Comparison: The Theft of Joy

I actually started writing this blog post, took a break to eat, and came back to realize that nothing I wrote was saved. I would like to think it’s because I have a better idea now of what to write, and the prior version wasn’t good. Writing on this blog more has been one of my many goals this year, and I am happy that I have been able to give myself more time to simply treat this area of my website like a journal while trying to keep my more professional content, as well as my depressive episode musings, on outside platforms.

Assuming everything goes according to plan, I have some things I have been working on for a while that are seemingly coming into place. I won’t say too much because I don’t want to give too many spoilers, but I’ve been working really hard this year to try to put things in position for longer-term success for both myself and DepressiveHacks.

Long-time readers know that DepressiveHacks started almost four years ago and has always been self-funded. The long-term goal has always been to get to a point where DepressiveHacks makes enough money that I can stop putting my own money in and simply use the revenue/profit from DepressiveHacks to reinvest and further explore Web3.

While that is still a ways away, I am potentially looking at a new position with my company next year that would help free up some cash flow. Living on my own for the first time this year has been a big adjustment, especially financially. A new position would bring much-needed budgetary relief, allowing me to refocus on new goals for 2026 with more than minimal capital to use. Everything that I write about, including founder interviews, beta testing products, and industry trends, all takes capital to make happen. I firmly believe that I lack a true understanding of a project/product without actually using it, holding its assets, and participating in some manner. This enables a deeper understanding that allows me to write and converse in a way that I don’t feel is replicable for me without some hands-on experience.

This would be a huge relief for me, as I first started mentioning this at work over a year ago. While I am hopeful, I am also hesitant to get excited too early, so please keep your fingers crossed for me.

Now, I typically write an annual review blog post for DepressiveHacks each year, and this is not that post. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t speak a little to what I have been up to, since I’ve not done a great job of summarizing it. Truly, there has been such a wide variety of things that it’s been difficult to try to narrow it down to any singular description.

A big focus in the past year has been to try to branch out and try significantly more things. In my first few years in the industry, I really only bought and held NFTs. This made for easy taxes and tracking P&L. However, with more legal clarity on the horizon (horizon meaning more than never, in this case) and tax software improvements (I have two I’m trying this year), I feel less worried about not being able to plan. In fact, one of the few things I need to do before the end of the year is look at my overall tax information and make any strategic moves before 2026.

In addition to this, the industry has clearly moved away from NFTs at this point. I still love them. I will still invest in projects that use them as assets. However, if I want to truly be the best independent Web3 writer that I can be, I need to understand more than just one use case for blockchain. I have always been a hands-on learner, so much of this year has been trying to figure out how to free up enough capital to try to learn as many new things as possible. Some of this has come from trimming existing positions that I held over multiple years. Others have come from efforts to capitalize on the amount of opportune capital in the market.

Never before this year has there been as much opportunity to earn money in the market through different activities as an individual contributor to the industry. I predict that this trend continues to extrapolate, and I want DepressiveHacks to be in the best position to capitalize on this going forward.

Taking advantage of these opportunities, whether they were airdrops, InfoFi, giveaways, or something else, really helped me to maximize my Web3 exploration this year. This is the worst my free cash flow has been since getting into Web3, so I had to work extra hard this year to find opportunities to earn tokens that I could then use to explore. I want to express my gratitude for the opportunity to contribute to so many ecosystems as a user, and I will have some specific shoutouts in my annual summary that really shaped my 2025.

Finally, I want to try to clean up my website before the end of the year and better present my offers as a freelance writer and consultant in the industry. I don’t always do the best job speaking to my skills and the value proposition that I help create for projects/companies, and having a better structured website that highlights this more clearly for visitors who can explore my offerings while also exploring my writing across the internet will only help me to (hopefully) increase the number of clients I have going forward.

If you made it this far, today’s blog title comes from the difficult lesson in this industry that, despite the many ups and downs of the markets and the continuous sense that you’re the only one not winning big, the only thing you can control is to improve upon yourself year after year. Writing an annual summary blog post has really helped this process for me as a Web3 participant, as it shows me where I was and makes it clear how far I have come since starting DepressiveHacks almost four years ago.

As always, thanks for being here.