Health and fitness learnings for June: The more muscle you have, the lower your all cause mortality

First foremost — absolutely incredible essay on the bioelectric revolution in biology, thanks to my friendo Cedric for sharing it in his great newsletter:

Keep in mind a crucial point: in all these experiments, the genes of the worms are never edited. You get a wildly different functional worm with the same genes. And what’s even wilder is that some of these changes are enduring: without any further drugs or modifications, the two-headed worm produces offspring that are also two-headed, indefinitely. Think about what this means: we’ve achieved a permanent change in the structure of the worm, without changing its genes. We have transcended the genetic code and are instead learning to crack the bioelectric code of the body.

Now onto the health and fitness stuff I’ve learned this past month:

In summary walking stimulates, lymphatic system gets rid of toxins, optimizes our hormones and gets rid of bad bacteria, lowers SIBO by pushing it into the large intestines where it belongs, gravity.
https://x.com/asdrawingaf/status/1798721389525934513?s=46

Almonds are good for reducing wrinkles

The study analysed data from people aged 40 to 69 and found a causal link between habitual napping and larger total brain volume – a marker of good brain health linked to a lower risk of dementia and other diseases.

More muscle you have, lower your all cause mortality
Resistance exercise is closest thing to fountain of youth
Lift weights + Eat high quality protein

Late night food can disrupt sleep because it takes energy / muscles / systems to digest the food, which delays / disrupts sleep quality;
“Meal timing appears to be a modifiable risk factor for nocturnal awakenings and disrupted sleep.”

When we learn how to do something physical, whether it’s a karate kick or snapping our fingers, the cerebellum is hard at work. The cerebellum takes up just 10 percent of the brain’s volume, but it contains half of our neurons, which means it’s a densely packed area constantly buzzing with activity.

2/3 oz daily mushrooms = 45% less cancer risk
https://x.com/lorishemek/status/1797966646725800166?s=46

People with most saunas have lowest incidence of Alzheimer’s
Mercury detox — sauna is one of most effective ways to detox

Cold plunges — dramatically increases dopamine

Walk 15 miles a week, even if you do other exercise. There’s something special about walking that is distinct from running and other cardio. Humans are made to move slowly over long distances—it’s critical to longevity.

Stop drinking sodas and sugary energy drinks. After a few weeks you won’t miss them and a few months later they’ll seem disgusting. Sugar is enemy #1—it causes inflammation, which is the root of most disease.

Check posts categorized under Health for past updates

Cognitive arbitrage in crypto

Financial arbitrage is the act of exploiting discrepancies in price by eg, traders

Similarly, cognitive arbitrage is the act of exploiting discrepancies in perceived value of information by eg, savvy marketers (scammers are the extreme outcome of this)

In crypto such cognitive arbitrage is particularly egregious given the info asymmetry, young userbase, speed of change, and relative novelty / obscuring of the tech. FDV anyone?

Some examples:

…people care too much about market cap and not enough about liquidity (eg, memecoins, low float / high FDV)

…people care too much about the names of VCs and KOLs involved in a project, but not enough about the quality of the actual team and product (eg, KOL rounds, getting a16z or Paradigm on your cap table)

…people care too much about social activity (like how active a Discord is) but not enough about the team’s own output (measured by eg, tweets, blog posts, shipping)

…people care too much about recent price trends (24H, 30D changes) and not enough about multi year price trends (especially over the duration of a bull-bear cycle)

…people care too much about supply (like token unlocks, or token burn) and not enough about demand (like actual usage demand for a token, fee takerate)

…people care too much about yields (like staking APY) and not enough about where the yield comes from (like token inflation vs actual fees earned)

I’m sure there’s a lot more that I’ve missed, and I’ll add more as I see them…

Crypto’s killer use cases (and there are many)

Just thinking out loud about use cases… it’s a bit like water because once you’re in crypto, you just take the surrounding water for granted:

Stablecoins: Ability for anyone in the world to get, store, and send USD to anyone else (like USDC, USDT)

Bitcoin’s long-term store of value (measured against USD and gold)

Uncensored instant low cost global payments (ability to send eg, $10 or $1M to anyone anywhere for a 10 cent transaction fee)

Internet bonds: Ability to earn more of a token just by holding that token (like Ethereum or Solana staking)

Permissionless speculation with lower fees and potential for larger returns than traditional venues like casino games, penny stocks, and sports betting

Trade assets instantly and permissionlessly (including increasingly complex financial products like derivatives, interest rate products)

True digital asset ownership (self custody, no or fewer middlemen)

Permissionless prediction markets (Polymarket)

Unlimited self-custody bank accounts (self-custody wallet) that can be shared (using multi-sig), sold, transferred (via private key)

Borrow and lend money permissionlessly (like Aave, Compound)

Earn higher asset APYs than traditional options like money markets, high-yield savings accounts, and short-term bonds

Tokenization: ability to turn any digital asset (and increasingly, real-world assets too) into an instantly priced and tradable token (via AMM) that can access an ecosystem of onchain financial infra

He saw bitcoin’s future in 2011 — and wrote about it beautifully (Rick Falkvinge)

Full text: https://falkvinge.net/2011/05/29/why-im-putting-all-my-savings-into-bitcoin/

Favorite excerpts (verbatim, all mistakes mine):

(had to screenshot this:)

Screenshot 2024 06 14 At 7.47.56 pm

Use case: the key advantage for bitcoin is that it does away with all bureaucracy, all transaction fees, and perhaps foremost, all transaction delays and gatekeepers in the financial system.

Of course, this number assumes that nobody in Wall Street is greedy enough to want in on the value skyrocketing of bitcoin. In the real world, I am expecting investors to pump in more money into the system just to get their own share of that value increase. The sharks on Wall Street positively jump at the opportunity of seeing a 25% increase in their portfolio; we’re talking about a 100,000% increase here.

Bitcoin has appreciated like crazy, and as described, I predict it will continue to do so. There are already eight decimal places in the system. Please make it possible to use milli- and microbitcoins as soon as possible; bitcoin will continue to climb like crazy and may even accelerate. A currency where the smallest unit can buy you a small house is not practical for everyday use.

Highway to the Banana Zone

I think this cycle (2024 and 20205) could be the last great crypto bull run. A bull run that surprises everyone, with price action more like 2017 than 2020, and a prolonged and absolutely silly banana zone (to borrow Raoul’s term).

I really like this thread from Yano: https://x.com/jasonyanowitz/status/1762878540280946737?s=46

Using his framework, we’re now between stage 2 (excitement) and 3 (euphoria). We’re seeing many signs of euphoria already: break ATHs; $500M VC funds; athletes & artists. Stage 3 will accelerate as soon as bitcoin re-captures its ATH (~$73K) and I believe we’ll fly — almost teleport — directly to stage 4, which in Yano’s words:

This stage could also be described as Insanity. Nothing makes sense anymore…A crypto person buys a sports team…Justin Bieber joins a decentralized social platform.

Another good framing from Qiao:

top signs of the last cycle, eg celebrities endorsing crypto, r too obvious to work again this cycle
think 10x bigger
this cycle itll be something like mega pension funds or sovereign states yolo into btc

Source: https://x.com/QwQiao/status/1795545263727120778

Hard agree. El Salvador is showing impressive returns (financial and reputational) to their BTC adoption strategy. Nation states are investing in BTC mining. Sovereign funds are rumored to be quietly accumulating (Saudi Arabia, Norway, Kuwait).

The game theory is unfurling, and increasingly unavoidable as government debt continues to rise and fiat currencies continue to subsequently weaken.

Look at gold’s current run. Look at G7 long term bond yields.

And finally from Gwarty:

I am horrified to think about what the top signals are going to be this cycle

Source: https://x.com/GwartyGwart/status/1795896460602409076

Some more signs the highway to the banana zone is coming, and is gonna be quite a ride:

  • The US presidential race hasn’t begun in earnest, yet crypto is already a meaningful wedge issue (SAB121, Trump’s endorsement, FIT21, ETH ETF)
  • Fed rate cuts have yet to start (expectations for the first cut in late Q3/Q4)
  • Mainstream has started buying and announcing bags in earnest (Bitcoin ETF 13F filings, Fink and Blackrock heavily leaning in, Chamath on All-In)
  • We haven’t even seen this cycle’s SBF, Do Kwon, Alex Mashinsky… (or have we)

And how will we know we’re in the zone? Some wild signals:

Last cycle darlings get a rescue pump (Doge passes ATH at $0.68 / $100B market cap, on rumors of potential Dogecoin ETF; NFT pumps including yes, even those poor Apes)

Crypto influencers become nominal billionaires (this cycle’s main characters like Ansem… puncher’s chance to Andrew Tate…). Probably a non-crypto influencer launches a billion dollar coin… Iggy may get lucky if she keeps grinding and memeing (just watch the fomo that will result)

Bitcoin briefly top ticks gold’s market cap (a hand wavy $10T which implies a per bitcoin price of ~$500K USD)

Ethereum briefly top ticks Bitcoin’s market cap (if this happens, it would happen AFTER bitcoin top ticks gold, then crashes, then ETH has an epic run)

Punks surpass $1M (~10x today’s prices)

Raoul Pal is anointed Wall Street’s crypto pied piper, briefly obtaining Bill Ackman and Stanley Druckenmiller levels of influence (think Novogratz but 10x bigger, on magazine covers, TV mainstay, all of that)

A nation-state on the level of UAE or Brazil or Switzerland publicly announces multi-B crypto holdings (could be Bitcoin, could be Ethereum, could be a surprise like Ripple hah) and a set of policies to attract crypto natives and encourage local crypto adoption

The AI hype becomes completely subsumed by crypto; “AI-crypto” projects and narratives dominate non-crypto AI; OpenAI / Sama join the party with some superficially promising but substantively meaningless announcement

Massive M&A in crypto space from miners to exchanges to protocols (Robinhood’s $200M purchase of Bitstamp is an appetizer)

One of the FAANG/MAMAA tech giants becomes first to stake brand and reputation into crypto (my bet is on Meta because of 1, their recent support for open source AI, 2 their failed attempt with Libra, and 3 Zuck’s ambition and continued ability to reinvent)

A meaningful number of provincial / local governments start to buy regulated crypto products; US states are heavily indebted so I’d expect players like Texas, or Hawaii, or maybe at municipal / county level to participate

Where do you think I’m wrong? What am I missing? I plan to add more stuff here as we get deeper into the cycle.