2025 began with some uncertainty, I was affected by a “company restructuring” at my previous place of work. With the time it affords I spent much of my time reading, learning on mathacademy and solving challenges on sadservers, I also revisited some old projects for completion, that resulted in dhcpd and an unsuccessful attempt to build a TUI that was meant to kill k8 lens (I passionately dislike lens, it could be way better than what it currently is).
Work
I joined Botanix Labs (from a good friend’s recommendation) around the time we were launching mainnet. Our mission is to get Bitcoin into the hands of everyone. I believe that’s important work because the future needs a currency not controlled by any government, and Bitcoin is the best candidate for that (I’m not a maxi, I try not to my any idea my identity, extremism is always bad).
When I joined, some things weren’t standardized on the infrastructure side yet, so I spent time doing cleanups and getting things in shape for mainnet (boring work). Mainnet prep itself was gruesome. We had to coordinate with 15 geographically distributed orgs for a DKG setup, and it was one of those things where “almost working” is the same as not working. We had two attempts that didn’t go as planned and it was a bit demoralizing, but when it finally worked and the chain started building blocks… yeah. I nearly ran around my room (stayed composed for the plot), but I could feel the joy in everyone else too.
In the latter part of the year, I picked up Rust and started contributing to the core of the botanix chain codebase.
I like working here. It’s a startup, the team is small, the work you do is visible, low friction to getting things done and execs are reachable (you can actually trade ideas with them). My teammates are resilient and very smart people, and I enjoy working with them.
I’m looking forward to what this next year brings here.
Community / other work
I became a maintainer for Fablo, and I had two mentees from the Linux Foundation Mentorship this year. That was a great experience. It was mostly guiding them through early-career stuff, answering questions, watching out for their best interests, and spending time unblocking them when they got stuck.
I also built a process-exporter for macOS. That was a really good exercise: I picked up Zig and went deep into low-level macOS internals and reversed engineered the NetworkStatistics private API to implement per process network stats. Sadly it had to be closed source because it was sold (still thinking about ways to open source parts of it later).
I also spoke at SysConf talking about my experience building this (I haven’t watched the recording myself, I dislike watching myself speak).
Life
On the internet (I’m a very different person in real life, it’s an act because why not) I realised my tolerance for things I perceive as BS hit a new all time low, I used to just mutter and move on but today I can’t seem to move along without calling it out. Perhaps emboldened by my resolve to being a private account on twitter (and I’ll keep it private, except briefly when I’m sharing a project or an article), I’d very much prefer if my opinions aren’t shared to more than 300 strangers.
In terms of travel I visited Atlanta and hung out with friends. I went to a Nas concert in Ohio and had a vacation in Miami where I skydived (there’s a certain peace you experience up there, do it)
Reading
As a teenager I read a lot. Getting into adulthood I lost that (maybe university + having less time to read anything that’s not academic).
This year I tried to redevelop that habit gradually, first by reading long articles then finally picked up a book. My reads:
Books
- Fooled by Randomness, Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- The Story of Philosophy - Will Durant
- Safe Havens - Mark Spitznagel
- Seneca Letters From a Stoic - Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger
- Thinking Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman
In my Antilibrary
- Antifragile, Skin in the Game, The Bed of Procrustes - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Zen and Art of Motorcyle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig
- AI Systems Peformance Engineering - Chris Fregly
Favorite Articles
Music
My taste in music didn’t evolve since the last year, still very much into underground rap. My most played artist of the Year was Tha God Fahim
Here’s a playlist of my most played tracks
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZEVXdhpmMnJLPKmS
Goals for 2026
- Give more than I take
- Learn a new language
- Write, read and travel much more
The rest are redacted
Reflections
- It’s very much okay to contradict yourself and change your opinions when you receive new information (or when you just think more properly)
- Much of life is about luck than you may realize
- Touch grass (go outside and breath air), the internet is a bubble
- Anyone can start something but it takes real strength to finish it
- A lot of history may not be true, humans have a way of retrofitting narratives after the fact
Happy New Year!