DylanΞGra₿owski

You don't need to know how to code or hire an expensive developer to build a professional website I built mine in just over two days using ChatGPT and WordPress Here's how I did it, the tools I used, and a copy-paste prompt to get you started 👇

I trained Claude Code to edit my long-form videos, and it took 5 rounds of review to finally get a cut I'd sign off on The input was one 31-minute recording (which I'd originally meant to record for 15 minutes but went too long, whoops) The headaches: > Whisper's word timestamps ended 0.14 to 0.60 seconds early, which clipped the last sound of words > an edit anchored to a phrase landed on the wrong take, 83 seconds away from when I actually said it > one cut kept a 0.13 second scrap of the word "And" multiple times... so. many. times The steps we took: > transcribe the recording locally with Whisper > measure where each word really ends from the audio, not the transcript > add a gate that checks every cut for clipped words > let it re-render up to 3 times, then fail instead of shipping a bad cut > I leave timestamped notes on each round, Claude Code fixes them and renders again (life saver. because now I know where to pay attention when reviewing the final cut) The final deliverables: > a 15-minute cut > (barely passable) shorts > 3 thumbnail options > a YouTube description It's a work in progress and I need to work on so many deliverable features, but we're getting there inch by inch What I still want: > an A/B test on the thumbnails in YouTube Studio > my newsletter, podcast, and X links added to the description > so much more output from the one video (i.e., short-form clips, tweet copy, article copy, newsletter copy) 5 rounds in, the agent finally cuts and edits in a way that's 90% there for the long-form

Train your AI agents to become your intern, not your ghost writer For technical articles, I use two agents to help me craft a deliverable The first agent is for research. Its job: > dig through GitHub repositories and past coverage about the product/project > find coverage talking about the subject matter outside of the usual echo chamber > hand off a research file written for the next agent to read The second agent is for drafting. Its job: > review the document from agent one > draft an article from only what can be sourced > write in my tone and style using a skill built from 2,000+ of my past articles The end result is a document that a well-educated intern would’ve put together I then edit the deliverable by: > reformatting > moving parts of the article around so it makes more sense > adding human touches to the copy > linking my related past coverage that’s related to the article In the end, agents do the heavy lifting, I still do the job

My biggest fear isn't failure itself, but other people thinking I'm a failure So I'm doing the scary thing… building in public beyond X and working to get better at the whole craft, not just the posting I'm also starting to use AI (Grok Bots, Claude Code, and ChatGPT) to help edit long-form videos (on various subject-matter), and turn each one into: > tweets > articles > newsletter (BeeHiiv) > shorts (YouTube, TikTok) I know what you're thinking, and don't worry, you won't see AI slop on my feed… AI does the cutting, I still make every call on what ships Follow along for the follies and the slight victories

Living Outside the Dollar: Ten Years Unbanked by Choice @TheDesertLynx closed his bank account in spring 2016 and never reopened it I hosted him on @SmartEconomyPod's Crypto Coffee & Blockchain Beer X Space last Friday to find out how that works I got into crypto in 2017 during the ICO craze, and have spent most of the years since covering it as an asset class Joel, on the other hand, well... he runs his whole financial life on it That was one of the things I was super interested in digging into with him Why he left Joel found Bitcoin around 2012, and now does BD and marketing for @Dashpay > Sound money drew him in first > Using BTC changed his priorities > Sending value with a QR scan, with no permission needed, mattered more to him than inflation resistance By the end of 2015 he quit his job and started to take work that would only pay him in Bitcoin Shortly thereafter, a Cointelegraph writing gig came his way and the bank account closed the following spring In our conversation, he said that Bitcoin fees made daily spending impractical by late 2016 That's when he moved to Dash (NOTE: I had a similar experience in 2017. High Ethereum fees are why I ended up building in the Neo ecosystem) Today, Joel still tests Lightning, Monero, and Zcash. But Dash covers about 95% of what he spends How he spends The answer to his questions started with a mindset, not looking at digital monies as a tool Trade is peer to peer, he argued, and using crypto to buy everyday goods can be a lot simpler than we think: > Menus and card terminals make it feel fixed > A business owner can still take a custom offer Though, he conceded that negotiating with a minimum wage cashier is not the smart move; there's only so much they can do Beyond that, he named three pillars that make spending crypto possible outside of the traditional debit/credit card-based society we're accustomed: > Bill pay services accept crypto and settle your utility bill > Prepaid cards let you spend on card rails > Gift cards let you pre-buy from retailers that do not accept crypto Privacy is the other layer that crypto advocates usually tout, but we have very little to back us up... Cash is *actually* private but useless online He named @Zebec_HQ as the one reloadable private card he trusts Plus, Dash's instant finality lets him load his digital card moments before he's ready to tap-to-pay The part I can't stop thinking about... Spending crypto instead of holding it creates a different relationship with fixed-supply digital assets Joel is the first US-based person I've met that's gone "off-grid" and uses crypto to live outside of the money system that's persisted in the US for so long I have only seen these tools matter once in person A friend from China could not use his credit card in Buenos Aires last year It was @joinpeanut, a crypto payments app, that got him through the week But Joel has lived that situation daily for a decade, by choice, and honestly, I was impressed to see how well he was able to adapt Almost as if... we all have a choice about whether to live inside the fiat Matrix What comes next? Joel sees in-app spending as the next step > A wallet scans a merchant QR code and pays directly He pointed to Aeon, which already does this across Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America After that, he envisions a world where native acceptance can occur at the point of sale As for me? I am not ready to close my own bank account BUT I am more convinced than I was a week ago that the workaround is real Could you go a year without your bank account?

Crypto won the candidate count last night, but not control of the agenda The Good > Pro-crypto candidates outnumber anti-crypto candidates, thank you @standwithcrypto > There were legit W's for the pro-crypto Dems [Pappas (D) NH] The Bad > The SEC and CFTC's regulatory agenda now faces greater congressional scrutiny; Democratic committee chairs can deprioritize crypto legislation > Not every pro-crypto candidate was running a contested race > A large number of pro-crypto candidates doesn't mean that crypto bills are a sure shot (i.e., CLARITY Act is still stalled in the Senate with an R majority) The Ugly > Crypto PACs lost *badly* in Ohio, Sherrod Brown (former Senate Banking Committee chair) beat ~$63 million in opposition funding > Expect more inquisitions into Trump's crypto activities than progress on meaningful legislation that will protect consumers (see the incoming oversight chairman's statement) Ultimately, the hope for long-term crypto legislation in the US lies in rebuilding bipartisan bridges, and separating Trump (or any party) from an agenda P.S. bitcoin:native is a honey badger and don't care