Hanukkah Reflections on My Year of Toying With Bitcoin

‘Tis the season for introspection. And this year, my thoughts are on bitcoin. 

As Jewish people around the world celebrate Hanukkah this week, inspired by the ancient miracle that a sacred flame lasted for eight days of battle although the oil supply was dangerously low, I’m pondering how the hell I’ll keep experimenting with this technology without burning the metaphorical candle at both ends. 

I spent 2019 trying a variety of products and services to test how easy it is to actually use cryptocurrency. I ran a Casa bitcoin-lightning node, used decentralized exchanges (DEXs), moved bitcoin from mobile apps to a hardware wallet (a Ledger) then transacted straight from the hardware wallet. 

Beyond just running the node, I used the Casa device to send invoices for a small product (a poetry book) to learn more about the challenges independent merchants might face. Lastly, I set up a BTCPay store, which is the stage of this experiment I’ll end the year on.

And after a year of…