FAQ

Can we have a quick phone call to dis­cuss a [real­ly great oppor­tu­ni­ty] / [place­ment ques­tions] / [anten­na choice] etc?

No. Your best bet is to: 

1. Read through the blog.
2. Ask your ques­tion in the com­ments sec­tion on the appro­pri­ate blog post so we can deliv­er val­ue to everybody.
3. Hire my con­sult­ing com­pa­ny, here.

I don’t have a “free analy­sis” call option, that’s just mar­ket­ing bullshit. 

How much will my DePIN Min­er (Heli­um, Weath­erXM, Hivemap­per, etc) earn?

A lot in the ear­ly days, less lat­er on. Check the indi­vid­ual project pages for this. They all have some form of Explor­er page where you can see the total tokens emit­ted to min­ers and the total num­ber of min­ers. Divide the first by the sec­ond and you have your average.

Is it worth it for me to get into DePIN at this point?

Depends on what “worth” means to you. If you like the idea of a lit­tle bit of tin­ker­ing and get­ting reward­ed for exert­ing effort, and you don’t mind ROI of a year, then it’s prob­a­bly a good idea. If you absolute­ly love solv­ing com­plex prob­lems and don’t mind risk­ing more mon­ey, you’ll LOVE DePIN. If you just want free mon­ey, DePIN will be a frus­trat­ing and dis­ap­point­ing expe­ri­ence for you. 

Can you explain Heli­um for me?

Yes, take a look at this post.

Can you take a look at my set­up and tell me if it’s worth it or not to buy a miner?

Prob­a­bly, but there are no guar­an­tees when it comes to “worth it”. 

Can I send you some HNT for being so help­ful with this blog?

Yes, scroll down to the bot­tom of this page and look for the QR code. 

What is your background?

Start­ed off in the mil­i­tary and served as both a sol­dier and ath­lete. From there I took a small sail­boat from San Diego down through the Pana­ma Canal, then back up to Flori­da, then to Kingston, where I sold it. Drift­ed around a bit, tried out com­mu­ni­ty col­lege. The for­mal edu­ca­tion sys­tem was­n’t (and isn’t) for me. Went to Iraq to do con­tract secu­ri­ty work and chase the ele­phant. Came back to San Diego and start­ed a cloth­ing com­pa­ny with my wife, ran that for a few years. Got into Nord­strom, Fred Segal, and enough debt to go bank­rupt. I learned a lot about what not to do.

After the dust from the BK cleared, we start­ed and ran an ATM busi­ness on our own and an online cook­ie com­pa­ny called Paleo Treats with a friend. We sold the ATM busi­ness after a few years; it was prof­itable but monotonous.

PT did (and does) well, in 2015 earn­ing recog­ni­tion from FedEx as one of the top 10 small busi­ness­es in the coun­try. I sat on their Entre­pre­neur Advi­so­ry Board and helped shape some of their small busi­ness policy. 

I went back and worked for the Navy as an instruc­tor for a few years, then went off and worked on car­go ves­sels as part of an anti-pira­cy team. In between I picked up odd con­tract­ing jobs, from assess­ing the via­bil­i­ty of trav­el for HNW clients in remote loca­tions to work­ing as the inter­view­er for a mil­lion dol­lar Hol­ly­wood ad campaign.

I got into ultra run­ning and after 3 attempts com­plet­ed the Leadville 100 in 2015. That sat­is­fied the urge to run long dis­tance, and ampli­fied a love of the moun­tains and views. On a whim, I saw a movie about paraglid­ing and was hooked. 

In August 2020 I found Heli­um through a paraglid­ing Search & Res­cue effort in Neva­da. I began my jour­ney right as the Hotspot DIY/Alpha code pro­gram opened (long since closed) and start­ed to build and place hotspots, includ­ing remote moun­tain place­ments. I start­ed writ­ing about the lessons learned on this blog in order to help oth­er peo­ple step over some of the obsta­cles I’d had to get around.

Some­time in spring of 2021, as the blog posts were get­ting picked up on Red­dit, Dis­cord, Face­book, and the rest of the web, I began get­ting so many calls for help with hotspot deploy­ments that I start­ed a con­sult­ing com­pa­ny to man­age it, and Gris­tle King was born. By mid 2022 the Heli­um con­sult­ing busi­ness was more or less dead, but lots of new projects were start­ing in the DePIN space, and I want­ed to help them avoid mis­takes that Heli­um had made. I start­ed con­sult­ing for projects, even­tu­al­ly start­ing a sep­a­rate com­pa­ny just for that. That more or less bring us to today.