Forest Elander • June 2026

Have you ever looked something up hoping for a simple answer, and walked away with ten new questions instead?

That was me with Bitcoin. Every article I found assumed I already understood the last one. Every explanation sent me looking for three more. I wanted to understand what was actually happening — not just the price, not just the headlines — but what Bitcoin really is, where it is going, and what it means for the way money works in the future. Getting there took a lot of digging.

I grew up in my dad's carpentry shop, where the rule was measure three times, cut once. Do things right or do them twice. That standard followed me into everything, including how I approached money. When I started questioning whether the financial system most of us grew up trusting was actually built well, Bitcoin was the answer I kept finding. The more I understood it, the more it held up. It is the most honest form of money I have encountered — designed to hold the value of your work and time without anyone being able to quietly take a cut.

That conviction is what eventually led me to start building things in this space. But that is a story for another issue.

This newsletter is called The Route for a reason.

Think about what it means to have a route. Not just a destination, but the clearest, most efficient path to get there. When I was trying to understand Bitcoin, I did not have that. I had noise, jargon, and information written by people who forgot what it felt like not to know.

The Route is what I wish I had. Every issue takes one thing happening in the world of Bitcoin and the infrastructure being built around it, and finds you the most direct path to understanding it. Plain language. Real context. No assumptions about what you already know.

Some weeks that will mean something practical and close to home. Other weeks it will mean looking further ahead at where all of this is going. Either way the goal is the same — get you to understanding faster, with less noise in the way.

Bitcoin is moving from the edges of finance toward the center of it. The payment rails, the technology, and the systems being built around it are changing faster than most people realize. You do not need to be a developer or an investor to care about that. You just need someone to help you find the route.

That is what I am here to do.

I am genuinely excited to start this journey, and I hope you will be here for it.

Keep building, ₿it by ₿it.

— Forest

Follow on X: @Bitlatethenever