Bitcoin and the Independent Baker
I started hosting feasts as a way to put my skills as a chef to use and, frankly, to earn a bit of extra money as the cost of living in the UK kept rising. I have always loved cooking great food, setting the table with hand picked flowers from our garden, and creating candlelit evenings that feel both special and welcoming. The feasts have been successful, which has been deeply rewarding. But with that success comes temptation: do more, scale the output, push the concept further.
At the same time, the costs of running these nights keep climbing. I could raise prices, but then the very people in my community who are also squeezed by the cost of living would be priced out. Or I could cut corners to reduce costs, but that would mean compromising on the quality and authenticity of the experience, which is not why I started doing this in the first place. This tension led me to ask: as a small business owner, how do I protect the craft and quality of what I love, while not being eroded by rising costs?
This is where I began to think about Bitcoin. For clarity: when I say fiat, I do not mean the little Italian car. I mean the government issued money we all use every day: pounds, dollars, euros. Fiat money is not backed by anything tangible. It can be created at will, which is why over time its purchasing power falls. Inflation is built into the system. That means for small, craft based businesses like mine, you have to run faster each year just to stay in the same place.
In Jeff Booth’s book The Price of Tomorrow, he describes how our system has relied on ever more debt to keep the economy moving: “It took $185 trillion of debt to produce about $46 trillion of GDP growth over the last twenty years.” The result is that the small baker, farmer, brewer, or feast maker gets caught in the squeeze between rising input costs and customers whose wages do not stretch as far.
Bitcoin changes this frame. If a portion of what my business earns is saved in Bitcoin, it is not constantly leaking value to inflation. In fact, over the long run it has tended to grow in purchasing power. That means I do not have to scale endlessly, or dilute what I offer, just to keep pace. I can stay small and independent by choice, focusing on craft, community, and delivering value.
As Bitcoin Is Venice puts it: “To view Bitcoin solely through the lens of economics … is to miss the forest for the trees,” because the implications touch not just money, but culture, governance, and how capital flows to real work. The authors argue that sound money reallocates reward away from bureaucratic gatekeeping and back toward people who make things well. In spirit, it points toward what could be described as a new age of the craftsman. For me, that real work is a feast where the food is thoughtful, the flowers are from our garden, and the atmosphere is warm and candlelit.
It is worth adding a caveat here. I am not against growth. Many businesses are designed to grow, and that should be celebrated. Expansion creates jobs, opportunities, and innovation. But what Bitcoin makes possible is growth at the natural pace of demand, in line with how much people value what you produce, rather than growth forced by inflationary pressure or rising costs. That distinction matters, especially in fields like food, farming, and craft, where quality and authenticity are at risk when scale is imposed too quickly.
The UK context makes this especially clear. Independent businesses are under pressure. Britain lost around 100 independent breweries in 2024, the fastest recorded decline, and the hospitality sector has been shrinking, with about two net site closures every day in 2025 so far, leaving it 14 percent smaller than in 2019. Independent bakeries and restaurants face the same squeeze: rising costs, thinning margins, and consolidation by large firms with the scale to absorb shocks.
Bitcoin does not remove the need for hard work, good management, and happy customers. But it does reduce the penalty for staying small. It gives me, and other independent craftspeople, the option to protect the fruits of our labour without being forced onto the treadmill of growth for growth’s sake.
In that sense, Bitcoin is not just a financial tool. It offers a way for small businesses to remain small, independent, and excellent, without being swallowed by the logic of scale or the erosion of inflation. It lets a baker bake, a farmer farm, and a feast simply be a feast, and still thrive.
For me, the journey is still unfolding. The feasts began as a way to share what I love, and they will continue in that spirit. My hope is that by pairing the craft of cooking with the principles of sound money, they can remain accessible, joyful, and rooted in quality for years to come.
Thank you to
@Jeff Booth @npub1sfhf...ymqt Sacha Meyers for two excellent books and much inspiration.
Recipes: https://www.henryherbert.co.uk/copy-of-episode-2-1
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