Collection of recent crypto learnings 3: “…one can argue that currencies themselves are intrinsically platforms, and that coexisting multiple currencies should be analyzed as platform competition.”

Past updates 1 and 2

The ENS approach is even more vulnerable, where a group of multisig key holders, no matter how reputable, will control the governance and upgrade of the backbone infrastructure of the decentralized web.

I believe, in reality, a significant portion of the cryptocurrency space operates on meme culture,” Zhu said during the AMA. “We all tend to invest in bitcoin because it represents something everyone believes in, transforming it from a meme into a tangible reality

out of the three core layers of internet stack – naming (DNS), transportation (TCP/IP) and application (HTTP), naming is at the very start of the stack

Good breakdown / categorization of AI+crypto projects


(But missing generative media like images, videos)

the core definition of a blockchain is all the data used is generated within that blockchain and therefore verifiable by any participant in the blockchain. Towards that same end, smart contracts can only talk to smart contracts

Furthering the idea that the US has much to gain from the adoption and co-option of Bitcoin is the tangible stash of coins distributed within its borders; MicroStrategy’s 189,150 bitcoin, the 215,000 bitcoin seized by the Department of Justice, Block.one’s 164,000, Grayscale’s 487,000 in GBTC, and now the new US spot ETF offerings hold a combined 170,174 bitcoin as of 1/31

in a 2011 interview with Bloomberg, Fink went so far as to say “Markets don’t like uncertainty. Markets like, actually, totalitarian governments… Democracies are very messy.”

Bitcoin is punk rock. You don’t get it? Fuck you we don’t care. We’re having a party — Peter McCormack

CDixon (paraphrased): “Computer” is a collection of both nouns and verbs. A ledger is just a noun. So it undersells the power of verbs like earn, transfer, spend, save, stake, lend, etc

From an app’s perspective, blockchains offer three key features: consensus, composability, and availability 🧵
1. consensus – solve contentious race conditions
2. composability – access other liquidity and apps
3. availability – data is readily accessible
// what about governance (consensus?), tokenomics (new biz model)

The Ethereum blockchain core developers did briefly consider including an ALARM opcode to enable smart contracts to schedule operations in future blocks, but it was ultimately discarded as unworkable [https://vitalik.ca/general/2022/03/29/road.html]. The Cosmos SDK used for development of application specific blockchains [https://v1.cosmos.network/sdk] has some support to execute code – with significant limitations – at the beginning and end of each block.

Blockchains invert the hardware-software power relationship, like the internet before them. With blockchains, the software governs a network of hardware devices. The software—in all its expressive glory—is in charge.

one can argue that currencies themselves are intrinsically platforms, and that coexisting multiple currencies should be analyzed as platform competition.

That said, when a token goes straight down, you can’t call this a screaming success. There is a good reason why IPOs generally go up. And there is a good reason for why BNB, ETH, and BTC are 3 of the most successful protocols today. When you price an asset low, and let early investors participate in the financial upside of your success, it tends to have long-lasting positive effects. Your users become power users and evangelists. But when something prices high and goes straight down, you alienate those who were true believers. And it’s hard to come back from that

AI+blockchains point to a dystopia of impersonal and faceless interchangeable-parts humanity that’s more industrial than the industrial age.

Why not put $500 into a memecoin that could 50x, knowing that you could likely lose most or all of it? It’s not like the $500 is enough to make any difference anyways. Neither is $1k or $5k. That mindset, which is becoming pervasive in America, is financial nihilism. This is the zeitgeist for young Americans, you’re naïve to think otherwise. And it’s a huge driver of shitcoining

For Web 3 to succeed it needs to do two things:
Enable cool functionality unable through traditional Web 2,
and make the user largely unaware that they’re even on the blockchain

Programmable, composable data structures (ie, tokens) are the “new computing primitive” that will usher in the next phase of the internet

We need an alternative. Crypto is the perfect marriage for AI since the transparent global human coordination that underpins the movement is something that can harness AI for good at global scale. Crowdfunding (with cash or with your GPU) the creation and fine tuning of open source models which anyone can audit in real time for biases or issues is the safest path forward in the accelerating world of AI.

The idea of Bitcoin, like the idea of Index funds is a clean “world view” that markets itself. It’s not the only crypto that does so. Once you do accept Bitcoin into your brain, part of your brain opens up to other cryptos: Eth, Solana, NFTs, Ordinals … maybe some combination of Crypto and AI like Tao.

My sense is that this new idea: Bitcoin, and this new demographic: Millenials are in for an epic bull run.
The BTC ETF will be the gateway drug for this. It will get the Boomers and GenXs so that they CAN participate in the transition. Most won’t. But enough will.
It’s an idea that will take over the next 20 years.

USDT on the Ethereum network shows an average transfer size of $35,000, indicating its involvement in substantial financial activities within the DeFi ecosystem, likely influenced by Ethereum’s higher transaction fees. Conversely, USDT on the Tron network presents a distinct scenario. With Tron’s minimal transaction fees, the average transfer size for USDT is around $7,000, facilitating more frequent, lower-value transactions

He defines crypto as a meeting of “generative tech” (the creation of new things, users and markets) and “participatory capital formation” (individuals pooling money in new ways to create new types of businesses).

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