Below are some thoughtful and entertaining crypto-related content
—
Redphonecrypto’s 69 Theses for 2023
Great presentation on crypto’s “big picture”, a bit quasi-religious and grandiose but it’s good crypto hopium if you’re into that sorta thing. Source: https://redphone.substack.com/p/69-dreams-and-delusions
Crypto, you see, is a stepping stone on the journey to AGI. It is a prerequisite, a necessary appendage that allows artificial consciousness to “escape the box” and manipulate its environs.
Crypto is the machine’s body.
And AI is the brain that enters into it.
Bull markets are not mere monetary phenomena. They are collective, psychological, soul-bound events powered by our dreams.
Fundamental analysis always skips the most important metric in crypto: attention.
Nothing matters more (see memecoins or NFTs for evidence).
—
Variant Fund’s A Tale of Two Cryptos: Speculation vs Decentralization
Our thesis at Variant is that the next generation of internet networks will turn users into owners—specifically asset owners. The internet enabled everyone to become a publisher, and similarly, crypto enables everyone to become an asset owner, and therefore, an investor. You don’t need capital to invest, you can invest your time or work by producing art, running machines, or doing physical work.
The prospect of participating in economic growth is what has drawn in so many entrepreneurs and users—and it’s important because some portion of those users learn from those experiences, to think, and act, like investors. It often starts with things that look like toys (or dogs) but drives towards a serious shift in psychology, where money, effort, or skill are honed to contribute more seriously to the space
—
Quinn Thompson – Lekker’s 5 key themes for 2024
Beginning in Q2 and into Q3 ahead of the November election, the Fed and incumbent administration will declare victory in the war against inflation. Ironically, these proclamations reach a fever pitch just as inflation is bottoming around September 2024, approximately 27 months after the June 2022 peak. As a result, stocks and risk assets post record breaking numbers in Q2 and Q3. The narrative will be something along the lines of “no matter who wins the election, red or blue, both candidates will spend egregiously”. The reality is this continued heavy spending combined with lower interest rates will be the spark that reignites another bout of inflation and will ultimately be bad for long duration and risk assets.
Crypto is in a secular bull market, while also making its first steps into a new cyclical bull market. These two together create big outcomes.
—
Balaji’s Thoughts on Tokens
The most important takehome is that tokens are not equity, but are more similar to paid API keys. Nevertheless, they may represent a >1000X improvement in the time-to-liquidity and a >100X improvement in the size of the buyer base relative to traditional means for US technology financing — like a Kickstarter on steroids
For example, when you buy an API key from Amazon Web Services for dollars, you can redeem that API key for time on Amazon’s cloud. The purchase of a token like ether is similar, in that you can redeem ETH for compute time on the decentralized Ethereum compute network.
After the early kinks are worked out, the token launch model will provide a technically feasible way for tech companies (and open source projects in general) to spread the wealth and align their userbase behind their success. This is a better-than-free business model, where users make money for being early adopters
