The Abject Terror of Financial No Man’s Land

The other day, I defaulted on my quarterly taxes.
I forgot to fund my account with enough fiat currency for the government to automatically steal.

Now I have to wade through the red tape of the notoriously punitive Spanish Hacienda to find out how to pay. It will probably involve 2-5 signed pieces of paper to get an appointment, a 55-minute wait to get in the door, and much begging of a grumpy government official to get the taxman off my back.

“It’s your own stupid fault,” you cry. “Are you too poor to pay your taxes?”

It was a mistake I made from tiredness and financial burnout.

If you haven’t noticed, there’s a monetary war going on.
We are all fighting, whether we know it or not.

Governments fight to protect their centralized tokens until they can’t.

Merchants fight to stay alive, failing to see the seismic shifts happening because the mainstream media bury them so deep.

Bitcoiners fight for freedom, but struggle to reconcile the need to be heard and the desire to maintain anonymity.

And little old me? Well, I’m moving away from the fiat trap, trying to keep exactly 0 Euros in my account at all times.

And that makes life… complicated.

As a bitcoin writer and publisher, I’m part of the resistance.
I earn money in bitcoin, and I hodl as much as I can.
But I'm forever wondering if/when/how I need to make the next sale or transfer.

I feel actual terror when making a purchase - do I have enough on this card? What if a direct debit send me overdrawn for the month?

Yes, there are bridging solutions, ways to pay in BTC, and it’s easier to move money around than before. But performing hundreds of monthly swaps and shifts to pay for your groceries (or your taxes) is tiring.

Sometimes I forget.
Sometimes it’s too much.

• The Nostr zappers tell you to spread your bitcoin around but never sell!
• Reddit memes urge you to ‘never spend your bitcoin’, only hodl!
• The LinkedIn VCs tell you to invest your bitcoin and capture the yield.
• X influencers sell systems to minimise your liability — all you need is 2 clear weeks and an accounting degree to file your taxes.

Well, for those of us who weren’t mining on our laptops in 2010, or who didn’t survive the ICO crypto winter, or who aren’t Bitcoin treasury vehicle execs, it’s confusing and painful.

Like many bitcoiners, I come from a background of one bank account and one monthly paycheck. Now I’m managing multiple businesses, routing funds all over the world, and trying to remember to pay the electricity bill.

Of course, I try to wait until the last minute before converting money to the European Central Bank shitcoin.

Sometimes I forget.
Sometimes it’s too complicated.

Nowadays, I live in a constant state of fear. It’s like I’m trapped between the trenches on the front line. On one side, bankers, government officials and tax agents send wave after wave of fiat slaves over the top; on the other side, rabid crypto anarchists and cypherpunk developers defend their territory through smokescreens, guerrilla warfare and laser-eye attacks.

“Just do the work,” you think. “I’ve learned how to navigate the non-kyc P2P market, mastering my multisig self-custody setup, and running a full Lightning node to facilitate feeless transactions.”

I can’t learn about every aspect of the bitcoinverse.
Not all at once.
I want to, but I can’t.

Humans are only capable of doing so much learning. And I learn about tons of other stuff daily — SEO, the startup ecosystem, story structure, clients' businesses, ever-changing social media algorithms, grammatical nuances, and the types of creativity AI can’t replicate yet.

My brain cares very much about how some things are constructed and why they work:
Stand-up comedy, literary short stories, billboard advertising slogans, episodes of Seinfeld, the brains of house cats, the menus of failing local restaurants, and how acceptable it is to play on national stereotypes.

But as for machines, I don’t give a flying fuck (unless I’m in an aeroplane — then I care that it doesn’t fall from the sky).

My brain is not wired that way.
I’ll consider why the Renault Megane was designed with a trunk that looks like a Brazilian model's butt. However, I’m not interested in how the 1.6L fuel injection engine works.

I’ll ponder why the antagonist was defeated so early in the movie, but not how the diodes emit the TV picture in crystal-clear 4k.

This is to say I want my funds to work for me — savings, spending, functionality.
I’ve done four years of learning about finance, the network, and the 21 million what-ifs.
Dozens of books, hundreds of podcasts, thousands of hours.

All I want is for my day-to-day finances to be simple.
There is just too much choice.

• So many banks, neobanks, cards, and fiat financial products
• So many protocols, programs, and OPSEC to consider
• So many Lightning wallets. So much software.
• Then there’s eCash, lending platforms, home miners, and Core vs Knots.

Is it me or are things much more complicated than 10 years ago?
Yes, we’re solving problems left and right, but more difficulties keep popping up.

It’s all well and good boasting that I live on a bitcoin standard, but I’m stuck. Really, I’m drowning in the mud between the trenches.

“So what?” You say. “I’m fine. I write code, DCA, and post memes. Life is good.”

You can’t keep shooting everyone looking to get away escape Fiatland.
I’m sorry I’m not a developer, but we need a few more creative types to dream up ways for us to win, right?

In no man’s land, you have three choices, and standing still isn’t one of them.

1. I could go crying back to the fiat world — not a choice most rabbit-hole divers could stomach.
2. I could lie down in the mud and pretend to be dead — but earning and spending nothing is hard.
3. I could get on my hands and knees and inch forward toward the promised land of bitcoin milk and honey.

It's 3. It was always going to be option 3. There is no second choice.

I won’t surrender, even when our front line seems to be retreating and the inflating fiat world gains ground. I’ll keep moving forward.

Even when I’m tired, confused, injured, burned out, and desolate, I’ll push on because I’m one of the few who have seen the future.

I hope all the books, tools, how-tos, and apps in my pack will help me, protect me, and slow down my enemies.

Cypherpunks, all I ask is that you show your comrade a little compassion.

We’re not all fighting a war of zeros and ones. Some of us forgot to pack our ASIC chips and GitHub repositories.

All I have on me is a pen, paper, an empty bank account, and a bunch of tax forms to fill out.