Reflections on blogging & the next chapter

Let's go exploring!

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson

Last year, as a conscript in Singapore’s army, I decided to download Twitter. Using Twitter isn’t very common in Singapore.

At the time, I was quite interested in macroeconomics, and I’d heard that the Twitter space—if you followed the right people!—could be rich with thought-provoking and emerging ideas in the field.

The Twitter experience felt fresh. Retweets and stuff made the potential for outreach massive, and the fact that you could tag anyone—even Elon Musk—and potentially get the fella to reply was exciting. Twitter nudged not only consumption, but also creation and discourse.

And after years of mostly consuming, creating was lovely! Tweeting out questions, DMing folks with thousands more followers than you and occasionally seeing them reply quenched my curiosity.

It is Twitter that then birthed this blog on Substack.

Since then, I have spent many months tweeting and writing, often into the void, and while it’s occasionally frustrating, the sharpening and streamlining that writing awards its patient followers is immense. If you’re not sure whether you understand something in your head, write it out! Or talk out loud to yourself or a friend. The learning that comes from creating is special.

And sometimes, that creating leads you to unexpected places. In August, Casey, an editor from the Bitcoin Magazine, the oldest and most established Bitcoin publication in the world, reached out to me on Twitter and said that I could send him an article to be published in the Magazine. Turns out: somebody from the magazine had read one of my pieces and quite liked it!

(Fun fact: it was Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin who first founded the Bitcoin Magazine in 2011. I was 9 and blur back then.)

Now, I’m twenty and still very blur. I’m having a lot of fun, though.

Yesterday, my first piece for the magazine was published and I’m beyond grateful for the luck and opportunity that has come my way.

Interestingly, my writing has transitioned from explainers and theory towards more niche areas, like either full-on satire and stories (ahem, inflation and obesity) or more idea-centric technical stuff (my Bitcoin magazine piece is one I’m very proud of).

I.e. I like IDEAS. Opinions on things that are happening around the world are good and great, but nothing is as fascinating as new ways to look at things. Nothing is as fascinating as IDEAS.

Hence, IDEAS will be my focus moving forward, and this means asking a lot of questions, occasionally getting things very wrong, and being unafraid of failing to fit into any pre-established community. But most of all, it means having fun. I’m beyond excited for what’s ahead.

So if you’re here and reading Nani the Money, thank you! There are so many more things to “Nani?!” at coming our way.

Till next time,

Ja ne!

You can also follow me on Twitter @ramwithouthorns!