1/ It's been a year since I left my job to become a Bitcoin Core contributor.

"Getting to Base Camp" is my journey through the foothills; from struggling to do the work, to the first sense of belonging and clarity.

A checkpoint for the ongoing ascent.

kouloumos.com/getting-to-base-camp

2/ This all started in Dec 2020, when I heard @jfnewbery discussing Bitcoin Development funding.

I was preaching an open monetary network, yet I wasn't aware of one of its fundamental parts - developers.

A year later, I set out to become one of them.
kouloumos.com/ascent

3/ This is a never-ending ascent, but occasionally you need to stop, breath and evaluate progress.

That's Base Camp. The first checkpoint after navigating through the initial chaos and complexity of the project.

A reflection on the past and a look towards the future.

4/ From chaos, comes order. That was my experience trying to contribute to Bitcoin Core.

Looking back, I stayed in chaos for too long.

Every graph says a story. This one describes perfectly my early struggles to do the work, leading up to my turning point at the half-way mark.

5/ Why? Mostly cause I failed to understand that contributing to Bitcoin Core requires a rewiring of the brain’s reward mechanism.

This is at large a context gathering exercise and that means being comfortable with not always having something to show for at the end of the day.

6/ I learned the hard way that without an effective accountability structure, it’s easy to wander aimlessly through the foothills, constantly inventing busywork and avoid doing the actual work.

It took six months and some outside help to see through my own bullshit.

7/ That was an eye opening moment for me.

I left my job and called myself an aspiring Bitcoin Core contributor, but six months in, I had nothing to show for, other than a few hundred pages of notes and some webpages that had nothing to do with the actual job.

8/ That mid-May call was the push that I needed:

> “Start with reviewing functional tests”

That simple readjustment put me back on track. It allowed me to get a sense of the different paths ahead of me and gradually explore different parts of Bitcoin Core.

9/ Reaching Base Camp is a unique journey for each contributor, but the end result is the same - personal growth and a stronger conviction to work on this impactful cause.

Despite my struggles and setbacks, I have never been more excited to fail, iterate and move forward.

10/ I start this next phase with a renewed focus on consistency and a refined blueprint to achieve that:

- adjust priorities
- do the work
- gather context
- be accountable
- repeat.

The journey is just getting started.

Read the full article here
kouloumos.com/getting-to-base-camp

11/ What's the next peak on the horizon?

I want to find my way to London and the Bitcoin dev hub that @bitcoinbrink is building up.

That has been the driving force behind this journey from the very beginning; the perfect place for me to advance as a Bitcoin Core contributor.