I dumped 12K USD, from my stack (at 75K/BTC), into hardware for these projects to build out the server rack and self host it all. I ran out of financial runway and had to pivot to fiat mining as an emergency plug. I was derailed by a few things, including the death of a close lifelong friend and before that the death of my mother, which both wrecked me in various ways.

I expected to start projects that would refill those sats, but I am having analysis paralysis.

Now I am just trying to climb back up mentally and get things rolling again, but some of that momentum is hard to regain, especially without the people close to me cheering me on. My circles have dwindled and people I thought were close friends have shown otherwise. In some of the hardest times in my life, they chose to not be there for me when I have been there and usually am the light in the darkness. I found that when times get tough, you see who people are deep down, especially when what you used to be able to offer is not on the table for a period of time.

I could say a lot, but these things weigh on you and transform your vision of people and the world as a whole.

Oh, with the store and such, I have about 300 laptops to refurbish as nodes or similar. I have around 120 old servers to sell or part out/recycle and the list is nearly endless.

Thanks, being a dad is awesome. Honestly, too many things.

I am:
-Raising 2 kids as a single father (one of the moms is not even around)
-working around 60 hours a week for minimal fiat.
-trying to put a podcast together. strangesignal.studio
-Trying to build:
--nostrmaxi.com
--fragstr.net
--plebluncher.com
--gogetforked.com
--CEXit.today
--unionofplebs.com.
-running an ebay store and trying to setup a btcpaysever store for bitcoin nodes, laptops, collectables and other things to replace the ebay store.
-a mortgage payment behind and need to refinance it.
-Trying to make and grow connections
-Repairing my HVAC, soffits, and several other non-trivial house repairs with a bathroom remodel that is gutted and 6 years overdue.
-Contemplating a geyser.fund to bootstrap some of this.
-Building out 2 local AI servers to help augment my productivity
-Trying to monetize my X for additional income.
-trying to get my mother's estate settled as I am the executor of the will
-Trying to stack sats and get my finances out of ruin.
---and several more threads all going at one time.

It seems you have to use the aqstr.com UI to earn.

Your platform is worth promoting. Good work.

Is this thing on?

Got you all now. I am also a father of 2 high school age kids. One of each and a year and a week apart. Fatherhood changes you, fundamentally.

It is past time to fully separate them, because it is true. It is just conflated. Bitcoin serves as a protocol, it is just not documented as such, in a way where it is managed that way. Until now, the protocol has been basically what core releases, but as node code diversifies, the nodes and miners vote for the protocol with their adoption, if it leads to a split, as it has before, it is worked out economically. There is a bit of a time that the market takes to decide which branch wins, that branch has historically retained the name Bitcoin and the other is named something else as it continues to lose its fight.

In the coming fork wars, the two chains may have a longer fight for victory, depending on the scale of the division.

Time will tell if any of this comes to fruition, but I suspect that no one will let their stance die and it will get messy.

The good news, everyone gets an altcoin to dump early or hodl to irrelevance. It is what it is.

Bitcoin is a protocol, Core is a reference implementation.