A Private Key for 2035

I remember the day I generated that private key.

My daughter was in her first year of primary school. Five years old. Missing teeth. Shoes on the wrong feet half the time. Life felt big and expensive and slightly out of control — as it does when you’re a new dad trying to build a business and a future at the same time.

The school was celebrating a historic milestone and decided to create a time capsule. It would be sealed up and opened in 20 years — 2035. The kids drew pictures. Families contributed newspaper clippings, coins, little bits of “this is what life looks like right now.”

And I thought: I know what I want to put in there.

At the time, Bitcoin was under $1,000.

Most people still thought it was internet funny money. Magic beans for nerds. I didn’t have much spare cash myself — young family, startup life — but I had conviction. I’d been deep down the rabbit hole long enough to realise this wasn’t just a speculative asset.

It was a new kind of money.

As a new father, that hit differently.

When you’re single, you can afford to experiment. When you’ve got a child, your time horizon changes overnight. You start thinking in decades. You start asking different questions:

• What will the world look like when she’s 25?

• What will money look like?

• Will she have more opportunity — or less?

• How do I give her optionality in a world I can’t predict?

Bitcoin felt like a technological breakthrough hiding in plain sight. Not just digital money — programmable money. Borderless money. Money that didn’t rely on trust in institutions, but on mathematics and open networks.

It felt like the early internet again.

So instead of putting cash into the time capsule, I generated a private key. Printed it carefully. Stored it securely. Added the corresponding public address so anyone could send bitcoin to it over the next 20 years.

My thinking was simple.

Even small donations — $5, $20, a few dollars here and there — could compound into something meaningful. Not because of interest. Not because of clever financial engineering. But because if Bitcoin did what I believed it could do, the purchasing power shift over two decades could be extraordinary.

If $100 one day became worth $1,000…
If $1,000 one day became worth $100,000…

That’s not just a return.

That’s optionality for a young adult stepping into the world.

But it wasn’t really about the money.

It was about belief.

Belief that Tasmania — yes, Tasmania — could participate in global digital infrastructure. That we didn’t have to wait for permission from Sydney, Melbourne, London or New York. That open networks level the playing field.

I’d seen firsthand through my work in the Bitcoin community how quickly innovation can compound. How talent from places like UTAS could build globally relevant systems. How regional businesses could plug directly into the world.

As a dad, that mattered.

I didn’t want my daughter growing up thinking opportunity only exists “somewhere else.” I wanted her to see that technology flattens geography. That monetary networks are just software. That value can move at the speed of the internet.

A time capsule is a message to the future.

Most capsules contain artefacts of the present. Ours contains a bet on the future.

When it’s opened in 2035, my daughter will be 25. Old enough to understand what was happening in 2015. Old enough to see how early this all was. Old enough to decide for herself what she believes about money, sovereignty and technology.

Maybe the address holds a meaningful amount.
Maybe it holds very little.
Maybe it holds an absurd amount.

That’s almost secondary.

What I really hope it holds is a story.

A story about a young father who stumbled across a new monetary technology and thought, “This could change things.” Not just for speculators. Not just for Silicon Valley. But for families. For small states. For communities willing to experiment.

Bitcoin at under $1,000 didn’t feel “safe.”

It felt inevitable.

And sometimes, the most responsible thing you can do for your family isn’t to cling tightly to the familiar — but to quietly place a seed in the future and let time do its work.

We’ll find out in 2035 what grew.