Why and how I start building my own Bitcoin Citadel, a nice and cozy homesteading place, to retire and live in peace.
As I promised, I came back with a detailed article about why and how I am building a Bitcoin Citadel, by myself.
This is the first part of the story, EXCLUSIVE for Stacker News!
This is the story of The DarthCoin Bitcoin Citadel…
Somewhere on the planet Earth, deep into the mountains wilderness.
I will split this story into multiple parts for easy reading and also helping me to organize all the information I gather during this journey into small episodes. It is a lot…
This “citadel” is not a Death Star, a castle, a mansion or an Eiffel Tower. Nothing like that. Will be just a homesteading place, with some small houses, a vegetables garden, fruit trees, some domestic animals and other utilities, enough to live a simple life in a self-sustaining way as much is possible.
For those that are new to this, the term Citadel in Bitcoinlandia is not about a fortress, that is just a figurative expression. It is more about a place where the bitcoiner is retreating himself, living in peace, far from distractions, sporadically or permanently. A place only for himself and maybe some friends. It doesn’t have to be specifically a homesteading place out of the city, it could be even your own simple apartment, but organized in a different way to adapt to your “bitcoin life”.
I hope that this story of my Citadel will be also an inspiration for many others, especially bitcoiners.
WHY?
I always wanted to build something, with my own hands, to remain in history, for humanity, so people can see it and remember me.
In my past I tried many things, even when I was a kid, but nothing at this level: building a house, a homesteading place, that could remain in time visible.
We are living all day like in a hamster wheel and what we are leaving behind? Almost nothing. Something that even in 50-100-200 years still stands and people can say “look, this thing was built by that crazy guy…”. Doesn’t matter if they like it or not, is something that REMAINS there for long time and your name and history is there. Like the Bitcoin blockchain timechain.
Some of my friends told me “but man, with your stash of bitcoins you could easily just pay somebody to do the hard work of digging and constructing”. Well… I am not “that guy to pay somebody else to do its job”, no matter how much bitcoins I have. Is about the feeling of building your own house with your own hands, not depending on anybody else. It’s an amazing experience and you are learning a lot of things!
I am just an old IT guy, now retired, because I want to follow my dream: having a homesteading place only for me. I have no skills in building houses, construction techniques or something like that. Growing vegetables and animals, I have some experience from my past youth, from my grandparents place, that is the easy part.
I am not afraid of failure. That could happen too. But I will continue trying again until it will be the way I wanted and is OK. We are learning from our failures, always. But the hard thing is to recognize when you are failing and start over.
HOW?
For many years I was looking for a good place to start. Walking many mountains, valleys, routes, paths etc. Taking notes, sleeping in a hammock, listening the surroundings, looking for resources (water, food, dirt composition). Is not that easy and the most important thing is: you MUST feel the place, to let your heart telling you which one is the best, which one will give you peace. That’s why I was sleeping many times, just in a sleeping bag, under the stars and listening the forest during the night. That deep silence that could put you in trance sometimes, is “talking” to your heart.
So, I found the place, I like it and I start building, with my own hands, my own brain, in my own style, with local materials, natural, simple, organized and strong. A message for next generations and also a living style: natural, simple, wild, isolated from “zombies civilization”, almost self-sustainable (I know is very hard to obtain self-sustainability, but I will try).
THE PLAN
On this terrain of 100 x 50 meters, surrounded by very old stone walls and trees, will be at least 2 houses, a big garden patch, chill out corner, animals shelter and a nice natural jacuzzi in the near small river, maybe later a small fish pond.
The place is right between 2 small rivers that come together into a very nice and quiet valley. One is cold (for beers) and the other one is warm (is mostly on the sun side all day), good for baths.
At the entrance, I will put 21 stones and will engrave the 21 reasons why Bitcoin will save the world, to remain there, in stone, forever.
The main idea / plan is to have:
-
a 1st nice “hobbit house” (more will come later), digging the dirt from a small hill, making earthbags and stone walls and cover it with the same dirt on top, planting some aromatic flowers over. Later a 2nd house, bigger or even more.
-
a stone oven outside, near to the 1st house, for making bread and pizza and a barbecue place.
-
a vegetables garden, in front, with wooden beds and self irrigation system (water is at only 5-7m). In winter with some small greenhouses. I have plenty of terrain for growing food.
-
some fruit trees, chickens, ducks, goats
-
a small river turbine (water lily) and solar panels for electricity, running water and filtering, sauna (for long winters)
-
satellite antenna (internet, communication), maybe some bitcoin miners too and radio station. Depends how much electricity I could grab from that small river I have.
All these in stages, year by year, slowly, with patience and calculating each step, each move. Due to weather conditions and the fact that in the beginning there’s no other place to sleep than tent and hammock, I have to work mostly in the summer, between June and end of Sept. All the rest of the year is quite complicated to work (heavy rain, snow, wind, cold). The place is at 1400 m altitude and the weather is quite unstable.
Please read more about the stages that were done until today on my new substack dedicated to this story. I didn't want to mix this with my regular Bitcoin guides substack.
The DarthCoin Citadel new substack - Stage 1 - 3 building the Citadel