Podcasts – Page 17

Podcast notes: NFT news with Overpriced Jpegs and guest Supermassive

guest SuperMassive – head of video at Defiant, covers crypto / web3
20 years as filmmaker

Glut of NFT stuff today, compared to when Bored Apes launched

Macro is deeply uncertain right now

NFT volume has dropped, but top projects haven’t fallen much – Mutants, Karafuru

Carly likes using Dappradar to track projects
SM uses Watchtower (paid app)

Some trends
Emergence of manga / anime style (Azuki)
Evolution of what’s considered “blue chip” (Artifact)

Vtubing trend – using avatar that tracks your movements in eg, Zoom calls
Opportunity to translate NFT into vtube scaffold
Can still emote / behave as yourself in metaverse but look like character

Recent explosion in Asian art / themes – CloneX (Murakami), Karafuru (comes from Indonesia), Azuki (anime style art)

Damien Hirst’s Dots – blue chip moment – price has dropped

7yo son and 9yo daughter, get their feedback on which NFTs – they liked Azukis

MFers – Bankless likes them, growing interest in NFTs

8000eth Punk sale – Deepak.eth bought it (CEO of Chain)
Has spent $31M on mutants, serums, and this punk
Also bought the M3 serum (!)
Took Compound loan to pay for it
Self promotional

We will label people as ape owners but not Tesla owners – that’s bizarre and interesting

NFTs have more tangible ownership value than shitcoins – and harder to sell so more hodling
NFT space is making up its own rules now

X2Y2 airdrop – wasn’t that valuable, had early issues so paused airdrop
LooksRare volume dropping, lot of it was wash trading, falling rewards

We’re all waiting for Coinbase NFT marketplace

Also NYSE doing an NFT marketplace too – what will it look like?

New stat that # of US people who hold crypto > # of US people who have a savings account (!?)

Will be an international arms race for stablecoins, crypto products

Carly works with Andrew Yang on his new Lobby3 initiative – anti-poverty benefits of crypto and web3
“if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu”

Disney hired tech exec Mike White to lead metaverse strategy – taking it seriously
More confident Disney can do it than Facebook

Lens Protocol to build social apps
Possible future where writing good comments = NFT = can become collateral for buying a house

Lots of citizen policing in this space – community sorts it out – but media always prefers talking about the rugs

SM’s two exciting projects – Cyberbrokers (respected artist) and Aku collection (former MLB player)

Podcast notes: Brendan Eich (Brave founder & CEO) on the Acquired podcast

What is Brave?
Private, fast, lower battery use, based on Chrome
BAT token system – user opt-in to support creators directly
3 sided system – connecting users, advertisers, and creators
Brave solves tracking and privacy invasion

Brendan created Javascript too

Back in Netscape days, didn’t foresee the 3rd party tracking problem
Idea of twinkies (better form of cookies) but didn’t happen

Was Grad student at UIUC
Jim Clark visited, and Brendan knew he wanted to work with him
Joined Silicon Graphics (SGI)

by 1994, Jim started Netscape w/ pmarca
Brendan joined in 1995, IPO that year, was a huge rocket, not profitable

by 1998, most thought browser was done, Microsoft IE won
after Netscape lost browser war to Microsoft (and was acquired by AOL), an internal team started to open source browser codebase through Mozilla – a small pirate ship inside Netscape
by 2003, AOL shut Netscape down
gave $2M to spin out Mozilla project

early adopters loved Firefox, mostly organic growth, good time as no major competitors to IE
“showing world a better tool”
some tried commercial forks of Firefox but failed

Browser is immortal universal app
Web content is sticky and accretive

2008, Chrome (fork of webkit) launched and steadily took share from Firefox
Other competitors like Rockmelt, UCWeb
In 2016, Google privacy policy changed – started tracking users in Chrome, began to “cross the rubicon”
Going public put different pressure on Google, voracious beast of capitalism
It’s not just that you’re being tracked, but you don’t know where that data is going – eg, data is shared with Experian

Growing public concerns about tracking and data privacy
Apple does better job than most with privacy
These monopolies can last a long time, censorship, network control, tracker
It’s a casino where the house always wins

Growing audience using ad blockers, ublock, Brave, etc that aren’t being tracked
So slowly Brave building its own private ad network – without all the crazy targeting and tracking
Giving power back to users, changing topology of the network
Giving 70% of revenues back to users

If birthdate, gender, and zip code are known, user can be identified (!)

Ton of fraud in digital ads, Google is complicit to some degree (conflict of interest)

Brave benefits: Privacy, speed, make money for creators
Brave has 50M MAUs now (Chrome has 2.6B users)
1.3M verified creators

Mistake – in 2015 used Electron initially, by 2018 finally moved to well maintained Chromium fork
However, still looks too Chrome-y

Brendan thinks most interesting users and builders are in crypto / web3

Easy today to de-anonymize on-chain data
Part of reason why Brave is off-chain – but zero knowledge proofs can help fix this

Institutional investors, banks, coming in now – but not old big tech guard (web2 players)

Forked Metamask to build Brave wallet
Now building native wallet in-browser
Opera had a wallet + dapp store in 2018, but crypto winter happened and lost momentum

Solana will be default for multichain dapps – default settings are important

Browser extensions are weaker security than native apps

QR codes have become shorthands for links – but can also be shorthand for your private key (!)

Hardware wallets should work more like phones – less anxiety and complexity

Web3 will not replace but EXTEND web2

If you have crypto protocols, and strong clients like Brave, you *should* be able to get better privacy, a fairer deal

Standards are important because businesses still want some cooperation – coopetition
As you get bigger – eg 400M users – you can help set more standards for browsers, their BAT token, advertisers, etc

Really hard for Google and these big cos to innovate
Could use strong-arm tech to hurt Brave and other web3 / crypto
Likely they’ll just do weak me-too products that aren’t threat and are too late

Duck Duck Go did marketing first approach – doing well

Carveouts
David – Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Ben – Agassi new book Open, same ghostwriter as Shoe Dog
Brendan – Dynamic Economics by Burton Klein

Podcast notes: Ark analysts Yassine and Frank on Bankless

Ark analysts Yassine and Frank on Bankless

Yassin
Engineering + finance
Crypto in 2017, joined Ark

Frank
GPU mining in 2017
Previously data + cloud engineer

Ark typical week —
Monday – portfolio review
Middle of week – research, long-form writing
Friday – brainstorm with advisors and team

Every financial asset will eventually become a crypto asset

Generational shift from internet > crypto
Balaji – Blockchains:scarcity what internet:information

Easiest explanation of crypto is a distinct asset class, requires separate framework from trad assets

Continuation of “software eats the world”

Every bank needs a fintech strategy now, and soon every bank will need a crypto strategy

Spectrum of centralized vs decentralized trust
“There are no solutions, only tradeoffs”
Money requires most decentralized trust
Defi / web3 requires a bit less
Status quo / web2 is very centralized trust

Different revolutions evolving in parallel – Ark believes money revolution is most profound (Bitcoin)
Bitcoin is prime candidate to compete as global base money – the more boring and predictable, the better

Eth, Solana, Terra – tradeoff decentralization for higher throughput and lower cost
What does perfect balance look like?

Eth 2.0 vision – PoS, sharding, rollups – the upgrades enable it to compete with the alt L1s (unlike bitcoin where conservatism is a core value)
alt L1s sacrifice the decentralization for greater throughput and speed – makes them more similar to status quo (web2, centralized)

Bitcoin could be $1M+ by 2030
$28T market cap = 3x gold market cap
Becomes global store of value
Ark first gained BTC exposure in 2015 through GBTC
Bitcoin’s use cases are additive and zero-sum given 21M fixed supply
Supply shock given that majority are long-term holders
Bitcoin is Veblen good – demand increases as price increases
How it gets there:
1. Digital gold (replacing gold)
2. Corporate treasury (eg, Microstrategy, Tesla, Square)
3. Global HNW investment (seizure resistant)
4. Nation-state treasuries (eg, El Salvador)

Defi / web3
Crypto native protocols are generating much higher revenues per employee than trad finance
Power of open source, software eating finance
Uniswap = 20 people, $40M revenues per person
Chris Dixon: Uniswap may be the most valuable codebase per line

ETH market cap could > $20T in next 10 years
All ETH transactions = chain revenue
More and more tradfi revenue moving on-chain, plus new sources of on-chain revenue
ETH = Hybrid of global dev platform + value to token of being native currency to that ecosystem
$20T market cap = $180K ETH price
Financial revolution (ethereum) is more competitive than money revolution (bitcoin) – riskier / more uncertain
If ETH wins both financial and money revolutions (beats bitcoin and competing L1s), then ~$50T market cap

NFTs
From static collectibles to dynamic digital assets
NFTs are digital property rights = own our data for first time
Right now web2 (eg, FB) owns data
Incentivizes more spending on digital content
Gaming opportunity – Fortnite makes $5B in revenue for purely status based digital goods
Good example – in Indonesia, $SLP (from Axie) is being accepted for local taxi rides
Growth of metaverse – eventually online monetization and spending will surpass offline

In 5-10 years
Frank: proof points that crypto is becoming mainstream, being adopted, diversifying, no longer speculative like 2017
Crypto becoming popular for (some) politicians to support, and increasing regulation as positive for ecosystem
Yassin: unbelievable to be witnessing in real time, who knows what next 4 years will bring

Podcast notes: Sven Henrich on Scott Melker (Wolf of All Streets)

Sven Henrich – Northman Trader, market strategist and commentator

Global economies are becoming increasingly nationalized – bond markets are no longer free market

Each boom and bust cycle is getting more volatile

Threw $12T into system – greatest (short lived) party on the planet

No consequences when Central bankers (CB) is wrong
Also created great wealth inequality

Last year Fed still buying mortgage securities – which leads to higher house prices when people are struggling to buy homes!

Some CB have already admitted that QE exacerbates asset bubbles, and they all watch stock markets closely

Great reported corporate earnings last year, but no connection to organic economy

We forget that Powell has a large equity portfolio too and he’s hurt when market drops

Goldman has 5 rate hikes priced in for this year
Initially planned to raise rates in 2023, 2024 – complete flip flop
Speeches keep setting wrong expectations

Consumer confidence = very low, technically at recessionary levels
Massive disconnect with stock markets

CB has to be super careful not to burst asset bubble that they themselves created

Fed has 12 tightening cycles since 1950s – and stocks have risen in 11 of them!

Politicians must solve inflation by summer – otherwise will lose midterm elections
Looks like a big manipulative operation

You’re joking if you think Fed will aggressively hike into an economy that is slowing in an election year

What we’re seeing right now – the markets’ correction – is healthy
When CB is in control, volatility dies – they kill price discovery – but now volatility is higher, and for traders it’s fabulous

Sven’s own wife has been a long-term bitcoin bull
Saylor helped to orange pill him recently
New young industry w/ growing pains and excessive speculation
Reminds him of 2000 tech bubble – it didn’t crash right away, wide ranges up and down for many months before finally falling apart
Need more regulatory clarity

If CB throw excess liquidity into system, everything becomes correlated

Right now everyone is still long stocks like Fab 5 (Netflix, FB) – haven’t seen protracted bear market in stocks for long time
If stocks struggle for 1-2 years, and inflation structurally higher, you gotta find an alternative
Bitcoin still correlated, but there will be a shift

“Each death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic” – Stalin

If raise rates 1%, US interest payments > military budget (!)

Reason the rates cannot rise too much is because the system starts to shut down – and the ceiling drops lower and lower every time
If rates today were anywhere close to 2007 level, the entire system would collapse
Each cycle can do less and less – CB losing efficacy of their tools

ECB last rate hike was 11 years ago – haven’t been able to raise rates once
What ammunition do you have for the next crisis?

Now massive bubble + slowing growth + high inflation

Scott: If someone hands you $5M today, where do you put it?
Sven decided to start allocating into bitcoin this year – technical view – has specific allocation in mind where if goes to zero, he can survive
Bitcoin as protection + major upside play
History doesn’t repeat but it rhymes

Risks of cross leverage in system leading to liquidity crisis and blowout moves down
Bitcoin could go down to $7K
But with 10-20 year view, it’s like buying Apple in 2010 or 2001
Liked bitcoin dip to $32, 33K – wants to aggressively accumulate more
Gonna be a long-term hold
Expects his own conversion will happen to others too – thinks it’s a sizable bear market in Bitcoin, but has long term view

Two key issues for bitcoin this year
1. Regulatory guidelines – eg, Russia
2. Asset bubble in stocks

Podcast notes: Tim Urban (Wait But Why) on Lex Fridman

Lex Fridman interviews Tim Urban (writer of Wait But Why)

I wonder how small intelligent life gets – or how big

Humans operate at multiple social levels – can be independent individuals, and can be colonies / collectives

Humans are roughly in the middle of the biggest and smallest measurable things (biggest = observable universe; smallest = subatomic particles)

How many alien civilizations?
“Teeming with life”
Estimates of 27M intelligent civilizations in Milky Way alone
But we don’t observe any

Lex: Our understanding of intelligence and consciousness is very human centric – probably very limited and science is very young

No human can make a pencil by themselves

Tim: If a witch casts a spell on humanity and all material things disappears, goal is to make one working iPhone 13 and she’ll reverse the spell. How could we do it? Requires materials, factories, teams, tools

Think of how much work and infrastructure and invention required to just get food delivered to you at click of a few buttons

Elon says need 1M people on Mars to be truly multi planetary
Could be war in space for territory, tribalism (Mars v Earth)

America was first modern democracy and now there are many more – founders tried to make the ideal country

Tim: $10K bet that a human will set foot on Mars by 2030 – should be a massive global event
2030s will be new 1960s, new space decade
Greatest adventure in history – hopefully a great uniting event
SpaceX makes me proud to be a human

What makes Elon so successful?
Lots of people have his talents, but he’s sane in the way that everyone else is crazy
We’re not adapted to our modern hyper populated hyper connected world
He’s willing to question conventional wisdom, trust his reasoning
“He just does things his own way”

Hate is on the rise
Inputs are human nature (which doesn’t change much) + environment = behavior
Something in environment is changing = changing behavior
The good is getting better and the bad is getting worse
Feels like we’re headed toward an important fork between an incredible and a terrible future

“Political Disneyworld” – delusion where everything is good or evil, black or white
If you assemble highlight reel of your worst moments, you’ll seem like a terrible person
Everyone is worthy of both criticism and compassion

Our environment is bringing out really bad stuff
Rapidly changing environment = rapidly changing behavior, and wisdom is slow to catch up

Nuclear power is clearly a good option – antipathy towards it don’t seem rational or practical

Lex: lots of fear mongering going on

Tim: Balance of Higher mind + Primitive mind
When a topic riles up primitive mind, collectives become dumber than individual for self defense
Climate change has become a sacred topic – can’t handle constructive criticism
Covid / vaccines are same – sucked into a political whirlpool, into hands of primitive minds

Future has more and more complex problems, need more higher mind and less primitive mind

Opposite of echo chamber is an idea lab – need more idea labs (scientific process, new ideas, collective participation)

Stopped at 1h26m