The last few months were tough. Between navigating a quiet summer period, facing friction after introducing Bitcoin payments, and getting buried under client delivery, I lost focus on what actually moves the needle: active sales, nurturing relationships, and consistently showing up. I got so caught up in the day-to-day consulting and academy work that I stopped scheduling regular coffee catch-ups, skipped networking events, and neglected proactive check-ins. When you get too consumed by execution, it's easy to stop growing the business. Now that the summer holiday season is officially over, the focus is 100% recalibrated: Engage. Sell. Deliver. Today’s momentum: 🏋️‍♂️ Early morning gym session done 🏢 Back at the desk hitting sales calls & booking appointments 🤝 Client lunch meeting at 12:00 📊 Tracking every touchpoint in a custom CRM I built from scratch New week, renewed focus, full energy. Let's get to work! 🔄⚡️

Back home in the Netherlands since Friday! 🇳🇱 It was an emotional week in Aruba saying goodbye to my uncle, but being back on my island re-grounding with family was so deeply needed. 💙 One last observation on the payment front: alongside Sentoo, I also saw Pay.aw out there—another QR payment option. Sentoo itself is actually pretty slick since it's an instant bank transfer, but merchants still pay processing fees. The biggest hurdle on the island right now isn't consumer adoption—it's government perception. Local regulators and authorities still treat Bitcoin and crypto as high-risk, making adoption an uphill climb. Lightning (and ecash) remains light-years ahead: open, instant, global, and drastically cheaper for merchants. The local appetite for digital payments is already there—now it's just a matter of shifting mindsets and replacing the legacy banking rails! ⚡️🇦🇼 cc: @BitcoinAruba #Aruba #Bitcoin #LightningNetwork #Payments #CircularEconomy

Arrived in Aruba yesterday after my uncle passed away. Good to be back 'home' with family. 💙 Hit the barber today and ran into an old colleague from my Aruban police force days! When it came time to pay, it was cash or a local payment method called Sentoo. From a user perspective, Sentoo was flawless—scan a QR code, hit a payment link, open the local bank app, and approve. Seamless. But looking at it through a technical and merchant cost lens, Lightning and @Cashu still blow it out of the water. ⚡️🥜 Numo Pay would have been an absolute game-changer for this merchant—instant, zero-fee tap-to-pay offline via ecash, backing up directly to @BTCPay Server. The island is already comfortable with QR-based instant payments... now we just need to help local shops swap out the legacy banking middleman for sovereign rails! 🇦🇼 cc: @Bitcoin Aruba #Aruba #Bitcoin #LightningNetwork #Cashu #BTCPayServer #Payments

Check out this insight from Simon Academy: "Building open learning systems with Nostr identity"

Building open learning systems with Nostr identity | Simon Academy

Just got back from a fantastic holiday in beautiful Gran Canaria! Paid for everything using my @Bringin | The Complete ₿itcoin App debit card, which means indirectly every coffee, meal, and tap was powered by Bitcoin. ⚡️🍊 Back at it today: heading into Amsterdam for a 12 PM lunch meeting with a fellow Bitcoiner & @Club Orange member, while putting the final touches on the new @Simon Academy website and portal. We’re getting ready to launch with 3 brand-new, short FREE microlearning courses: 1️⃣ Bitcoin for Business 2️⃣ Nostr for Business 3️⃣ Zapvertising Really excited about expanding our scope beyond just compliance & risk into actionable business strategy—all laser-focused on accelerating the Bitcoin circular economy! Stay tuned. 🚀 #Bitcoin #CircularEconomy #Nostr #Amsterdam

First time vibe coding from the hotel this morning before hitting the park—pretty damn excited! 🌴🧙‍♂️ Building a Nostr-native onboarding MVP for @Simon Academy. Not fully wrapped up yet, but aiming to launch later today. Check the progress below! 👇

What a wild start to our trip to Aqualand in Gran Canaria yesterday! 🌊☀️ When we pulled into the parking lot, the attendant casually told me in Spanish that I could pay for parking with card, cash, or Bitcoin. My jaw dropped. I instantly replied, "¡Wow! ¿Puedo pagar con Bitcoin?" ...He laughed and said it was just a joke. Total heartbreak! It would have been incredible to pull up a Lightning invoice right there at the entrance gates. 😅

This is absolutely wild. @Club Orange, just opened up GeoZap to the entire world 🌎🍊 Basically, you can drop sats to Bitcoiners in any city, country, or region on Earth instantly. Zero addresses, zero invoices, zero permission needed. I just tested it out by targeting Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. There are 4 Bitcoiners on the map there, so at the 10 sat minimum per person, I sent a total of 40 sats. The coolest part? I paid the QR code seamlessly using my nostr:nprofile1qqsvdc3s5f0260zfwqfkx7lnw77wmqw8ekmqmzq6v0kmzw9s32ngpqcfwuxkginstead of my usual Club Orange app wallet. The interoperability is beautiful. 👇

Just caught the recent @BTCSessions episode on the BIP-110 debate, and the crew hit the nail on the head. I’m no technical protocol expert, but the core principle here is simple: Bitcoin is sovereign money. Yes, we need to actively use it, spend it, and build a real circular economy—not just quietly hoard it in a vault. But trying to force-censor what people can write to the blockchain just to block "spam" is the entirely wrong approach. 👇

We all know the value of Zaps on Nostr, but have you heard of the "Send a gift" feature on Facebook? I read through Meta’s official T&Cs for it, and the fine print is a complete joke. Meta explicitly states that these gifts have "no monetary value" and that they retain "sole discretion" over whether a creator ever gets a dime—all while deducting credit card fees and corporate "bad debt" from the creator's cut. Contrast that with a Zap: actual sovereign money settling peer-to-peer instantly, with zero platform fees or corporate permission required. Web2 forces you to buy centralized database credits and hope an intermediary passes a fraction along, but true value-for-value belongs on open protocols. ⚡ #Nostr #ValueForValue #Zaps #Bitcoin

The Bitcoin circular economy is quietly taking root in Spain! 🇪🇸 @BTC Map shows 357 merchants active on the mainland, and the momentum has swept into the Canary Islands with 32 active spots. Let's look at the breakdown on Gran Canaria... 👇

On top of the world at Pico de las Nieves! 🏔️✨ Standing at the highest peak of the Canary Islands, nearly 2,000 meters above sea level. The view above the clouds is absolutely breathtaking. ☀️🎒☁️

Great job @Bringin | The Complete ₿itcoin App with the new app—the on- and off-ramping flow is impressive. The current on-chain buy connection is great for an on-ramp, but since the Lightning Network are much better suited for everyday payments, it's the missing piece to truly use bitcoin as money. Any timeline on when a direct buy connection to a Lightning wallet will be available so we have a full loop? 🔄⚡️

Ran across @Take My Sats today—it turns your npub into a functional marketplace in under 5 minutes without touching a server or database. 🤯 Products go straight to your followers' feeds as native notes, and the payments hit your self-custodial Lightning wallet directly. This is exactly the kind of friction-free tooling we need to support independent merchants across the ecosystem. Have any of you tested this one out yet? 👇 #SovereignBuilder #LightningNetwork #SupportSmallBusiness

Happy Monday from the sun! 🌞 Starting the week with a clear thought on the circular economy: If we want a parallel ecosystem to succeed, we have to actively build it. That means aggressively supporting the small businesses trading right here on Nostr. Buying from them, zapping them, promoting their products, liking their posts, and giving them the exposure they deserve. Volume follows attention. 📈 I’m making it a personal priority starting today. Our economic sovereignty depends on closing these loops. Who is joining me? 👇 #Bitcoin #Nostr #CircularEconomy #SupportSmallBusiness

Running businesses since 2010 has taught me that the best ideas are often the simplest. Out here in Gran Canaria, I see small vendors working tirelessly, completely at the mercy of legacy payment fees and slow settlement times. Back when I started, I had no choice but to accept the legacy tax of credit cards and banks. But today, small businesses on Nostr have a superpower: peer-to-peer Lightning payments. You don't need a massive corporate structure to take control of your money. You just need the courage to start stepping outside their ecosystem, one transaction at a time.