My wife and I always host a family Easter Sunday dinner. This year it was a pretty small gathering of six people. My brother in law came with his son, who is in his early twenties. We had a few drinks and antipasto before dinner. My wife made home made manicotti using her mother's recipe for the first time. It was truly delicious, and got the stamp of approval from her 95 year old mom, who’s appetite isn’t what it used to be.

Everyone was feeling good and relaxed. My brother in law and I have spoken about bitcoin many times over the years. Like most people, he has always been skeptical. I talked to him during Christmas dinner in 2022, when bitcoin was around $16,500 or so. I tried to get him to buy as much as he could afford, but he wasn’t convinced. He had seen the SBF headlines proclaiming the collapse of bitcoin.

My brother in law is a teamster truck driver. He’s a sharp guy and a natural anarchist. He taught me a few things about standing up to authority during covid. He is an excellent worker. He gets up at 3:00am to drive his local routes around New York City. The company he works for has a lot of trouble finding reliable drivers. Either they don’t show up on time, fail the frequent drug tests, or are generally unreliable. My brother in law is old school. He had his own asphalt paving company for 25 years, so from his perspective this truck driving job is easy. When covid hit, he was told he had to wear a mask at work. He just said no. They said they would have to fire him. He called their bluff. They didn’t want to lose him, so they set up a chair in the hall and would bring him out the paperwork he needed to complete before getting in his truck. Eventually they just let him inside without a mask. When the vaccines came out, he was told he had to get vaccinated as a condition of employment. Again he said no. They said he would be fired. He said he didn’t care. They then allowed him to take a covid test every day instead of getting vaccinated. After about a week, he said he wasn’t getting tested anymore. They said they would then have to fire him. The next day, he showed them the now outdated covid test result from the day before, and continued to show them that same test result paper has it aged, day by day. They pretended not to notice the date. He never lost his job. Since covid, he has become interested in politics, but he will not support any party or candidate. He has no faith in the government.

During dinner I said a few things about bitcoin, and we talked about his son’s new job as an air traffic controller. My nephew is a very smart kid. We talked about stuff like his salary, health benefits, etc. My brother in law said something like “talk to your uncle. He probably made a killing with bitcoin.” He had obviously been aware of bitcoin enough to know the price. It turned out my nephew, though skeptical, knew a little about “crypto”, and had obviously done some reading. At one point he said, “hey, what about Eth?” My wife, of all people, without missing a beat, said “that’s a shitcoin.” I was so proud. He said he didn’t want to lose money buying any coins. I told him to just buy bitcoin, and to start with a small amount, an amount small enough for him not to get all upset if it goes down. I did not want to over complicate matters, nor did I want to send him the coinbase route, so I settled on cash app, which he was already familiar with. Not ideal, but I thought it was best in his case. I told him to buy a little, and then to start reading. I opened my Zeus app and explained to him about my node and a little about mining. I wish I had my bitaxe running, but that’s still on hold for now. At some point during the conversation my brother in law asked him to set up cash app for him on his phone when they got home. He wanted to set up a dca. Yesterday I got word that they both made their first buys. I will keep tabs on their progress.