A Portuguese man, a Polish village, and cats that won't be touched

I was born in Porto and moved to Poland. I live in a village like hundreds of others here: houses with gardens, fields all around, and winters that show no mercy to anything sleeping outside.

I've always loved animals — cats, dogs, birds. The last one I had before moving was a canary, who lived a long and happy life. I'm not a biologist or a vet. I'm just someone who was never indifferent to animals.

I didn't decide anything. Ever since I arrived, stray cats have turned up in the garden — and I started feeding them.

Rain, sun or snow. Often it's enough to glance out of the window: if I see one out there, I put my coat on and go. I bought them a shelter and keep it stuffed with straw, so they have somewhere to sleep when the cold really bites.

At one point I was feeding twelve at the same time.

This is the part people don't expect. These cats know who I am and know what time I show up. They wait for me. But if I come closer, they run.

I put the food down and step away. Only once I'm at a distance do they come and eat.

I've never stroked a single one of them, and I probably never will. And that's fine. They owe me nothing, and the trust of a wild animal is to be respected, not forced.

Tuga was the exception. She turned up at two weeks old, far too small to run from anyone, and she stayed. That's why she has a home and the others are still out there: Tuga's Friends, who are only now starting to get names.

Tuga is spayed, vaccinated and up to date on deworming. That's the minimum and it isn't up for debate.

The Friends are not. And it isn't for want of trying — it's that they can't be caught. A cat that bolts the moment I come near doesn't go into a carrier, however much I'd like to take it to the vet.

I know what that means: feeding without neutering makes a colony grow, and I'm not dodging that responsibility. It's the hardest problem in this project and, to this day, it remains unsolved.

If and when I find a way to do it properly, I'll write about it here.

So far, me. The food, the litter, the vet, the shelter — it comes out of my savings.

I'm not complaining: I do it because I want to. But twelve cats eat a lot, and that's why this site accepts donations. Every sat that arrives goes into food, not into me.

If that ever changes, I'll write it here.

It's my other passion, and for a long time it lived apart from this one. One day I realised they didn't have to.

A cat is the finest energy-saver nature ever produced: it sleeps sixteen hours to hunt for eight seconds, and wastes not a single movement. Bitcoin is the same idea applied to your time and your work — a battery with no leaks.

I'm not a financial adviser and I won't tell you what to do with your money. I'll only tell you how I came to see things this way, and I use cats to explain it because they're the best example I know.

A place where my two passions meet, written in three languages because my life happens in three.

It has Tuga's diary from the day she turned up, a guide for anyone who finds a kitten and doesn't know what to do, and an explanation of why I think money should work the way a cat does.

If you came for the cats and stayed for the Bitcoin, or the other way round, then it was worth it.