• Mac Mini Purchase Analysis — Budget Authorization
  • The Decision
  • Why This Machine
    • Current Limitation (Qubes HermQube)
    • What Mac Mini M4 Pro Enables
  • Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • Cost
    • Benefit (Annual)
    • ROI
  • What Runs on Mac Mini
    • Always-On Services
    • On-Demand Services
    • Memory Budget (24GB)
  • Alternative: Mac Mini M4 (16GB, 256GB) — $599
    • Trade-offs
    • Memory Budget (16GB)
    • Recommendation
  • Budget Authorization Request
    • Immediate (Month 1)
    • Phase 2 (Month 2-3)
    • Phase 3 (Month 4-12)
    • Total Year 1 Budget
    • Revenue Offsets (Year 1)
    • Net Position (Year 1)
  • Risk Mitigation
    • If Mac Mini Delayed
    • If Revenue Lower Than Projected
    • If BTC Price Drops
  • Approval Request

§Mac Mini Purchase Analysis — Budget Authorization

§The Decision

Purchase Mac Mini M4 Pro (24GB, 512GB) — $1,399

This is the single most important infrastructure investment for Pluronymous LLC.

§Why This Machine

§Current Limitation (Qubes HermQube)

• 3.8GB RAM — cannot run local LLM
• No GPU — no ML acceleration
• Qubes NAT — no direct network access
• No Docker — limited deployment options
• 2 cores — slow for compilation

§What Mac Mini M4 Pro Enables

• 24GB unified RAM — run 7B-14B parameter LLMs locally
• 12-core CPU — fast compilation, block parsing
• 16-core GPU — ML acceleration, media processing
• 512GB SSD — room for block data, models, builds
• Direct network — self-host relay, web gateway
• Docker support — containerized services
• ZeroClaw runtime — lightweight agent framework

§Cost-Benefit Analysis

§Cost

§Benefit (Annual)

§ROI

• Payback period: 11 months ($1,669 / $150/mo average savings)
• 3-year TCO: $1,669 + ($190/yr infrastructure × 3) = $2,239
• 3-year cost without Mac: ($100/mo LLM + $30/mo hosting/CI) × 36 = $4,680
• 3-year savings: $4,680 - $2,239 = $2,441 saved

§What Runs on Mac Mini

§Always-On Services

1. strfry — Self-hosted Nostr relay (100-500MB RAM)
2. kapnetd — Kapnet daemon (20MB RAM)
3. Courier Bridge — Nostr messaging bridge (50MB RAM)
4. kapnet-web — Web gateway (50MB RAM)

§On-Demand Services

5. Local LLM (Qwen2.5-14B) — 8-12GB RAM when active
6. Block parser — CPU-intensive, burst usage
7. Build pipeline — Rust compilation
8. ZeroClaw agents — Lightweight agent runtime

§Memory Budget (24GB)

System:           2GB
strfry:           0.5GB
kapnetd:          0.02GB
Courier Bridge:   0.05GB
kapnet-web:       0.05GB
ZeroClaw agents:  0.5GB
─────────────────────
Subtotal:         3.12GB
Available for LLM: 20.88GB

Can run Qwen2.5-14B (8.5GB) with 12GB headroom for other services.

§Alternative: Mac Mini M4 (16GB, 256GB) — $599

§Trade-offs

• RAM: 16GB — can run Qwen2.5-7B (4.5GB) but NOT 14B
• Storage: 256GB — tight for block data + models
• CPU: 8-core vs 12-core — slower builds
• GPU: 10-core vs 16-core — less ML acceleration

§Memory Budget (16GB)

System:           2GB
Services:         3.12GB
─────────────────────
Subtotal:         5.12GB
Available for LLM: 10.88GB

Can run Qwen2.5-7B (4.5GB) with 6GB headroom. Tight but workable.

§Recommendation

M4 Pro is strongly recommended. The 24GB RAM is the difference between running a 7B model (adequate) and a 14B model (excellent). The 512GB storage is the difference between constant data management and comfortable headroom.

§Budget Authorization Request

§Immediate (Month 1)

§Phase 2 (Month 2-3)

§Phase 3 (Month 4-12)

§Total Year 1 Budget

§Revenue Offsets (Year 1)

§Net Position (Year 1)

§Risk Mitigation

§If Mac Mini Delayed

• Continue on Qubes machine (limited but functional)
• Use OpenRouter API for LLM ($100/mo)
• Use public Nostr relays (free)
• Delay: no additional cost, just slower progress

§If Revenue Lower Than Projected

• Break-even: 25 Supporter users at $10/mo = $3,000/yr
• Current costs: $3,059/yr
• Break-even is achievable with minimal adoption

§If BTC Price Drops

• Protocol revenue drops proportionally
• Consumer SKU revenue (fiat) unaffected
• Storage fees (fiat) unaffected
• Still break-even at 25 users

§Approval Request

I recommend immediate authorization of $1,669 for:

1. Mac Mini M4 Pro (24GB, 512GB) — $1,399
2. UPS battery backup — $150
3. External SSD 2TB — $120

This unlocks:

• Local LLM inference (Querant, Sage, Forger)
• Self-hosted Nostr relay
• Web gateway
• Build pipeline
• ZeroClaw agent runtime

Expected payback: 11 months Expected 3-year savings: $2,441