59:35 CEST

$500M financing of vented methane BTC mining
- makes the entire BTC network carbon negative
- removes 36M tonnes of CO2-e per year
- is equal to planting 2.5B trees
- further decentralises the Bitcoin network
- shows the world that Bitcoin is an environmental force for good

2026-08-07 16:59:16 CEST

One win shared. No advice given. Two people changed.
Here's how...
Every week on our mastermind we start by sharing wins. It lifts the energy in the room, and encouraging positive copying.
This one week, a single win share enabled multiple other people on the group to level up.
The week before, Rob shared his win about having had a great outcome to a courageous conversation he’d been previously putting off.
He’d gone into his partnership conversations and for the first time been straightforwardly upfront about costs and commitments, rather than dancing around the edges as admitted he had always done in the past.
He was not offering it as advice. He was simply reporting his win of the week.
The following week, two other founders in the room picked reported back that their win was a direct result of Rob.
The first said he’d been fantasising about taking a week off himself for some time, having identified he was starting to wear down the tread on his tires and was overdue a pitstop for the good of himself and the business.
He’d put it off because of the friction of the conversations it would involve, but emulated Rob’s approach of being upfront about the cost of not doing it, and the conversation had gone well.
"Extra points and inspiration from listening to Rob actually doing it." he reflected.
The second went further. On the same day the win he expressed the intention to emulate what Rob had done:
"That is a significant achievement, to be able to have that level of conversation. I would probably look at implementing that in the partnerships that we're trying to build as well. Definitely something I've really learned from that."
The following week, his win was that he'd actually done it. He'd had a courageous conversation with his work partner, and he reported it went surprisingly well, was surprisingly easy, and he was now enjoying closer alignment with his partner than before.
One man described his own week with other CEOs listening.
Two other companies changed how they would run a conversation.
Yet Rob never gave anybody a single piece of advice.
If nobody around you is describing what went right this week, you have lost more than morale...
You have removed the one thing that changes people without anybody having to be persuaded.
The example of a peer who is operating at a high level
How often do you receive inspirations to be your best, simply through the example of your peers ?
And what blindspots might your potential be repeatedly stumbling into if you are not receiving this sort of inspiration from you peer group regularly?

2026-07-27 03:03:23 CEST

I’ve been investing into technology companies since 2004, and working in tech startups since I was an early employee at a startup who was first to use the Internet for utility billing in 1996.
The 3 technologies with the most use-cases and the most potential value to humanity I’ve seen in that time are The Internet, Bitcoin and AI … with plenty of air until the next grouping.
The difference is that with Bitcoin, the ratio of positive to negative uses of the technology is much higher - inherently it is order of magnitude harder to use Bitcoin for crime than traditionally currencies, but the social and environmental usecases for the technologies are significant, supported by many peer reviewed studies, and growing each year.
That, combined with the fact Bitcoin, unlike any technology I've seen, is benefitting the Global South at scale before it is benefitting the West, make it the most promising technology for social and environmental justice I've seen in a generation.

2026-07-24 16:58:36 CEST

I'm seriously geeking out on this image right now.
You can now use AI to help transform the 2nd-most recognizable part of you: your voice.
OK, some context. Years ago I wrote a book on pitching.
But it is really a book about any sort of situation where you seek to influence someone (like helping Bitcoin adoption through orangepilling).
I use the principles myself when changing people's minds about the Bitcoin and energy, and I also teach it to clients, who have a 91.1% success rate with their investment pitches (Industry average is apparently 10.4%, so seems like it works).
The book is a manual for improving all elements of influence: message, deliver, tactics and mindset. Unless all are strong, influence is unlikely to occur.
I was lucky enough to have spent a lot of my 20s doing acting for stage and TV, so I learnt how to improve delivery during those years and teach it to others. But I've never had a tool to objectively show people that their delivery has improved.
Now I do. This is just a snippet of a more extensive analysis that also gets quite technical with difference aspects of voice resonance. This client was someone I'd worked with previously to win his seed investment, but he came to me because when approaching seed-SeriesA he was getting feedback that his delivery was flat from his own team, and he agreed.
They were right! So we did a solid 2 months of voicework, and the harsh objective lens of AI is now saying his monotone is not only gone, but he's now speaking in the dynamic range.
Voicework has always tended to be something that felt subjective, but now thanks to AI it is appealing to analytical people who like the data too
We are only just beginning to tap the potential for AI for self-improvement.
https://blossom.primal.net/2781b5e0196e5a205e79b39fdbdaa0daa7b66344ba9f27221e29a761e7a85852.png

2026-07-24 05:32:47 CEST

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52.4% sustainable energy is from Cambridges 4th Mining report. April 2025. 40% sustainable for visa (using global gridmix) is from Our World in Data.

2026-07-24 02:58:55 CEST

This analysis is not something I did after the fact to justify how good bitcoin mining is for the enviroment, this is the analysis I did after running 2 climatetech funds and asking "what type of technology can we invest in that will maximize emissions reduced per dollar"
The answer: Bitcoin mining projects using the stranded vented methane coming out of half the world's landfills.
https://blossom.primal.net/54f0459ada99972d7a6b2f94fde8dc72cdbdc4f6fbac750d85073e607086ada5.png

2026-07-24 01:28:13 CEST

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Correction: the Renova source is https://neofeed.com.br/economia/renova-dribla-corte-de-energia-renovavel-com-aposta-em-data-center-de-r-1-bi-para-minerar-criptomoedas/en/

2026-07-24 00:19:41 CEST

In July, Brazil stopped evaluating Bitcoin mining and started switching it on.
On July 1, Adecoagro (the Tether-backed agribusiness) began commercial mining in Mato Grosso do Sul: 10 MW, 1,280 machines, powered by surplus energy from its own sugarcane mill (source: https://iviagora.com.br/noticia/35957/mineracao-de-bitcoin-com-energia-da-cana-comeca-em-julho-em-ivinhema-mato-grosso-do-sul))
At Renova's Alto Sertao III wind complex in Bahia, 42 MW of mining is already running: the share of their wind power the grid cut fell from 65% in January to 17% in March (source: https://diariodonordeste.verdesmares.com.br/opiniao/colunistas/mariana-lemos/usina-da-casa-dos-ventos-no-nordeste-recebera-data-center-de-mineracao-de-bitcoins-1.3749091)
Casa dos Ventos, one of Brazil's biggest wind producers, is commissioning a mine at a wind plant right now, expected to cut its curtailment losses by up to 50%. (source: https://diariodonordeste.verdesmares.com.br/opiniao/colunistas/mariana-lemos/usina-da-casa-dos-ventos-no-nordeste-recebera-data-center-de-mineracao-de-bitcoins-1.3749091)
3 companies, 2 different fuels, and the same underlying principle: Bitcoin mining is the buyer of stranded energy nobody else can take.
Energy is the adoption story.

2026-07-23 15:49:29 CEST

Arguably the biggest problem in Bitcoin adoption as that those who have adopted Bitcoin don't know how to talk about Bitcoin
Which is why things like this are great!
https://beyourownceo.ai/orangepilling/

2026-07-23 00:47:44 CEST

Texas has begun replacing its most flexible load with its most inflexible one.
Hmmm.
https://blossom.primal.net/cf819e55b37c8c425412e1afbac4b903b17b7ec2d00a753267602f0287556f3f.png

2026-07-23 00:40:30 CEST

Bitcoin payments are not only the fastest to settle (instant) and the lowest fees, they are also the most enviromentally friendly.
When you choose visa etc over Bitcoin/lightning, you are choosing a network that is slow, dirty and expensive over one that is instant, clean and fair. https://blossom.primal.net/eaf314ae737d6430176244cc78bbc65b30b62522c7e859e5ca25383c5a585ef5.png

2026-07-23 00:36:56 CEST

Monarchies (like Bhutan and UAE) like Bitcoin so much?
Ironically, because they are authocratic and centralized they can make decisions very fast that benefit their people, rather than their own chance of re-election.

2026-07-23 00:23:44 CEST

How a nuclear meltdown catalyzed Bitcoin Mining in Japan
https://x.com/DSBatten/status/2080054733226528992

2026-07-21 22:50:23 CEST

The obvious story the media reports on: "AI solves Bitcoin miners' revenue problem."
The less obvious and more interesting story they're not reporting: "AI solves Bitcoin miners' exit problelm"
More interesting because it opens up Bitcoin mining companies to something no investor has been keen on til now: equity investment.
... and that has all sorts of consequences not just for Bitcoin mining, but for Bitcoin itself.

2026-07-21 17:51:38 CEST

Contrary to what you read about Bitcoin mining, the sector has in my view never been such a good asymmetric bet to investors
In fact, AI just made Bitcoin mining investible again.
Exhibit A: our own financing company, CH4Capital, which specializes in Bitcoin mining projects on landfills, is considering equity positions in Bitcoin mining companies for the first time since 2022.
This is the subject of my latest newsletter:
https://www.batcoinz.com/p/ai-just-made-bitcoin-mining-investable
Not investment advice

2026-07-20 19:58:37 CEST

One hemisphere is switching flexible load on. The other is leasing it away
Brazil, July 1: Sugarcane mill starts mining Bitcoin on bagasse power (the 5th Brazilian energyco to do so)
Georgia: CleanSpark signs 20-year, $6.6B AI lease
AI is inflexible demand. Mining is flexible

2026-07-20 16:27:01 CEST

Monetary incentives via govt subsidies have not been to get renewable energy used, but to get renewable capacity built.
Bitcoin mining is now helping to fix the distortion caused by this false signal. At scale!
https://blossom.primal.net/630bcd5d5533617547d4d4736acdeead7f4801ee64272afe31dbe59872512f05.mov

2026-07-20 05:18:01 CEST

Four of Brazil's biggest power generators are now evaluating or piloting Bitcoin mining to monetise the renewable power they currently waste.
They are Brazil's largest
* electricity generator - Already operating (Axia)
* private generator. Actively evaluating (Engie)
* wind developer, building a bitcoin mine this year (Casa dos Ventos)
* centralized solar generator - actively evaluating (Atlas Renewable Energy)
Probably nothing

2026-07-20 05:17:09 CEST

Monetary incentives via govt subsidies have not been to get renewable energy energy used, but to get renewable capacity built.
Bitcoin mining is now helping to fix the distortion caused by this false signal. At scale!
https://blossom.primal.net/630bcd5d5533617547d4d4736acdeead7f4801ee64272afe31dbe59872512f05.mov

2026-07-20 03:45:01 CEST

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I did an article called "The changing narrative on Bitcoin" which is on X and LinkedIn. It has all 30 articles.

2026-07-20 03:42:07 CEST

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thank you 🙏

2026-07-17 17:02:37 CEST

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Thank you for proof of work and your exploring of the nuance Joe.

2026-07-17 16:34:37 CEST

In case you hadn't noticed, LLMs have now displaced wikipedia, and the world is better for it.
Run an AI query on "Bitcoin renewable" now and you will get
- an objective appraisal based on the latest 2025 data from the in Bitcoin and ESG (Cambridge University) that is the gold standard for policymakers and regulators
- fact and data
- a summary of over 30 peer reviewed articles on Bitcoin mining and energy
- case studies
- input from specialists in the fields of grid stabilization and methane mitigation
Run a wikipedia on Bitcoin mining and you will get
- citations of historic papers from the 2018-2022 period that were debunked in 2023 by Sai and Vranken
- Editorial opinions and narrative
- the results of a page curated predominantly by retired sociology professors with an anti-Bitcoin bias
No one who understand Bitcoin mining bothers to update it and correct it any more because, in the words of one former editor of that page
"I kind of gave up on Wikipedia btw (in general not only for btc). Fewer people using it. The source of truth is now LLMs and not wiki."
Wikipedia, once a reliable and independent information source, is now a historical footnote alongside Alta Vista, Encyclopedia Britanica and Kodak.
Not only has AI usurped Wikipedia, but it no longer puts much weight on wikipedia when developing its own information synthesis.
It's not perfect, but it is a meaningful step up from what we had before.
https://blossom.primal.net/23a98104e9c5d343fad9d3a4191211a179c71023024b53ed7c50a33eb2f241cb.png

2026-07-16 16:42:52 CEST

Just put together my new website.
The old one was 6 years out of date and didn't reflect any of my Bitcoin work. It does now!
Grateful for 2 things
1. For how Bitcoin has grown me as a person,
and ...
2. That we have Nostr, so I can put an external link in a message and not have to endure a 90% derate.
Here's the site. The homepage also backlinks to all my Bitcoin&Energy research
https://danielbatten.co/

2026-07-15 18:41:46 CEST

One trend rarely commented on is that bullrun in ASICS prices didn't happen last cycle
An extraordinary development considering how closely ASICS price once mirrored Bitcoin price
The mining industry is maturing. CAPEX volatility is gone.
Bitcoin mining companies who earn ancillary revenue are doing very well https://blossom.primal.net/1332f0416804a8b6b816242e366b898b675c2ec3e6a6289520154212defca6f4.png

2026-07-15 18:15:29 CEST

Don't know how this happened so fast, but suddenly I've coached over 40 Bitcoiners! (this picture is now out of date)
I'm a bit overwhelmed by how much they've advanced Bitcoin since. Between them, they're now
- they've secured funding (including Tim Draper, Ego Death Capital)
- successfully launched 2 new Bitcoin policy institutes
- created an in-house solution that stabilizes Sweden's grid
- shifted Bitcoin policy through conversations with political leaders and energy ministers in 3 different countries
They did this not only because I know something about how to bring out the best in people, but also because Bitcoiners are amazing people and something phenomenal happens when they work as a peer network
My vision is to help Bitcoiners become as antifragile as Bitcoin, operate with a full stack of self-belief, while being the change they want to see in the world.
You're the average of the 5-6 people you hang out with most often. So the impact on your focus, habits, and self-belief and progress of those people being highly committed Bitcoiners while also having a coach who helps you overcome your blindspots is very net positive for you, and for Bitcoin.
If you'd like to find out more, reach out.
https://blossom.primal.net/2b36c9be074f248e72e0bd81ac353ce15f657f407a9f49169bebcbe9c50eecd3.png

2026-07-15 17:03:03 CEST

The world is, and will continue to embrace Bitcoin's ability to solve an energy problem before it embraces Bitcoin's ability to solve a monetary problem. Because ... incentives. https://blossom.primal.net/065465a8b6f186c1f237084fd0fb8144667dda4f1f52e018d20dc30959263a07.mov

2026-07-14 18:48:48 CEST

One Brazilian solar plant wastes enough power to mine an estimated $20-25 million of Bitcoin a year.
The whole country's live Bitcoin mining captures just $3 million.
Other power producers are now moving to close that gap, a pattern I have not found anywhere else outside the US.
In Brazil, as with other countries, Bitcoin is being adopted as an energy solution
I cover this in my latest newsletter.
https://www.batcoinz.com/p/brazil-just-made-the-case-for-bitcoin

2026-07-14 18:27:32 CEST

I coach my clients to go for 10x goal because they are more likely to work than aiming for a 2x goal.
Here's what the science says on the subject. https://blossom.primal.net/725f967d8e47712715982907474145e4393f182e107b04f5a325e95d1140214e.mov

2026-07-14 15:45:53 CEST

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Ricky has a great new show too. The full interview is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxDqEa2fd7c

2026-07-14 15:43:43 CEST

In 5 minutes, this is the remarkable story of why Bitcoin mining is the only economically sustainable solution to the collision of the 2 biggest megatrends in the history of electricity
https://blossom.primal.net/f8be404e4e031ad6d0b382484d5b0562f71fdace72b9ea7c1f77cae6d6ff7b16.mov

2026-07-13 03:39:13 CEST

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Neither self-judgment nore self-justification cause growth. The middle path of self-compassion does

2026-07-13 03:36:54 CEST

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I agree. Those are important too. NGU helps by giving fuel for FGU and FGU brings more people to Bitcoin which helps NGU. That's why I worded this as a statement of what I'm personally most interested in, rather than a claim about which is more important. They both are.

2026-07-10 16:15:32 CEST

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absolutely !

2026-07-10 15:06:16 CEST

The bitcoin projects I am most interested in these days are the ones that are agnostic to price action.
Thankfully, there are many such projects like that, and they are only growing.

2026-07-10 04:19:06 CEST

Thank you Lloyds for the free Bitcoin marketing
https://blossom.primal.net/7efac0b8684a4e16d3377d19ae2c9193285f3d6cc36211a0b624c7ea511de4e9.png

2026-07-10 02:23:57 CEST

The best thing about (finally) updating my website was reconnecting with some clients I hadn't coached for five years and asking them to simply say whether there had been an ongoing benefit after the coaching ended and if so what.
I was humbled by some of the things that came back, like this one.
The exit is nice, but its not the thing that moved me the most.
Whatever you do in life, I encourage you to choose a path that minimizes regret and maximizes for legacy you'd be proud of years later.
https://blossom.primal.net/2008bee6506559769051b5ebdc5d2a027e84dd8ed200a119c9b649a536d9c78e.png

2026-07-10 01:39:10 CEST

For 2 years I've run the environmental module on Cambridge's course for digital-asset regulators.
Which means the supervisors from 11 G20 economies now know that, by a climate investor's own framework, the no-energy coins - Ethereum, Solana, Cardano - are not climate tech.
Bitcoin is the only one that can be.

2026-07-09 22:46:35 CEST

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TL;DR: "self-compassion increases self-improvement motivation"
https://self-compassion.org/wp-content/uploads/publications/selfimp.motivation.pdf

2026-07-09 22:20:19 CEST

The research is clear: the intention behind your goal matters more than you think. The surprise is where it lands - it has some bearing on whether you hit the goal, and a much stronger one on what happens next.
Let's imagine two people set the same goal: lose 15 kilos. The goal could be anything, but weight loss is so measurable and visible that I'll use it as the example.
One motivation is running away from something you don't like in yourself. "I'm lazy. I look terrible. I'm a disgrace."
The other is running toward something that inspires you as a latent potential within you. "I want to be strong, and present for my kids in twenty years."
In weight-loss trials, autonomous motivation - the "toward" kind - predicted the initial loss and, more tellingly, whether the goal stuck 2 years on. The controlling kind, the drive to fix a flaw, causes adherence to goal for a short time, but here's the kicker: maintenance of the goal once achieved was almost nil.
(source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/1479-5868-9-22).
It goes deeper. Self-criticism can spark a short burst, then it gives you back shame, and shame produces avoidance
(source: https://self-compassion.org/wp-content/uploads/publications/selfimp.motivation.pdf).
And as an aside, when the goal is about appearance, even if you reach it, it tends not to make you feel better - the people who feel better are the ones whose intention was to do with health or connection
(source: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0146167296223006 ).
Even "be there for my family" can be pressure in disguise, if guilt sits underneath it.
So don't trust the words of the goal.
Instead, notice whether holding it feels like choice or coercion.

2026-07-09 17:05:00 CEST

A short story about trusting yourself
Until 2020 I had a very simple, and very effective website. A homepage, a sparse amount of menu, a video on the homepage and a "let's go" button if people wanted to take the conversation further.
The simple, clear, direct message and path typically led to one new coaching client per quarter who found me on the website.
Then I met a marketing expert.
He told me I was doing it all wrong. "People need to get to know you before they'll connect with you", "There's not enough context, or story about who you are", "And the design is sparse and not warm".
I trusted his viewpoint. After all he was a marketing expert. What would I know?
We rebuilt the website in what was a long, involved process. The result looked visually appealing and told a far more complete story about who I was.
But ...
after a year, there had been no new enquiries.
after three years, still no new enquiries, let alone clients
Six years later, one enquiry off the website and still zero new clients.
Here's what he realized:
Yes, there are some people who need to "get to know you" before they contact you. But people who take a long time to make decisions have never been my clients. My best clients by results have always been those who have the capacity to implement a new idea fast.
I'd just invested money in creating a website that matched my marketing expert's belief about how people buy, not how I already knew my best clients engaged with me.
But the mistake was on me. I didn't trust my gut, my own process, and allowed the words of an "expert" to override not just my intuition but my own direct experience.
Worse, because I'd "invested so much in building it" I was reluctant to go back and fix it, because that would amount to admitting to an expensive mistake, the real expense being not the initial cost, but the compounding loss of business over a growing period of time as I continued to procrastinate.
This year I got real with myself and admitted the mistake, and within a month built a new website.
The site follows all the exact same principles that I used until 2020. But it's better because, well, I have done some extra cool things and become a better coach too since then.
Here's the finished result if you're curious
https://danielbatten.co/
But the point of the story is this:
No matter how much expertise someone has, you are the expert on you. Don't trade that inner knowing for someone else's domain knowledge lightly. You know context they don't, and ignoring that can be expensive.

2026-07-09 16:47:36 CEST

If someone says to you "Bitcoin is bad for the environment" here's my 2.47min coaching on how to respond. https://blossom.primal.net/9e118a42f7af696ecaa5b5a924541450891d7343c1a55150b7d29941e722cdbc.mp4
~95% of Bitcoiners currently don't do this, and it is a simple (and powerful) fix.

2026-07-08 18:03:11 CEST

"The headwinds Bitcoin faces, the more hills we have to climb, the more rarefied air starved of the oxygen of positive media appraisal - the stronger we become"
https://blossom.primal.net/3045654eea05ee40c05c9479a6953e5934362fdbb6691e90ca0ed96b9b24a615.mp4

2026-07-06 16:13:24 CEST

"There are 2 things that are good to invest in. One is Bitcoin. The other is yourself."
https://blossom.primal.net/4af29e640de31668b35514c2c1467dcdc5bbecfaa8f205434483413068aa7ee7.mp4

2026-07-06 06:29:12 CEST

“If you want to be happy for an hour, take a nap. If you want to be happy for a day, go fishing. If you want to be happy for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want to be happy for a lifetime, help someone else.”
Chinese proverb

2026-07-06 04:02:41 CEST

Once a technology is good, advancing it is largely a function of having the right conversations with the right people
I can't reach all the right people.
But I can help make sure that when Bitcoiners do, they have the right conversations.
Behind the scenes over the last year, I've been coaching Bitcoiners about what is the right conversation to have when they met with political leaders and energy ministers in France, Chile, NZ, Australia, Ethiopia, Senegal.
These conversations have gone well, and an increasing number of the main political parties across each of these 6 countries are now favorably disposed to Bitcoin mining.

2026-07-01 02:56:21 CEST

Charisma is something almost everyone seems to want more of and seek out in others. Yet remarkably, almost no one knows what it is, let alone how to increase it. It turns out it isn't one trait.
When researchers actually measured it, it resolved into two halves:
1. influence, the ability to guide and lead people, and
2. affability, the ability to make them feel at ease (Tskhay, General Charisma Inventory, 2018).
Most people only work on the first half. Status, authority, looking impressive. It matters, however ... it is the smaller of the two levers.
The second half is quieter, and it is the one most people underrate.
Charismatic people carry and express calm, positive emotion, and other people catch it.
Follower moods track the leader's mood, a process called emotional contagion.
Bono and Ilies measured it in 2006: a leader's positive emotion measurably lifts the mood of the people around them.
So here is the working model I am testing on myself: the affable half of charisma is largely nervous-system regulation. Settle your own state and you settle the people around you, often without saying anything. This is leadership through presence.
You cannot hold the first half for long if the second is missing. And you build the second the way you build anything steady in the body, through breathwork, meditation, and daily attention to your own state.
Work on your nervous system and you are working on (at least) half of what makes you more charismatic, and ... the half most people ignore competely.

2026-06-22 18:29:16 CEST

Almost nobody is connecting Bitcoin mining profitability-squeeze to the rise of Bitcoin mining companies earning grid-revenue
We are moving from the age of mining monoculture (Sats only) to mining permaculture (multiple revenue streams, multiple uses in parallel)

2026-06-17 16:55:39 CEST

Last month, I asked a Bitcoin miner operating in Sweden what his electricity actually costs him per kWh.
The answer was a negative number. And most of his revenue isn't coming from mining at all. I shared the story with Nik a couple of days ago.
Like Bitcoin itself, Bitcoin mining is super antifragile.
https://blossom.primal.net/87026fa8e743859ecd5280504f42813217b1c1d441f07e880118c0b594e4e35a.mp4
Link to whole interview in comments

2026-06-06 22:49:10 CEST

Bitcoin mining will never be unprofitable because you can mine for -2c/kWh in an increasing number of places. Increasingly, grids are paying for flexibility as a service, and this need will only increase with more renewables and AI load coming onto grids in parallel.
https://blossom.primal.net/5f588b2f0e8fe0cefd2e3fc3f4aeb155717bc76f878c8595dce45a7e2622d653.png

2026-06-04 17:44:25 CEST

I've made this newsletter edition a special free edition, because
1. It's inspiring story about a guy no-one's heard of, who's achieved something no other Bitcoin has yet achieved
2. There are more useful things to pay attention to right now than the price.
3. There's an important lesson in it that I believe can help Bitcoin adoption
https://www.batcoinz.com/p/the-truth-is-not-enough
Feel free to share this one widely, including with non-Bitcoiners.It's written for them too.

2026-06-04 14:09:24 CEST

New paper finds:
Bitcoin mining enables better absorption of surplus renewable generation, minimizing curtailment and supporting higher renewable integration without extra storage or infrastructure costs, creating a win-win for grid stability and mining profitability.
The finding is significant, because it establishes Bitcoin Mining as the only way grid operators can avoid the significant cost of balancing frequency fluctuations and operational cost increases that doesn't involve significant capital outlay on grids with high renewable penetration
https://blossom.primal.net/e4683766667ce92bd620952b9cfcb2b931fc02e410fb854bde433ef352824cda.png
Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378779625007874
The paper Leveraging Bitcoin Mining in Demand-Response to Mitigate Ramping-Induced Transients (Ginzburg-Ganz et al. 2026) was published in Electric Power Systems Research, which has an Impact Factor of 4.2, placing it in the top 12% of academic journals worldwide.

2026-06-03 19:20:30 CEST

Fragile miners have one revenue stream. Antifragile miners have many. Antifragile miners are how antifragile money gets secured.

2026-06-03 16:17:44 CEST

Just in: Agribusiness giant Adecoagro set to launch 10 MW Bitcoin mining operation in Brazil powered by renewable energy generated from sugarcane processing
The convergence of Bitcoin mining and the energy sector continues
Source: https://coinlaw.io/tether-adecoagro-bitcoin-mining-brazil/

2026-06-03 16:07:26 CEST

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Glad it is resonating. Just doing my part to make sure the Proof of Work of others (a group of scientists and engineers in this case) gets the attention it deserves

2026-06-03 05:11:44 CEST

I've been meaning to do this for some time.
It's a compilation of free resources for anyone who is looking to
- start a business
- improve their influence skills (honestly and authentically)
- break through habits
- pitch better than the templated way of doing it
Some of the links in the ebooks may be a little old, as I wrote them over a decade ago, but the concepts are still fresh. The ebooks are products that I used to sell, so they are written to a good standard and have proven useful to people.
The pitching video contains a lot of things that I learn raising capital I was for my own startiup, as well as seeing hundreds of pitches as an investor, and hundreds more as a coach.
Enjoy ... and put the ideas to use!
https://batcoinz.com/3358-2/

2026-06-02 23:55:05 CEST

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Interesting. I'd not heard of that one. Yes, different original - but remarkably similar result!

2026-06-02 20:41:49 CEST

As a kiwi, we have this thing called "Tall Poppy Syndrome" that makes me (still) reluctant even to repost what others say about me
... however, if you're doing something of value, its important people find out about it. A good coach from my experience is one of the biggest unlocks of your potential, and a coach who gets Bitcoin is rare.
Apparently I'm quite good at this, so if you have a project or mission that can advance Bitcoin - reach out.
Some recent unsolicited feedback from other Bitcoiners on coaching with me
Kent Halliburton (CEO Sazmining)
https://x.com/khalliburton/status/1887599468356190589
Tim Niemeyer (Founder IBC)
https://x.com/tim_niemeyer_/status/2014735140241465848
Ismael Dainehine (CEO Evergive)
https://x.com/ishabisinia/status/1997962004024189294
Scott Offord (CEO Bitcoin Mining World)
https://x.com/DSBatten/status/2061878510319210740
Michele Morucci (Founder Geyserfund)
https://x.com/metamick14/status/1887147848405270960

2026-06-01 16:55:37 CEST

There are now 30 peer reviewed articles showing the energy and environmental benefits to Bitcoin mining
Yet most regulators, politicians, investors and members of the public have no knowledge of this - instead quoting first gen "research" on Bitcoin, not realizing it has long-since been debunked.
This is one of the biggest information asymmetries of any technology, and any area of research, in history

2026-05-29 17:52:04 CEST

New Study shows Bitcoin mining supports local renewable projects with heat recapture as an additional benefit
The study found Bitcoin mining supported UNFCCC Article 6 sustainable-development benefits, including improving
*local livelihoods
*food security
*energy access
The paper documented micro-hydropower + solar coupled with flexible Bitcoin mining and heat recovery for a greenhouse and was published in "Sustainability" which has an impact factor of 3.3 (top 20% of journals)
Source: https://mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/21/9488
https://blossom.primal.net/a209d9736bbb1d0154b4a9c1af2bfa411911fe5548c7ac6b205746c90d140c80.png

2026-05-29 17:16:36 CEST

Large levels of flexible load is a non-negotiable requirement for tomorrow's grids
Bitcoin mining is best in class across 3 of the 4 dimensions of flexible load that matter most
Probably nothing
https://blossom.primal.net/eff8a6ab9caab205c20fc56aa97fb08e564572d01fd45848e9de4f15c8406969.png

2026-05-28 19:11:17 CEST

One year ago Paulo Gonçalves was not a Bitcoiner.
He's was (and is) renewable energy project developer who has spent his career building small hydroelectric dams across the world.
His problem was simple: many of these dams produce power that the grid can't absorb. The energy is wasted. The economics don't work. He'd seen the problem firsthand and had been searching for a solution for over a decade.
A year ago, he attended a FREEMadeiraOrg event in Portugal, where he discovered Bitcoin mining.
That day changed everything.
Unlike others who fall into the mistake of evaluating Bitcoin mining without understanding energy, grids or renewable generation - he understood all three intimately, and as such was able to immediately see the value that others (including policymakers and regulators) sometimes miss.
Paulo is now evaluating 100s of small hydropowered sites throughout Portugal that are ideal candidates for Bitcoin miners. There are sites that are "too small" or too remote to be of interest to anyone else.
The miners consume what would otherwise be stranded energy. No subsidy required. The dam that didn't make financial sense now does.
This is the pattern critics miss.
They assume Bitcoin miners are Bitcoiners first, working backwards to justify energy use. In reality in the energy sector it happens the other way around.
Kenji Tateiwa in Japan. Paulo Gonçalves in Portugal, Bipin Patel in Sweden are real people solving real energy problems. Different countries, different energy sources, same discovery pattern:
When you know a lot about energy, and do deep research into how to solve energy problems, you arrive at Bitcoin mining.
https://blossom.primal.net/11c4894911fd9841c719197a90fd9117fdd234f439c7d562fd5ba0db4d731c66.png

2026-05-27 16:54:31 CEST

Nostr-only post follows.
One thing I've been reflecting on this last week is that many of the people who changed the world worked deep hours, and remarkably few of them.
I did some research and found 7 examples that might change how you think about your day, and the belief that grinding long hours is the best way to success
https://blossom.primal.net/10d928d2cfd4f63f23a501687d5ef42f5cd80680667aa123e929ded22de6834c.png
Charles Darwin worked two 90-minute blocks each morning, then a single hour later in the day. Between sessions: naps and long walks
On this schedule he wrote 19 books (including On the Origin of Species)
4 hours a day, and he changed biology forever
https://blossom.primal.net/0df3efd7351aee90b8c2bd01377b41b8ec11e09a07563d6585f8fa04ee030708.png
Roald Dahl wrote from 10am-noon, then 4pm-6pm. 7 days a week. No exceptions
He spent six months on a single short story. His words: "Writing is not inspiration. It's keeping your bottom on the seat"
On 4 hours/day, he became one of the most beloved authors who ever lived
https://blossom.primal.net/c83d1a8ea705f87cec6e9379770c4c4d18b1a3bf89562fb01ba6adb63029d200.png
Henri Poincare worked 10am-noon, then 5pm-7pm
He solved problems mentally in breaks, then committed them to paper
A psychologist who studied his routine in 1910, found working longer achieved nothing extra
4 hrs/day, and he reshaped Topology, planetary physics and chaos theory
Literaturehttps://blossom.primal.net/6eea0d6b61b56c3c3c455c7f8b3ac85c89b1b63f61c31d32896b05f28ba9bd95.png
Hemingway started at first light and stopped before noon. 500 to 1,000 words, standing up, pencil on paper
He famously stopped mid-sentence so he'd have momentum the next morning
~5 hours a day and a Nobel Prize in Literature
https://blossom.primal.net/5b377aed8539d80de4d5bbb2a1ea735fd071b127837c66f45ed771e96e0e64cd.png
Novelist Anthony Trollope paid a servant to wake him at 5:30am.
He wrote from 5am to 8am with a watch in front of him - 250 words every 15 minutes. Then he went to his day job (at the Post Office)
3 hours a day, 47 novels over 35 years - all before breakfast !
https://blossom.primal.net/aa25276f44738cd3c55fefce4383b8ec18f762abab9cd1e1fb11cf86ce3d95b7.png
Tchaikovsky composed at his desk for about 4.5 hours split across morning and evening
But he also took a daily two-hour walk, timed to the minute, composing in his head as he walked
In ~4.5 hours at the desk he captured what the walk created
The rest was letting the mind work
https://blossom.primal.net/ba461c6c9bd7978ba189f3d370421f9848871fc1bcdd2aae0fce232d14c72c88.png
·
"But what about Musk, he works 80-100 hr weeks?"
Look closer
He schedules his day in 5-minute blocks
90% of his time is meetings and design reviews. That's executive coordination (and he's brilliant at it) - a different kind of work from the deep creation these others did
https://blossom.primal.net/2ff5315bf38f0cdffa47075cd47f9740b211f094bd23f4219224dfc10bd636bd.png
"But what about Picasso, Balzac and others who worked big hours?"
Picasso painted for long stretches. But he alternated intense work with long social meals and downtime within the day
Balzac wrote 16 hours a day fuelled by industrial quantities of coffee (he also died at 51)
I've seen this firsthand. One founder I coached was working 80-hour weeks, on the point of burnout. I shared 4 productivity strategies, got him to cut back to 50-hr weeks and go home to his family
NPS scores, Q12 ratings, RPU all improved. The company exited 2 years later
The pattern across all of these: short duration, consistent deep focus, real rest between sessions
They protected the hours, protected the recovery, and they didn't confuse hours with output
The lesson:
Perhaps working more isn't the secret?
Perhaps working deeper is?

2026-05-23 16:02:32 CEST

To date, the area of Bitcoin and energy has been a niche
With AI power demands, European blackouts, stalled energy transitions, global grid stress, and 12 months of accumulating evidence, the world is now walking inexorably toward that niche

2026-05-20 14:37:19 CEST

Here's an article I wrote yesterday on 13 little-known benefits of meditation, and how they apply specifically to Bitcoiners
https://x.com/DSBatten/status/2056760811624747095?s=20
I wanted to take this a step further on Nostr though ...
A common question I get "I've heard that meditation is something that would really benefit me, where should I start - try out an app?"
Here's my take: an app is a better starting point than most people think, and ... a worse endpoint than most people realise !
Learning meditation from an app to learning to cook from YouTube. You'll produce edible meals and learn real techniques. Some people even become good cooks this way.
But there are two things a video can never do - taste what you've made and tell you what's off.
A teacher can read your experience in real time, adjust the instruction to what's actually happening for you, and introduce progression at the moment you're ready for it.
An app delivers the same content to everyone regardless of where they are.
My objective appraisal is that apps like Headspace and Waking Up have genuinely lowered the barrier to entry and that's something we should celebrate. Someone who meditates daily with an app is in a categorically better position than someone who intends to find a teacher and never starts.
The risk isn't that apps teach badly (most teach the fundamentals accurately), the risk is that the early stages feel complete because you don't yet know what you're missing
Three months in, the app feels like it's working. And it is. But a teacher doesn't just correct your posture - they recognise when you've hit a plateau you can't see from inside it, and they introduce the next thing at the right time. An app delivers the same content to everyone regardless of where they are.
So, if the choice is app or nothing, then yes - the app wins every time
If the choice is app or course, the course will take someone further, faster, with less risk of plateauing without knowing it

2026-05-19 23:46:31 CEST

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If Cedar Falls had a primary school level understanding of the difference between AI and Bitcoin mining, they'd have made a different decision.

2026-05-19 21:03:36 CEST

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fair point

2026-05-19 20:56:52 CEST

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Agreed, no shortage of inspiration in Lisbon!

2026-05-19 20:56:18 CEST

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You did well to try different angles and listen to the signal. It's a more rewarding approach (if we want data back about what works) than just talking about what orangepilled us/ what we happen to like highlighting about Bitcoin

2026-05-18 05:06:35 CEST

I just got back from the Bitcoin Energy Summit in Lisbon and I have a question that won't leave me alone.
First some context: Bitcoin mining is now stabilizing the grids of 7 nations, 4 agencies (including the Spanish Govt and the World's largest energy policy association) just called for more flexible demand being critical to the resilience of the grids of the future - and Bitcoin mining is the world's most flexible load resource by an order of magnitude.
So in light of this my question is this: why is 95% of the Bitcoin adoption conversation about Bitcoin-as-money when Bitcoin-as-energy is already deployed on grids across three continents?
Is it possible that energy is the Bitcoin usecase that paves the road for mainstream acceptance of Bitcoin in the West?
I've been in this space for four years now. When I started, the conversation was "bitcoin mining wastes energy." A group of Bitcoiners including Troy Cross changed that. Then it became "ok maybe it doesn't waste energy, but it's not useful."
@nprofile…xncl , @nprofile…zj6n and others changed that too.
But here's what I noticed in Lisbon. Three separate European organisations - the European Bitcoin Energy Association, Free Madeira, and the Institut National de Bitcoin in France - are all independently converging on the same conclusion.
Rachel Geyer, Chair of EBEA said energy is what will move the needle for Bitcoin in Europe.
André Loja at Free Madeira said energy is the most topical issue in Europe right now.
Bastien Desteuque, directeur général at INBi (Bitcoin Policy Insitute of France) said they're focusing on mining because France has spare nuclear capacity and that's where the biggest opportunity is.
Three organisations. Same conclusion.
And that's before you get to what's actually being built. In Sweden, a man I coach runs ASIC hardware that earns almost two-thirds of its revenue from frequency regulation - keeping the lights on, responding in seconds to the need of the grid operator, and helping to stabilize the grid an incredible11,247 times last year alone. (Yes, you read that sentence right).
In Lisbon, I watched Kenji Tateiwa present a circular economy where bitcoin mining heat grows tropical fish and the CO2 gets converted to charcoal and micro diamonds. Bastian outlined how France's surplus nuclear energy could be absorbed by bitcoin mining by 2027.
The conversation has quietly moved from "does bitcoin mining help grids?" to "how many services can one machine provide?"
We've been thinking about this like monoculture - one machine, one function. What I saw in Lisbon is permaculture. The same hardware doing frequency regulation, heat capture, Sats-minting ... and potentially in the near future - voltage regulation (something that would have prevented the 28 April 2025 Iberian Peninsular Blackout.
I talked to Bitcoin founders after the keynote who told me the energy thesis had opened their eyes. These are people who worked to advance Bitcoin payment infrastructure, and they hadn't fully grasped this.
So here's my question. If energy is already Bitcoin's most mature real-world use case in the West - more deployed than payments, more proven than store-of-value at institutional scale - why are we still treating it as a footnote?
What other Bitcoin use case is this far along ... at least in the West?
Excited to see what happens next.

2026-04-29 03:51:06 CEST

I encourage those I coach to know your not only their values but to distinguish where those values find expression ... and where they don't.
Here's mine.
Clarity saves everyone a lot of time ... and energy
https://blossom.primal.net/5eeeea78ddfcfcba5888d16f0f6f871760bef258344cc25751e0548648e92932.png

2026-04-28 02:01:40 CEST

Environmentally, Bitcoin has a positive:negative ratio of 31:1
This makes Bitcoin arguably one of the most important environmental-impact technology of our time
As a fund manager of 2 impact-funds, I said 4 years ago I consider it gross negligence for an ESG investor not to consider Bitcoin in their mix. Many called me crazy at the time. They are no longer saying that today (at least not for that reason!)
Here's a data summary from our due diligence four years ago (which has since been vindicated with 24 peer reviewed papers coming out in support of exactly the same findings we arrived at)
How did we reach this view?
Simple: we did our job as investors. ie: we did due diligence on Bitcoin and energy (something very few people were doing at the time before recycling what has since proven to be factually inaccorate claims)
Simple rue:
- relevant domain knowledge + data => we listen
- vested interest + narrative => ignore
We listened to grid operators, climate scientists, bitcoin mining engineers, methane abatement experts, solar&wind installers, academics with multi-disciplinary expertise across energy systems/ sustainability / bitcion mining/ economics/ policy
We found
- 21 ways Bitcoin could be an environmental positive
- 5 ways bitcoin could be an environmental negative
(Uncannily similar to the solar industry)
We then applied an impact weighting to each factor and remeasured The result was conclusive: Bitcoin mining is 31:1 net positive to the environment
Bitcoin mining’s rapid renewable adoption can inspire other industry sectors to follow
We found that in the next 5 years, Bitcoin mining would play a real part in global methane mitigation (it is), grid stabilization (it is), and monetizing wasted renewable energy (it is)
The rule is simple: do your own due diligence rather than listen to the opinions of anyone: be they media, politicians, environmental organisations, general energy experts or bitcoiners themselves
That's the path to truth
https://blossom.primal.net/a739633d86fb04e8773b3babd716715d825a1cb3f317da13d6cdb5d041acdc31.png

2026-04-24 19:28:10 CEST

In the EU, the G in ESG stands for Gaslighting
In Brazil it stands for, well, Governance
ESG Inside, a Brazilian sustainability media company just became the 16th sustainability-focused media outlet to report positively on the environmental benefits of Bitcoin mining
They covered the investment by Itau Unibanco (Brazil's largest bank) into Minter, a startup that uses Bitcoin at renewable energy sites where the power would otherwise be wasted
But this is the bit that shows ESG working as it should: Phillippe Schlumpf, head of Itau Ventures (the bank's corporate VC arm) said this about the investment:
"Minter's thesis combines two relevant vectors: the expansion of renewable generation and the growing demand for computational infrastructure ... [addressing] curtailment in a flexible way, close to the point of generation, with attention to governance."
Imagine any EU banker publicly stating that Bitcoin mining supports renewable expansion and addresses curtailment with "operational discipline and attention to governance." For political reasons (it threatens ECB's attempt to control the narrative on Bitcoin) - that would be career limiting to say the least. In Brazil, freed from that political constraint, banks can do what makes commercial and ESG sense.
The environmental benefits highlighted by ESG Inside are worth listing because they're the same ones that 24 peer-reviewed publications have been establishing for years - it's just that now a major bank's investment team is saying them out loud:
- monetizes wasted renewable energy that generators are currently being forced to curtail
- provides flexible, interruptible load that stabilises the grid by absorbing surplus and releasing it on demand
- enables 100% renewable-source Bitcoin mining without diverting grid power from households
Meanwhile, the EU continues to instruct officials to write reports labelling Bitcoin environmentally harmful (even though the paper underpinning that view has now been debunked). But the actual data, the peer reviewed science, the countries deploying renewables at scale, and even their bankers, are reaching the opposite conclusion in increasing numbers.
The G in ESG is supposed to mean governance - making evidence-based decisions with transparency and accountability.
The irony is not lost on me that it is the LATAM economy which has been busy doing that, while EU stays busy gaslighting.
https://esginside.com.br/2026/04/22/itau-unibanco-lidera-rodada-serie-a-em-startup-de-infraestrutura-digital-que-monetiza-energia-renovavel-excedente/
https://blossom.primal.net/49371fb2ede1e128372f69852b3dbe82c6d29bbf519fd225db02df46d8ac72cd.png

2026-04-24 16:17:09 CEST

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Grid stabilization (FaaS), grid ancillary services (including FCAS, 4CP, blackstart, demand response), RECS, carbon credits, heat recycling ...

2026-04-24 03:21:05 CEST

At the end of 2023 I met the person who ran GreenpeaceUSA's campaign against Bitcoin.  
I expected it to be tense.
It wasn't.  
He told me he'd read every response to every post I'd made on Twitter.  "I wish we'd engaged with you and people like you from the outset," he said. 
Two months later he left Greenpeace. A few months after that they ended the campaign entirely.
It was the most well-funded, yet the worst result in their history.  I keep coming back to that phrase. "People like you." Not me. A whole group. Troy Cross, Margot Paez, Elliot David, Susie Violet Ward and many others.
We were working independently, with no budget and no coordination. We just shared data and conviction.  
It is a great story of a decentralized response beating a multi-million dollar centralized campaign, not by being louder but by a combination of being right and expressing that truth in such a way that reasonable people could see.
And it is a recipe we can use again and again.

2026-04-23 23:54:09 CEST

If you look at your vision and think "I don't have the skills to pull that off", you're probably right.  
You don't. At least not yet.  But that's the whole point.  
The person who will implement your vision is not the person you are today, it's the person you become in the pursuit of it.  
I've seen this happen enough times now, both in my own life and in the founders I've worked with.
The doubt is real. But it's a photograph of who you are right now, not a prediction of who you'll be.
So if you're looking at a goal thinking "I can't do that" - good! That's the sign it's probably the right assignment, because your growth will be a necessary component in the fulfilment of your vision.

2026-04-22 17:04:59 CEST

No earth day event is complete without looking at the importance of Bitcoin mining to preserving our environment, stabilizing our grids and mitigating methane. Great to see this now being taught in schools.
https://blossom.primal.net/efc5935b46ba7fedec155d7baed7324634ede577bad6498f3ca5d9911240ad64.jpg

2026-04-22 01:42:59 CEST

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Seems to be a calling for this, I agree

2026-04-19 22:09:47 CEST

Why a high standard of clarity and communication is required when talking about Bitcoin:
Misinformation travels 10x further than the truth, and gets 10x the coverage - so anyone articulating the truth need to state it 100x more clearly, just to reach parity.

2026-04-19 05:43:34 CEST

Imagine if I said to you "Earth is an uninhabitable place to live"
You look at me sideways and say "Ah... why?"
I reply "Planets are awful bad. Pluto/Uranus/Neptune, you'd freeze. Mercury, you'd burn. Venus, you'd be poisoned. Jupiter and Saturn, you'd be crushed. Mars: nothing to breath.
It's true. Most of the planets, including over 5700 exoplanets, are really really bad places to live.
The conclusion that this means earth is uninhabitable is a basic logic fail.
Now imagine some self-proclaimed crypto-commentator tells you "Bitcoin is a scam"
Again, you look at him sideways and say "Ah... why?"
He replies "Most crypto has gone to zero. VCs dump on retail. Memecoins are complete rugpulls. Pre-mined tokens, you get diluted to oblivian. ICOs, you're the exit-liquidity for founders and early investors.
It's true. Most of the thousands of cryptocurrencies launched since 2009 are complete scams.
But again, the conclusion that this makes Bitcoin a scam is equally a basic logic 101 fail.
Earth is the only planet with a breathable atmosphere, the right temperature band, and liquid water.
Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency with the combination of no insider enrichment, a fixed supply that nobody can change, and a 17-year unhacked decentralised ledger.
In both cases, some very special and unique features make the general rule inapplicable to the one obvious exception.
This logical fallacy has been around long enough to have a name. Aristotle spotted it about 2,300 years ago and called it the "Fallacy of Accident" - taking a pattern that's true for a category and forcing it onto the one member where evidence shows it obviously doesn't hold.
A few days ago, Ben McKenzie sat on Jon Stewart's podcast and committed this exact logic-fail: citing crypto's failures as his evidence against Bitcoin.
He's not the only one to fail in this way. Paul Krugman, Elizabeth Warren, Jamie Dimon, Christine Lagarde all conflated Bitcoin with all crypto for years. Many journalists still fail to distinguish Bitcoin from all other crypto (though the better ones are starting to).
In fact, this fallacy has been deployed for years with impunity by people who either don't know, or forgot to mention that Bitcoin has unique features making it materially different from all other crypto.
The irony is that Bitcoiners and crypto-critics are on the same page: the rugpulls, the insider enrichment, the tokens engineered to extract value from retail investors are all things that Bitcoiners like @CorySwan and other have been vocally calling out for over a decade, long before category-conflating journalists and actors from teen dramas decided they had an opinion about it.
It's not that hard
Unless you have the attention-span of a gnat-fly, you can easily do 5 mins research (AI-assisted if you really want) and discover either what the core differences are between Earth and all other planets, between Bitcoin and all other crypto.
Earth is an incredibly, uniquely habitable planet for humans to live.
Bitcoin is an incredible, uniquely suitable form of currency for humans to use.

2026-04-16 22:49:44 CEST

Apparently I've now done 7,090 FUD-busting related tweets about Bitcoin across 5 categories (Environmental, Criminal/Terrorist, Ponzi/Scam/Bubble, Political/Partisan, Technical FUD). 🤣
Unsurprisingly, 4,318 of them (61%) were on environmental FUD and benefits of Bitcoin, but surprisingly the best performing rebuttals or pre-emptive positive messages about Bitcoin have been when I've been responding to the nonsense message "Bitcoin is used by criminals"

2026-04-14 04:21:08 CEST

There's a decision-making method gaining traction in AI circles right now.
You spin up five AI agents, each with a distinct thinking role: first-principles thinker, contrarian, systems thinker, domain expert, pragmatist. Plus a chairman who runs the process.
Each agent drafts an answer independently. The chairman strips the names off and circulates them anonymously. Each agent critiques the others without knowing who wrote what. Then the chairman synthesises the best answer.
The anonymity is the genuinely good part. It forces evaluation on content, not on who said it. Ego gets removed from the room. That alone makes it better than most boardroom decisions.
But it's still modelled on a boardroom. And a boardroom is not where the best decisions get made.
Here's what's missing.
1. No real iteration. Ideas develop the same way people develop: through feedback and iteration. In this model, the iteration is perfunctory. Ideas get assessed, not evolved.
2. No brainstorming. Effective brainstorming deliberately separates "divergent thinking" (the process of imagining all possibilities, including crazy ones) from convergent thinking (the process of whittling them down to what's possible within the constraints of time, space and budgets).
The best discussions with the best ideas happen when you go wide first, then narrow. This protocol puts a convergent black-hat thinker in the room at the same time as the divergent thinkers. That collapses the exploration phase before it even starts.
3. Optimised for evaluation, not ideation. It's designed to select the best existing idea rather than generate one that's better than any individual agent could produce.
4. The chairman selects rather than facilitates. There's a difference between choosing the best idea in the room and facilitating the development of the best collective idea. A chairman does the first. A facilitator does the second. Different function entirely. The first is optimized for efficacy of process and efficiency of outcome, the second is optimized for the quality and robustness of the decision.
5. Swimlane identities. Each agent operates within a narrow role. "Domain expert." "Contrarian." Knowledge seldom comes from people locked into narrow identities. It comes from the collision between them.
The net result: no ideation, a marginally better selection process, and a high risk that an underdeveloped idea gets chosen. Worse, because the process looks robust and complex, the output runs the risk of getting acted on with more confidence than it deserves.
I studied this exact problem during my thesis. I had groups communicating anonymously, analysing a poem (I was an English major), exchanging ideas across rounds. The quality of analysis improved dramatically in the second round - not because the evaluation got sharper, but because people were building on each other's thinking, measurably. They were interchanging ideas, not just ranking them.
I've seen the same thing running mastermind groups since. When different minds get in a room and start sparring and introducing ideas, a network effect kicks in. Ideas emerge that no single person in the room could ever have produced. That process creates ideas through a principle that we call "advance and extend". And it's what this five-agent model doesn't have.
The fix isn't complicated. Let agents build on each other's drafts across multiple rounds instead of just critiquing them. Replace the chairman with a facilitator agent whose job is synthesis, not selection. Separate the divergent phase from the convergent phase. And stop assigning swimlane identities that constrain what each agent is allowed to think.
The five-agent idea is a step forward. But it's a step from a bad process to a less bad process.
The leap - to a process that produces genuinely emergent thinking - requires a different model entirely. And that model already exists. It just hasn't been applied to AI ... yet.

2026-04-13 19:38:29 CEST

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Nice! He's running his second Bitcoin "treasure hunt" in a couple of weeks in his local town. Once this is done, then he'll start massaging the playbook into something that can be open sourced with other regions. Ping me in a few weeks and I'll give you an update.

2026-04-13 17:53:35 CEST

One Bitcoiner has just onboarded15 new businesses in his local town (in his spare time). How? A few things but, a key component was getting comfortable leaving things undone, focusing on needle-moving actions and getting better at identifying what those needle-moving actions were (and then taking them)!
You can do this too.
acceblihttps://blossom.primal.net/f99e0534313d1b4ff20bb0a05baa92ca9693edb6217284b09dc2aac732aaeb4f.mov

2026-04-12 20:52:31 CEST

You are capable of doing much more for Bitcoin than you can probably imagine.
... and here's the proof!
https://blossom.primal.net/dc95ad51b4aeb94a313727149f1b9918aa11944925e7f00eab6d9974fd45202a.mov

2026-04-10 22:22:02 CEST

Yet to find a single Bitcoiner who has not noticed this same effect.
One of the biggest environmental benefits of Bitcoin is how it reduces overconsumption.
https://blossom.primal.net/b643acbb481d876c1af976029ae6da226805a1fd7d10589da9bd98e520580257.png

2026-04-09 15:55:09 CEST

It is my duty to remind you that Bitcion will use all the world's power by 2020.
https://blossom.primal.net/87b08178d823302cfc7f3f04e06138e638b03e949e0cba42cb92dbc223961684.jpg

2026-04-07 17:01:37 CEST

I've turned Claude into a BEAST ! 🤣
The biggest problem with all AI and LLMs is it tells you what you want to hear, and is optimized for the most pleasing response by default.
Aside from using Claude as a glorified EA, that's often useless, and in many cases dangerous.
Claude now challenges me, bosses me around, holds me to account, names unproductive patterns of behavior, brings critical-path activities to my attention that are blocking other work and proactively tells me if I'm focusing on a low value activity relative to my stated goals.
As a result it is 3x more useful and 10x less dangerous!
https://blossom.primal.net/17b1679da0e79d45127f8b04ece04ddbafca1d2eff3a9e7429427e61448f90e4.png

2026-04-07 01:43:45 CEST

In The Netherlands there is a a limit of €3000 for cash purchases on goods.
There is no spending limit on Bitcoin.
https://blossom.primal.net/9ecae819c2ee023e68e0d2556b5ce150f5b42d8201451a8818e16f83b0d0b71b.png

2026-04-06 19:50:07 CEST

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Exactly! I almost came away thinking that people were only interested in hearing me talk about Bitcoin and energy, but that would have been a false-conclusion. And I'd never have known it was a false conclusion if it were not for Nostr. Very grateful we have this platform.

2026-04-06 18:53:49 CEST

BREAKING: Bitcoin CEO issues statement
"Unlike Bitcoin, the electricity that powers Telsas is still derived mostly from fossil fuels.
When Tesla can show measurable progress on this important issue, we will allow Telsa to start accepting Bitcoin payments again."
https://blossom.primal.net/7fe5893b150e0fcc72001a6fdbf2c2e6851e3606e9a41b90a08d74053ffd51f6.png

2026-04-05 19:30:32 CEST

Thank you EU for the free Bitcoin marketing
https://blossom.primal.net/bcb8e1ffd637e4cb3d0c2997452c9bad642d7f6072880204933e24bfa2416109.png

2026-04-04 02:38:54 CEST

A 200-person company had lost three pitches in a row and risked having to shed staff. I was brought in to see what I could do, so they didn't lose the 4th.
When I met the directors, the mood in the room was best described as morose.
I surveyed the room and asked: "Who knows someone on the panel who could be judging us?"
An older man, Lance, a company director, raised his hand. I asked: "Who is that person?" He told me. "Have you or anyone else here contacted him?"
Lance objected: "The RFP says under no circumstance should anyone on the pitch panel be contacted."
I'd anticipated this. I immediately read a quote from the ROGEN Si White Paper, "Winning when times are tough":
"It's a mistake to simply assume that your team cannot meet others within the prospect's organisation. We have done so, more than once, to discover that the clause covering access was not considered important and limited contact was allowed."
Lance asked tentatively: "So do you think we should contact that person?"
"Do you want to win this pitch?" I replied.
Lance smiled and I said: "I want you to call him now, and here's what I want you to ask him."
I told Lance exactly what to say: "Don, I have a question for you. More of a confirmation really. When we present to you, we want to make sure we hit all the things you care about first time, so you don't have to waste time asking extra questions. So I'm clear on the criteria we're going to be judged on. We believe it will be x, y, and z, in that order. Is that correct?"
Lance left the room to make the call, coming back with a bounce in his step he hadn't left with! He showed me his phone afterwards. The call had taken 7 minutes and 33 seconds. He said: "Daniel, that seven minutes and 33 seconds turned out to be a pretty valuable conversation."
In that bold move, Lance learned three things: we were going to talk about something not relevant to them. We were going to miss something critically important. And we were about to spend too much time on one thing and too little on another.
One month later, they found out they'd won the pitch. Joe, the managing director, asked if he could take me out to lunch. I'd never seen Joe so happy. He said their biggest problem was now capacity, not winning business. A far cry from thinking of shedding staff!
I've seen this pattern repeatedly
11 of the last deep-tech founders I've worked with received investment. Industry average sits around 20%. The difference was almost never the product. Never the slides. It was the same starting-phenomenon.
Closing the gap between 20% and 100% started with getting the person pitching to do the hard work of imagining, in detail, how the decision-maker would hear what they were saying.
This isn't a casual exercise of writing down a few things the customer wants, or anticipating their DISC profile, you do this the way an actor gets to understand a character they are playing.
--story republished from my book
"How to change the world with one pitch"

2026-04-01 01:00:04 CEST

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That's a sharp comment. I was starting to feel like that also. Time out, and practicing self-awareness (meditation) has been a more important counter-weight than ever!

2026-04-01 00:54:29 CEST

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Well said brother.

2026-03-31 22:22:21 CEST

Newsletter #046 - Irony, Inertia and Invisibility Cloaks - is just out.
Check your email and spam filters
This one looks at 3 consequences of Square's announcement yesterday that are bullish for Bitcoin, but haven't really been talked about at all yet.
https://www.batcoinz.com/p/046-irony-inertia-and-invisibility

2026-03-31 21:08:57 CEST

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Yes, a fiat system encourages poor choices and short term thinking that limits long term potential. A fiat mind (stressed and anxious mind) does that same thing. Fiat is not just a system, it is a way of thinking.

2026-03-31 21:06:30 CEST

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nice one!