I spent a year building open-source sovereignty tools. Here is what I learned
I have been lurking here for a while. Time to introduce myself.
I am a software consultant by day (Accenture, enterprise architecture). By night I write about sovereignty and build open-source tools. I am based in Austria.
Last year I published a book called “Brick by Brick: Building a Sovereign Life on Bitcoin.” The core idea: you do not become sovereign overnight. You replace one dependency at a time. Money first (Bitcoin). Then food, health, data, attention, energy. One brick at a time.
Writing the book was the easy part. The hard part was realizing that ideas without tools are just philosophy. So I started building.
What I built:
1. Sovereign Health Intelligence (sovereignhealth.io)
I went carnivore in January 2025 and started tracking my biomarkers obsessively. Glucose, ketones, cholesterol, inflammation markers, hormones. 85+ biomarkers total. I used a spreadsheet until it broke at 500 rows.
Every health app I tried had the same problems: they stored my data unencrypted in their cloud, and they flagged my keto readings as “dangerously high” because they do not understand protocol context.
So I built a health tracking platform that does three things differently:
- Protocol-aware reference ranges (keto, carnivore, fasting, OMAD). It does not panic when your ketones are elevated on purpose.
- AES-256-GCM encryption at rest. Zero knowledge. Even the server admin cannot read your data.
- Self-hostable with Docker. AGPL-3.0. Free forever if you run it yourself.
Built in Rust + Next.js. No tracking, no cookies, no analytics. Bitcoin accepted (5% off).
2. BrickOS (brickos.io)
The platform that ties it all together. Each sovereign application is one “brick.” Health was the first. The next is Sovereign Link, a self-hosted URL shortener with NOSTR NIP-98 authentication (log in with your NOSTR keys, no email needed).
The pattern: every app uses the same primitives. NOSTR for identity. Self-hosting for data control. Open source for trust. Encryption for privacy.
3. The book
“Brick by Brick” covers the philosophy behind all of this. Five pillars of sovereignty. Why convenience is the most effective form of control. Why health is infrastructure, not a lifestyle. Available on Amazon (fiat) or via BTC at twentyone.life/shop.
What is next:
I am speaking at BTC Prague in June. The talk is called “Brick by Brick: Building Sovereignty in a Fiat World.” I will be writing a daily series here and on NOSTR over the next weeks about biomarker tracking, self-hosting health data, and the sovereignty stack.
I am not here to sell anything. The code is open. I am here because this community understands sovereignty better than anyone, and I want to hear what you think.
Questions about the tech stack, the encryption model, carnivore bloodwork, or anything else: ask away.
Demo (no signup, sample data): https://sovereignhealth.io Code: https://github.com/nicksdigital/brickos Book (BTC): https://twentyone.life/shop Book (Amazon EN): https://amzn.to/4mW2pK4%60
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