Last year, I posted a number of goals publicly. I vaguely achieved one of them. The others I pursued seriously, but I didn’t make the headway needed to complete them.
They were lofty goals—and I set them that way intentionally.
As a solo entrepreneur, I needed a way to hold myself accountable. Making those goals public was the simplest way I knew how to do that. What followed was a year of learning—personally, professionally, and emotionally—often through failures that were genuinely challenging to move through.
Looking back now, it’s clear that 2025 was less about completion and more about realignment.
With today marking 17 years since the Bitcoin Genesis Block, I found myself reflecting on something I’ve already believed for a long time. Bitcoin’s longevity isn’t just about technical ingenuity—it’s about the values embedded in the system: sovereignty, permissionless participation, and the ability to verify rather than trust. Those values are what gave it resilience.
That idea—values encoded into systems—pulled me back to my own work.
I’ve always been a builder. I’ve been making things for as long as I can remember. Even as a kid, working with Legos or K’NEX—limited pieces, fixed constraints—I never followed the instructions. I built my own structures, my own worlds, my own rules.
That instinct hasn’t changed.
Much of the work I’ve been doing through Renaissance City and related projects comes from that same place. It’s not just about the technology—it’s about the values behind it. About sovereignty. About builders and creators. About tools and ecosystems that support people rather than extract from them.
Going into 2026, the focus is on continuing to build from that foundation—finding the right people, grounding the work in meaning, and staying aligned with why this work exists in the first place.
This path isn’t easy, and there will be more challenges ahead. I remain optimistic.
If these values resonate, you’ll recognize where this work is headed. 🚀
