As I write this, I am sitting in a hotel room, CAD open, music going, a cup of British ‘builders tea’ next to me. Shortly, I will be meeting colleagues in reception for dinner.

I am in Dubai for a few days, working on some technical stuff for a big installation I am involved with in the Kingdom next door.

That’s my day job and it has been for almost 2 decades.

My j̶o̶b̶ passion before and after that day job is Bitcoin and everything it represents. That’s why “The Solo Mining Co’ exists. I wanted an outlet to sell cool stuff I design / co-design, see the GekkoScience SmartHub, original ‘Solo’ miner and the Mars Lander – look closely enough and you will see “IamGPIO” deep within their code.

I learned about the Bitaxe project in early summer 2023 and, ironically, had the pleasure of meeting Skot9000, the founder, a month or so later, purely by chance.

Inspired by him, his project and everything Bitaxe represented, I knew I had to be involved. I do what I can for Bitaxe and the team – admittedly, not as much as I want to but only as much as time allows at the moment. That will change in due course in some guise or another.

Until then, I have the privilege of saying that www.thesolomining.co is the first and currently only UK reseller (and producer – in small batches – see note about ‘time!’) of the Bitaxe Ultra and all derivatives coming to market.

Casting that aside, I mentioned I was in a hotel room and on the road…

Next to me is my ‘Bitaxe OSMU Supporters Edition Bitaxe.’ It’s cool AF because its purple and gold. More importantly, its a token from the Bitaxe dev team, who again, selflessly give back to their supporters. That’s worth its weight in gold (and purple). It’s this mindset and philosophy that makes Bitaxe kick-ass. The dev team do what they do because they are passionate about it and that passion is contagious.

‘Bitaxe 1’ as it shall now be known is currently connected to the hotel’s wifi and solo mining it’s little heart out to find that elusive block, keeping me company in my hotel room whilst drum ‘n’ bass fills the air. Yes, I could’ve left it at home but where is the fun in that…? This is a great opportunity to play, learn and explore what its open source architecture has to offer On that, I have “#BitaxeOnTour” doing the rounds on the internet. The little guy is with me on my travels. He is a great companion. Better conversation that the colleagues I am meeting shortly anyway… Damn youngsters and their InstaSnapToksGrams.

IamGPIO out.

Dinner time.

Oh, Watch this space. I have been designing a really nice Bitaxe stand with my own IamGPIO design iteration. 3D printable and just lovely. Plans will be available on the site FOC in due course.

(Yes, I was mining at the airport with the obligatory 0700am Bloody mary, on the plane – WIFI ON THE DAMN PLANE! – and as mentioned, my hotel room.)