Checking In

Hi friends. It’s your favorite depressed astronaut. I figured it was as good a time as any to provide some updates on where things are at and how I’m doing.

This week has been a bit of a down week, as I manage lower energy levels and a generally anxious feeling of being overwhelmed. It’s not been super fun, but everything has continued to hum along despite this, and I’m looking forward to being able to do more once I’m feeling more like myself again. It’s going to be a busy last four months of the year.

Speaking of that, I’m happy to share that for the first time since March, I have more than one job again. My day job has remained consistent throughout, and while I’m grateful for that, the fact is that I want more of my time occupied and extra money to explore more of Web3 and grow DepressiveHacks. I am grateful for the opportunity and am looking forward to a little extra work. The position is back in the golf industry, which I’ve missed since losing my last second job earlier this year, and it’s only for a couple of months. I expect to be rather busy with non-Web3 things through September and October, given my travel schedule for my main job, and now adding this additional position to the mix. Obviously, I will continue to work on DepressiveHacks, but it’ll be nice to have something that not only provides a little extra money on a more consistent basis but also helps me to get out of my house and socialize with other people.

I’m also very excited about the writing that I am doing for Vault12. If you have been keeping up since the last blog post, you’ve likely noticed that I’m doing some long-form pieces for them on their blog. I have some additional pieces in the works, but if you haven’t checked out my latest piece about exploring Decentralized Finance (DeFi), which is a new area of Web3 for me, you can check it out here.

While I have some additional responsibilities IRL coming up in the next couple of months, I’m very optimistic about where DepressiveHacks is headed. Yeah, pretty crazy to hear the depressed astronaut discuss optimism without it being the L2.

Basically, I’ve spent a lot of the free time that I’ve had this year while only having one job doing two things: making new irl friends, which is an area I’ve been severely lacking in the past few years as I’ve been feeling down and antisocial, and exploring more of Web3. Truly, I feel a little overwhelmed at all the things I’ve been exploring, but it’s been incredible to learn so much about so many verticals. The new people I’ve met, the new use cases I’ve explored and tried out, and the knowledge I’ve gained have been incredible. I have never been able to support so many builders with my money, my time, my efforts, and my presence. For this, I am grateful, and I look forward to being able to hopefully continue to expand this through the end of the year.

As far as my thesis, I’ve always been a very long-term oriented person. I think that as more and more things come to Web3, there will be so many more things to do, and it won’t all be trading. Honestly, today, it isn’t all trading. This means, to me, that collecting quality assets (fungible or not), holding them, and using them to generate more assets to hold is the way to go. So much onboarding still has to happen, and once it does, all of those entities are going to be vying for your assets, either by creating things for you to pay them for or simply purchasing them to use for their own apps, treasuries, etc.

While this is my portfolio thesis, I also believe that the opportunities in this industry are only beginning. You’ve seen an uptick in the number of folks who have received offers for major positions with large Web3 companies as a result of their efforts over the course of years being present and participating in the industry, regardless of market conditions. While it’s obviously much more fun to be here when things are going up in price, do not underestimate the importance of being here when nobody else wants to be. That’s how you set yourself apart and how you make some of the better connections based on things more material than price action.

I plan to continue doing more interviews. There’s been a small lull in getting them out, and I’ll be sharing more about that down the road, but more are coming, and I look forward to sharing the conversations I’m having with builders, founders, and folks who have dedicated their lives to growing our industry. I also want to do more writing for hire, and hope that this initial opportunity with Vault12 is just the beginning. I’m very grateful to the team over there for the opportunity to showcase my writing in a different form, and it’s been great to get back to articles after only writing interviews in this industry for a couple of years. Simply put, I am remaining open to opportunity and where the winds of Web3 take me.

I’ve been doing alright mentally overall. I feel that things are moving in the right direction, which is a saying that I overuse, but it hasn’t always been like that. I’m grateful that this year has been a little better than 2023 and 2024. I’ve really developed the mindset of trying to get marginally better each day and finding new things to work on. I think I want to get some equipment to do workouts in my home this winter and get back to losing weight. I’ve really been enjoying hanging out with some new people, but my lack of social energy has led to not really keeping up with a lot of my friends that I’ve had for years. Maybe I can go see some people or catch up with them closer to the end of the year. Trying to grow DepressiveHacks is very time-consuming, and it’s difficult to explain to people who haven’t started something on their own why it takes so much time and effort.

Finally, I’m really trying to be super mindful of how I’m feeling and adjust my expectations to my energy levels, especially with this new extra job coming into the picture. It’ll probably take a week or two to adjust, but I’m confident that this will be a net positive to me in a few different aspects of life.

As always, thanks for being here. I appreciate the support over the years, whether you’ve been reading my work since the beginning or are discovering DepressiveHacks for the first time. Here’s to finishing the remaining part of 2025 strong.