It's been a while. The last post here was 2022. Four years isn't forever, but in the world of expat finance and crypto, it's several lifetimes.

If you're new here, this site documents my journey from UK police officer to financially independent expat, primarily through Bitcoin. The older posts still get traffic, which means people are still figuring out the same things I was figuring out in 2014-2018: offshore banking, expat investing, FIRE strategies, and whether cryptocurrency was a scam or the future.

For the record: it wasn't a scam. Though I was late to that realisation, as the "Admitting I Was Wrong" post from 2017 will attest.

Where I Am Now

Bali, mostly. UAE occasionally. Singapore less frequently than I'd like. The digital nomad dream turned out to be real, though "nomad" is probably overselling it. I've been based in Indonesia for the better part of five years now. Long enough to learn the language properly, not just the tourist phrases.

That turned into Bahasa.fun, a side project I built during COVID lockdowns when I got frustrated with textbooks that skip the bits people actually use. If you're learning Indonesian and want to understand why everything gets said twice or how Indonesian verb affixes actually work, that's the resource I wish I'd had in 2020.

Financial independence held up. The FIRE thesis worked. Bitcoin went from "that thing I was wrong about" to "the thing that let me retire at 30-something." The portfolio strategy from the building an expat investment portfolio post still holds, though the percentages have shifted heavily towards crypto and away from traditional equities.

What Changed

The offshore banking landscape shifted. What was cutting-edge in 2014 is table stakes now. Every fintech wants to be the "bank for digital nomads." Some of them are genuinely good. Most are rebranded challenger banks with better marketing.

The international bank transfer fees I used to obsess about? Mostly solved by better infrastructure. Though correspondent banking is still a racket if you're moving serious money between obscure currency pairs.

Property investment, which I was deeply skeptical about in 2016, turned out to be exactly the house of cards I thought it was. Just took longer to collapse than I expected. Real estate in Bali is a different beast entirely. But that's a story for another post.

The biggest change: I stopped treating expat finance as a puzzle to solve and started treating it as infrastructure for doing interesting things. Money became a tool, not the point.

What I'm Doing Now

Writing, mostly. The Insularist is where the serious Bitcoin and sovereignty writing happens. That's the blog for first principles thinking about financial independence beyond borders, not step-by-step guides to offshore accounts.

Diving. A lot of diving. 100+ logged dives across Southeast Asia as a recreational Divemaster. That became Tidefall, a dive site database for the Indo-Pacific. If you want honest information about Bali's dive sites or the Philippines' underwater landscape, it's there. No affiliate links, no marketing fluff. Just working divemasters documenting what's actually down there.

Consulting. Head of SEO at Banxa, plus some angel investing in crypto-adjacent startups. Enough to stay engaged with the industry without it consuming my life.

The book. Bitcoin: The Complete Guide came out in 2022. Over 1,000 copies sold, which for a technical book about cryptocurrency is decent. It's the book I wish I'd had in 2015 when I was convinced Bitcoin was a scam.

What Stayed the Same

The core thesis hasn't changed: geographic arbitrage works, Bitcoin is sound money, and financial independence gives you options that employment never will.

Expat life is still the best deal in personal finance if you're willing to deal with the admin overhead. Tax residency planning, offshore structures, currency hedging. It's all still relevant. Just more refined now.

The questions people ask haven't changed either. "How do I invest as an expat?" "Should I buy Bitcoin?" "Is offshore banking legal?" The answers are mostly the same, just with better tools available.

Why I'm Writing This

Partly to update anyone who's been reading since 2014 that yes, the plan worked. FIRE through Bitcoin and expat arbitrage is real, not just theory.

Partly to point people to the newer projects. If you found this site useful back then, The Insularist is where I'm writing now. Bahasa.fun if you're in Indonesia. Tidefall if you dive.

Mostly to close a loop. This site was a record of figuring things out in real time. The messy middle of going from employed to independent, from the UK to Southeast Asia, from Bitcoin skeptic to Bitcoin advocate.

That journey is done. This is the epilogue.

The archives stay up. The old posts still work. Some of them aged better than others. But they're honest, which was always the point.

If you're starting your own expat finance journey now, good luck. It's easier than it was in 2014, harder than it will be in 2030. The tools keep getting better. The fundamentals stay the same.

Don't trust, verify. Keep your keys. Live below your means. Stay sovereign.

See you on the other side.