When a financial system fails, it can be disguised for years. When a grid fails, everyone knows. In case you missed it, this week Jake Langenkamp from Bitcoin Policy Institute did a well researched writeup of how this could play out during Ukraine's reconstruction plans The Bitcoin Policy Institute's proposal: mine Bitcoin with ~750 MW of Ukraine's stranded nuclear capacity. This gives ~$1B over five years for the rebuild and jobs for veterans with no government capital required. source:

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Bitcoin Policy Institute (@bitcoinpolicy) on X

NEW RESEARCH from @JakeLangenkamp demonstrates how Bitcoin can accelerate Ukraine's re-energization and strengthen its financial future. Bitcoin ...

It's not a crazy idea. It's one that is already playing out. France, while its nuclear capacity is stranded for a different reason, already come to a similar conclusion with parties on the political left, center and right all deciding that this energy should be used for Bitcoin mining. This started with a similar research proposal from France's Bitcoin Policy Institute The fastest billion for rebuilding a nation sits in its stranded reactors, not its banking system Ukraine is yet another example of how the world is encountering proof of Bitcoin's value through energy before it encounters it through money.

You've probably heard "you're the average of the 5 people you spent most time with". So I recently went back through recordings of two of my own mastermind calls looking for evidence of the effectiveness of the peer group. I found not one but five ways that being around peers who challenges you upgrades you by slealth. 1. Direct transfer. The same habit crosses from one person to another. Martin had got serious about running and was logging ten kms most days. Lance started copying him and named it: "I've been pretty inspired with Martin's wins and how he's been picking up the running. So thanks" This one only works if your peer's habit is visible. Nobody copies what they cannot see. 2. Method transfer. Someone takes how you made it stick and applies it to a different habit. Stephen watched the same running habit but didn't start running. He copied his peer's habit forming blueprint and started a 5min of meditation habit before opening his laptop. He even said "I've been able to steal Martin's habit forming thing." then described how. 3: The flywheel. The habit-started gets sustained by the habit-follow Martin said on the call "Since Lance joined, I've been watching his runs as well" then said how it had inspired him to keep running consistently. 4: Recognition. Hearing other people's wins surfaces what you probably knew and were not doing. Rob, who had missed the retreat, listened to 4 people describe excellent weeks while not having had one himself. 7 days later his week had turned and he reflected on why: "It was being able to recognize that these [the things his peers were doing] were the things that I knew I should be doing." 5: Replicating the environment. One person spread the win to their family, or company I asked one of the founders on the call what had turned his sales around. He again tracked it back to his peers on the group: "A lot of the culture of what we're starting to bring through the coaching and what I've learned from everyone in this group is starting to permeate through the culture of the business." Nobody from his company had ever attended anything. The first 4 move a habit into a new person, or consolidate it in an existing person. This one moves a habit into an organisation, so it reaches people who were never in the room and never will be. It is also the only one of the 5 that keeps rippling through time and space after the member leaves the group. To put it simply: peer groups are very powerful, but because so much happens by stealth, we often don't see how much it is influencing us. This is true in the negative and the positive. It's not about number of hours, but quality and depth. A highly positive, supportive peer group of ~5+ people that you have structured deep interactions with once a week is like a river current that moves you towards your goals even when you're not swimming. Who is your peer group? And what direction does their current move you?

You've probably heard "you're the average of the 5 people you spent most time with". So I recently went back through recordings of two of my own mastermind calls looking for evidence of the effectiveness of the peer group. I found not one but five ways that being around peers who challenges you upgrades you by slealth. 1. Direct transfer. The same habit crosses from one person to another. Martin had got serious about running and was logging ten kms most days. Lance started copying him and named it: "I've been pretty inspired with Martin's wins and how he's been picking up the running. So thanks" This one only works if your peer's habit is visible. Nobody copies what they cannot see. 2. Method transfer. Someone takes how you made it stick and applies it to a different habit. Stephen watched the same running habit but didn't start running. He copied his peer's habit forming blueprint and started a 5min of meditation habit before opening his laptop. He even said "I've been able to steal Martin's habit forming thing." then described how. 3: The flywheel. The habit-started gets sustained by the habit-follow Martin said on the call "Since Lance joined, I've been watching his runs as well" then said how it had inspired him to keep running consistently. 4: Recognition. Hearing other people's wins surfaces what you probably knew and were not doing. Rob, who had missed the retreat, listened to 4 people describe excellent weeks while not having had one himself. 7 days later his week had turned and he reflected on why: "It was being able to recognize that these [the things his peers were doing] were the things that I knew I should be doing." 5: Replicating the environment. One person spread the win to their family, or company I asked one of the founders on the call what had turned his sales around. He again tracked it back to his peers on the group: "A lot of the culture of what we're starting to bring through the coaching and what I've learned from everyone in this group is starting to permeate through the culture of the business." Nobody from his company had ever attended anything. The first 4 move a habit into a new person, or consolidate it in an existing person. This one moves a habit into an organisation, so it reaches people who were never in the room and never will be. It is also the only one of the 5 that keeps rippling through time and space after the member leaves the group. To put it simply: peer groups are very powerful, but because so much happens by stealth, we often don't see how much it is influencing us. This is true in the negative and the positive. Who is your peer group? And what direction does their current move you? For it to happen at all, the room has to be legible. A member can only rebuild a structure whose shape he can see, which is an argument for running your group in a way that is obvious rather than mysterious.

The science of habit forming: #5 of a series of 9 Ever had a habit you started to form but then didn't maintain? One of the biggest reasons that us humans don't form new habits is that there is a seed of conflict in the genesis of the habit we just tried to form. Understanding how to avoid sewing that seed is key to creating habits that you can maintain.

The future of Bitcoin is bright. I don't believe this. I know this. This has nothing to do with the technology, the protocol, price, compelling events on the horizon or even the need. It is because of the people. The people who are doing the work, who are empowering their local communities, making it easier to get money back to their families, empowering businesses, improving their environment - week in week out using Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining as an excuse to do good in the world and help humanity is inspiring. This is neither rhetoric, nor theory. This is my synopsis of working with over 40 Bitcoin builders as a coach over the last 2 years. Specifically, every week I have the priviledge of facilitating a group of Bitcoin builders on a mastermind who are doing this work, and every one of them inspires everyone else on the group to go further, improve more, and impact deeper with their own Bitcoin mission. What we discuss is private. But the ripple of impact these Bitcoiners create is public. Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer network. It is strong because the source code is strong, and the nodes of the network are strong and it is protected by energy itself. But not only because of that. Bitcoin is strong because Bitcoiners are strong, resilient, anti-fragile, tenacious nodes of the network, standing up and helping our peers in the network, and prepared to make ourselves more robust nodes, because doing so serves the whole network.

4 of 9: The science of habit forming. This one is the least talked about ... but arguably the most powerful of all (The first 3 I posted on Nostr Mon->Wed if you missed them)

"Bitcoin is used by criminals" Source: criminals

$500M financing of vented methane BTC mining - makes the entire BTC network carbon negative - removes 36M tonnes of CO2-e per year - is equal to planting 2.5B trees - further decentralises the Bitcoin network - shows the world that Bitcoin is an environmental force for good

France's center, left and right just did something they never do: agree on something And ... Bitcoin mining brought them together Bitcoin mining is not just a grid stabilizing force, it's a political stabilizing force kudos to INBi - Institut National de Bitcoin (France’s national Bitcoin institute), Bastien Desteuque and EBEA - who are producing great Bitcoin stories faster than I can document them! Full story:

The 150 Terawatt-Hour Ghost

When I was in Lisbon recently, I watched Bastien Desteuque walk onto a stage and make a claim so large that the room went quiet. Bastien is the d...

Some of the best responses I've got on social media has been from my non-Bitcoin related posts on Nostr. This current series is no exception. This is part #3 of the 9 rules of habit forming. If you missed the first two, it's in my post from earlier this week For context: I put this together for clients some years ago - and many used it to successfully develop new habits (and end old ones) so I decided to make it more widely available. Here's the third in the series (where I get completely upstaged part way through)

JUST IN: new peer-reviewed research finds Bitcoin mining has the capacity to absorb 83% of the wind Ireland is forced to throw away, lifting wind farm revenues by 32%. This is probably the biggest wake-up call for grids around the world that are wasting large quantities of renewable energy, because the paper includes a head-to-head comparison with battery, finding 2 significant advantages, both which matter to the taxpayer. 1. No subsidy required: "Compared with battery storage, hydrogen electrolysis, or transmission reinforcement, the co-investment is privately financed and operationally market-driven" and "...without requiring physical network upgrades or regulatory subsidy." 2. No performance degradation "Unlike battery storage, mining incurs no round-trip efficiency losses or cycle degradation; unlike hydrogen electrolysis, it requires no downstream offtake infrastructure." In layman's terms, this means that a battery gives back less power than it takes, and wears out with every cycle. Hydrogen needs a pipeline and a buyer at the far end. Bitcoin mining simply pays to use otherwise wasted power on the spot and needs nothing more after that. Plus, Batteries, hydrogen and new wires are all paid for by the public. Bitcoin mining isn't. To summarize: Together with previous papers on renewable energy monetization using Bitcoin mining, this technology is looking increasingly like the only tax-neutral way to keep renewable energy transition targets on track (or get them back on track). The finding puts even more pressure on Ireland's neighbour, the UK, which continues to waste significant amounts of wind energy, to properly evaluate Bitcoin mining. This paper is doubly-significant because prior studies were done on deregulated grids like ERCOT (Texas). This study shows that Bitcoin mining's benefits extend to islanded regulated grids with high renewable penetration. The study comes at a time where Ireland is currently wasting11.4% of its available wind (source: https://cms.eirgrid.ie/sites/default/files/publications/Annual-Renewable-Constraint-and-Curtailment-Report-2025-V1.0.pdf). Its Climate Action Plan targets <7% curtailment by 2030. But an independent estimate says it's currently going in the opposite direction, projected to increase to16% by 2030, even with storage and demand response built (source: https://www.seai.ie/sites/default/files/2025-02/dess-background-material-2024%E2%80%932040.pdf). The paper is published in Energy Economics which has an impact factor of 13.5 (top 2% of academic journals) Source: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2026.109454

As I wrote yesterday, Twitter derates any post that I make which is designed to help people in an area not specifically related to Bitcoin mining. Nostr doesn't and Nostr has been telling me that this content is valued, so I'll be sharing more of it. This next second video of nine in a short series about the 9 rules of habit forming. If you missed the first one, it's in my post from yesterday. For context: I put this together for my clients several years ago - but it proven so useful and so many of them did successfully develop new habits (and end old ones) that I decided to make it more widely available. So here's the second in the series

When the CEO changes, the culture automatically changes. So what changes the CEO? Not a leadership retreat, not workshops, not even coaching by itself, but modelling of a different way of leading, week-in-week-out A while ago on my mastermind, one of the CEOs reported back in his win-sharing that the organization of his company changed Nobody from his company had attended anything I run. Just the CEO, who sat in my mastermind with five other founders. We never talked culture, 360 surveys, fly-on-the-wall sessions of his office environment. No 1:1 session where I said “Hey, let’s look at how you work with your team this week”. And yet his company changed. This is verbatim what he said about where the culture change had come: "A lot of the culture of what we're starting to bring through the coaching and what I've learned from everyone in this group as well and yourself, Daniel, is starting to permeate through the culture of the business." I know workshops by themselves don't work because I spent years running corporate training workshops. I facilitated sessions for banks, telcos and dairy companies. Thousands of people went through those rooms. It had its value. But it could never come close to what a peer group can do for culture change, behavior change, habit change or mindset change. See, a workshop distributes material to everybody at once, and material sits still. Nobody in that room has to become the carrier, and there is often no follow up and no leadership change. As a result: a lot of people who know what to do … and don’t do it. Whereas the leader in the coaching group is the only carrier there is. He cannot hand his company a handout. The only thing available to him is his ability to “Be the change”. If he runs his own meetings differently, his team then experiences the change by example. In truth, great content is overrated. Or perhaps better to say, the value of the peer-group is underrated. When you show people what excellence looks like by example in a high performing peer group week in, week out, and they become a different leader by osmosis. By contrast, relying on content and your own personal willpower to achieve a goal without sorting out your peer group is like watering a garden planted in sand. You can still grow a garden, but it takes a lot more time and energy, with a higher risk that you’ll get frustrated and give up. Who is your peer group? And do then drain you, support you, or inspire you to new heights?

Twitter derates any post that I make which is designed to help people in an area not specifically related to Bitcoin mining. Nostr doesn't and Nostr has been telling me that this content is valued, so I'll be sharing more of it. This next one is a short series about the 9 rules of habit forming. I put this together for my clients several years ago - but it proven so useful and so many of them did successfully develop new habits (and end old ones) that I decided to make it more widely available. Here's the first in the series

Remember, if your role has just gone because of AI , the market has told you what your job was worth. It has told you nothing about what you are worth.

NDA = non-disturbing agreement (and having one is likely to make where you work more productive). One of the leaders in my mastermind was an academic in the process of transitioning into running his technology company fulltime. Andrew had just negotiated half his working week back so he could build his company. However, within days, other people's requests were filling that time up again. He said the problem was “I find it very hard to say no to people.” Perhaps you can relate to this. The answer to this came from one of the other founders on the group. He shared how he was running a fifteen-minute standup at nine every morning with his own team. In it, he tells them which block of that day he needs to be left alone for. He has a name for it: "I call it my NDA. We're gonna sign an NDA, which is a non-disturbing agreement." The part that makes it work comes next. In the same standup he names the hours when he is completely available, and anyone who needs two minutes with him before the wall goes up can say so and get it there and then. It was a genius idea because nobody is shut out and everybody knows the shape of his day before it begins. Andrew lit up, and shared on the group chat later that he was committed to trying it out. Two weeks later he shared that he’d put it in place. He said it turned out that a lot of other people also liked the idea of not being interrupted, and he’d managed to successfully protect his time, while funnelling people to using his time when it was available. It cost him nothing. But it protected the time, without which he couldn’t fuel the growth of his company. This year, he and his co-founders just closed their first $5Million raise. When you surround yourself with peers who want the best for you, and inspire you to be your best on a regular basis, you get access to not just great ideas, but the energy to enact them. Who are your peers, and what energy and inspiration do you receive from them?

I don't think the true value of Nostr is well understood. Privacy and anti-censorship is <10% of why I think Nostr is cool. The other 90% is that this is the one place in social media that because there is no algorithmic distortion, I can get pure signal on who cares about what I write. And that means two very important things 1. The first is that Nostr encourages the authenticity and multi-dimensionality of the human spirit It has restored my faith that you can be well known within an ecosystem for a speciality (Bitcoin and energy in my case), but that ecosystem is still interested in other things you say - sometimes more interested in the other things you say than your speciality The result is, I am encouraged to express all of who I am, not just the part that I happened to have become better known for at a point in time. That is inherently a more full, and enriching way to live. 2. The second is that Nostr makes you better at serving others I get genuine signal from a community about what people want to write about. That gives me a sense of what a whole community care about, which helps shape what I talk about at conferences, on podcasts and even in dinner conversations. The result is I can hopefully serve people better by being more relevant and interesting when I speak to others, whether in private conversation or at a conference. So Nostr, and only Nostr, helps you live in a more expansive and fully expressed way and it helps you serve others by being more attuned to the sorts of things people care about. Those are not 2 small things. Those are not theoretical or philosophical benefits, or benefits that are relevant to only a small subset of people who care about a particular niche issue. These are significant benefits that are available to any human who want their social media channels operating in the background to support rather than constrain their exploration of who they are, and how the relate what they care about to others in the most useful, clear and relevant way. And that is a much much larger group of people. Thank you for those who built this technology, and who continue to make it better.

One win shared. No advice given. Two people changed. Here's how... Every week on our mastermind we start by sharing wins. It lifts the energy in the room, and encouraging positive copying. This one week, a single win share enabled multiple other people on the group to level up. The week before, Rob shared his win about having had a great outcome to a courageous conversation he’d been previously putting off. He’d gone into his partnership conversations and for the first time been straightforwardly upfront about costs and commitments, rather than dancing around the edges as admitted he had always done in the past. He was not offering it as advice. He was simply reporting his win of the week. The following week, two other founders in the room picked reported back that their win was a direct result of Rob. The first said he’d been fantasising about taking a week off himself for some time, having identified he was starting to wear down the tread on his tires and was overdue a pitstop for the good of himself and the business. He’d put it off because of the friction of the conversations it would involve, but emulated Rob’s approach of being upfront about the cost of not doing it, and the conversation had gone well. "Extra points and inspiration from listening to Rob actually doing it." he reflected. The second went further. On the same day the win he expressed the intention to emulate what Rob had done: "That is a significant achievement, to be able to have that level of conversation. I would probably look at implementing that in the partnerships that we're trying to build as well. Definitely something I've really learned from that." The following week, his win was that he'd actually done it. He'd had a courageous conversation with his work partner, and he reported it went surprisingly well, was surprisingly easy, and he was now enjoying closer alignment with his partner than before. One man described his own week with other CEOs listening. Two other companies changed how they would run a conversation. Yet Rob never gave anybody a single piece of advice. If nobody around you is describing what went right this week, you have lost more than morale... You have removed the one thing that changes people without anybody having to be persuaded. The example of a peer who is operating at a high level How often do you receive inspirations to be your best, simply through the example of your peers ? And what blindspots might your potential be repeatedly stumbling into if you are not receiving this sort of inspiration from you peer group regularly?

He stole another founder's habit One day I was getting ready to run my mastermind call with a group of company founders, unaware that it was the group’s turn to teach me something that day. I’d always known that the peer group was a powerful and easy way for people to change behaviors and become the best version of themselves. But I was about to realize something wholly new. Stephen had been silent on the subject of the running habit that was sweeping the group. But this week he spoke up, and not in the way anyone expected. "I've been able to steal Martin’s habit forming thing." “You started running?” I was about to ask. But before the question could leave my lips he said. “I started meditating” He went on to describe that he didn’t feel the need to start running, as his exercise was already sorted, but he’d used the principles Martin had shared a few weeks ago about how he started his running habit, and used them to finally put in place a meditation practice he’d been meaning to instill for months. Two weeks later he described where he had got to after two weeks meditation: "I realized I’d probably only been running at about 10% of my potential... compared to what I normally could achieve. I felt like I've probably gone back to maybe 80%." I asked whether that was energy or output. He answered “Both”. Then he landed on the number I had not expected: "We've doubled our sales wins." There was a collective “What???” on the group, like ‘You just let that win slide on in there like some minor side effect?” Needless to say I asked “How?” He said only that his conversations had been different. On a later call he told me what different meant. He was calmer in each call. He talked less and listened more. He was more present and less attached to the outcome. And that produced a completely different result from the same pipeline. Here’s the thing: he did not even get better at selling. He just stopped doing the things that were making him worse at it. Every item on that list he gave me was something that had been negatively impacting his true potential to sell effectively, that he’d removed. Nobody in that room taught him any new sales skills. Nobody in that room even taught him to meditate! Rather, one man described how he had made his running-habit stick. His peer heard the structure underneath it, lifted it out, and applied it to something completely different that was relevant to him. That is what a peer group does that nothing else can. Who is your peer group? And do they bring out the best in you?

The surprising power of the peer group BTW: these posts go on Nostr, not X - because X derates any post that is not about Bitcoin so much, they actually get more engagement here, even though I have less than 10% the followers on Nostr OK, on with the story A couple of years ago, I was running our first group call after our mastermind retreat. One of the five founders could not make it. He came onto the group call the following week and listened in as the other four one after the other described what had changed for them since retreat. He listened, and spoke last. When his turn came, he reflected: "I was in the complete opposite mindset." He shared that he’d had a bad week at work. I asked “What was it like hearing the others’ wins.” His answer surprised me. He said it was uncomfortable at first, but … “that discomfort was what sort of catalyzed a lot of the reflection, and the others are reminding me of what I know I need to do with their wins” The following week, something extraordinary happened. He’d completed his first full draft ready for their first US customer, his productivity changed, and he had an energy level that he said surprised him. How did this happen? He had not been at the retreat He hadn’t received any specific coaching guidance from me that week He hadn’t gotten any pristine new information from a book. Nobody held him to account for anything he had said he would do. One thing happened: he sat in the presence of four peers who were moving ahead. I even asked whether anyone had told him anything he did not already know. He reflected: "No. It was being able to recognize that these [actions the others were taking] were the things that I kinda knew I should be doing." Often the coach gets the credit when a client gets a great result. That’s at best only half the story. I recently discovered what the research says matters even more. Harris for example (Psychological Review 1995) found that for social behavior generally, the peer group is more influential than one’s own parents. But this was the cleanest firsthand evidence I saw ever for the power of the peer group. Because the other variables that could have turned around his behaviors were all stripped out. Yet he still changed his behavior fundamentally inside seven days, based purely on being in a group with four people who inspired him to a different standard. Who is your peer group? And are they helping you to become the next version of yourself, or supporting you to remain the version that doesn’t threaten them?