Hi everyone,
Thanks for subscribing to my Substack.
I wanted to take some time to sit down and tell you about what the heck I’m planning now that I’ve quit my job. I should have started with this post when launching my website for context, but I have already made peace with the fact I fumbled my first post and that I’ll probably make a lot more mistakes as I embark on trying to start my own business.
WHO YOU ARE
If you’re receiving this email, it means that you are one of my early Substack subscribers who knows me personally or finds my technical writings about Ethereum useful. If you’re the latter, you should know that YOU are the main reason I published my first Substack post just three days after quitting my job. I couldn’t leave you all hanging on what’s going on with the Pectra upgrade! So, despite not having all the pieces ready (like this welcome post) for the launch of my Substack, I hit publish anyway, and now, here we are.
Anyway, as you can tell, I wrote my first two Substack posts last week with a specific audience in mind: people interested in accurate and up-to-date coverage on how the Ethereum protocol is changing. After all, this is the primary following I built over the years working for Galaxy and CoinDesk. Now, I’m testing the waters to see how much I can grow this audience on my own platform. That’s what my first newsletter series, “ACD After Hours,” is all about, but I don’t want to stop there.
FORECASTING THE FUTURE
I foresee increasing demand for high-quality content about protocol development and governance beyond Ethereum. For starters, there’s Bitcoin, the world’s most valuable public blockchain protocol that just so happens to be gaining adoption in 2025 among the world’s most powerful global leaders and evolving as an ecosystem to support broader use cases for Bitcoin like Decentralized Finance, stablecoins, and payments.
There’s a gap in how people understand and engage with crypto protocols due to their highly technical and decentralized nature. I feel confident I can fill this gap by offering my insights and targeted coverage on the evolution of major open-source blockchain protocols. My tagline for the kind of coverage I want to do on protocols is this:
Your guide to understanding protocols first as technology and second as public goods shaped by the interests of a collective.
What do you think? Too wordy?
I’m still workshopping my pitch and ideas, but in short, I want to become an expert on crypto protocols and how to engage with them as open-source technologies uniquely governed by a decentralized group of stakeholders. This is what genuinely interests me in crypto, so that’s what I’m going to pursue.
WHAT’S COMING UP
I haven’t fully figured out the part where I can make tons of money off of this idea haha, but hopefully, that will come in due time. What will also come in due time are more ACD After Hours posts, more Christine D. Kim update posts like this one, and brand-new types of content.
If you’re interested in getting it all and you’re already subscribed to my Substack, well done! You’ll get these in your inbox as soon as they’re ready for the public eye — no sooner, haha.
If you’re reading this post and haven’t subscribed to my Substack, what are you waiting for?
If you want to collaborate on content, partnerships, sponsorships, or other project ideas that align with my vision for the future, please reach out! My email is christine_dkim@proton.me.
I’m flying out to Korea for ETHSeoul and BuidlAsia this week. It’s my first time speaking at these conferences, and I’m stoked. Over the next week, you can expect a few more posts from me related to the conferences and Pectra, but after that, I plan on taking an extended break in May to go completely off the grid.
My hope is that I’ll return in the summer refreshed and ready to take my career to the next level as an independent crypto protocol development and governance expert. (The title is a work in progress too, as is my entire career and life really. ;))
Thanks again for joining me on my journey as a first-time entrepreneur. Here’s to new beginnings.
Yours Truly,
Christine D. Kim
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Special thanks to Shinhye Kim for the graphics in this newsletter.
Special thanks to Noelle Acheson and Rachael De Foe for reviewing this post and helping me find my voice.
Love it, cheering for you!
best of luck on your new adventure!