Tag: ens

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

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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.

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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

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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

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Good breakdown / categorization of AI+crypto projects


(But missing generative media like images, videos)

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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

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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

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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.”

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

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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

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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)

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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.

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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.

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

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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

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

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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

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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

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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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).

Podcast notes – Nick Johnson, ENS lead dev – Bell Curve podcast

Guest: Nick Johnson, ENS lead dev
Kiwi; Lived in New Zealand, Ireland, the UK

Goal never was to launch DAO, goal was maximally achievable decentralization — at that time there was only “The DAO” and not a lot of examples or playbook

Launched purely as governance mechanism – what to do with funds raised from registration fees?

Started with generous ETH Foundation grant

ENS is public good, non profit, goal is to leave as much value behind for users as possible

Believes protocols should all be public goods – things like ETH, L2, infrastructure
“If you want people to innovate on your platform then your platform should be open”
Makes exception for apps eg, DeFi, DEXes

Grew up with internet in 90s – open governance at the time, thing that everyone can improve on, left big impression on him

In 90s AOL didn’t succeed because it was walled garden, too much friction, extracting value that wasn’t re-invested in ecosystem

Attitude in web3 that working in nonprofit / charity gets paid badly and need sacrifice — totally reasonable to pay market rate

ENS token
-best tool we had available, but have shortcomings – eg, tendency to plutocracy
-intentionally launched as governance token, not a profit-accruing token
-wrote ENS Constitution explicitly states that revenue will not return to token holders – instead used to re-invest in ecosystem

ENS didn’t launch as a DAO – felt DAO ecosystem, tooling, examples weren’t there
What changed – use of OpenZeppelin contracts; human control of ENS had been reduced

Can be frustrating to run DAO – differing visions

Lots of parallels to corporate governance, but built more like a co-op than a for-profit
Delegation is still necessary – you don’t want token holders voting on every single decision

What if VCs buy a lot of tokens?
“Probably our biggest risk”
Defenses are social (lots of tokens given to long-term contributors, core team) and financial (would need to spend too much relative to value of $ in treasury)
“Constitution as friction mechanism”

ENS Labs is centralized, get budget and is “hired” by DAO
Hope to see other development orgs funded to help ENS (besides ENS Labs)

Quadratic voting is elegant but only works if you can solve Sybil problem (prove it’s a real human, not bots)
Imagine a good ID system, can still offer $50 to stranger on street to use their ID

Voting escrow tokens (lock tokens to get more weight or just participate in voting) – provides way to show long-term commitment to organization

Tough to design token economic / voting systems that can’t be gamed

Cares about financial privacy
KYC doesn’t reduce money laundering but does reduce financial privacy
Tornado Cash is great example – the devs actually built in compliance mechanisms – but OFAC / Dutch prosecutors ignored that and still charged them with money laundering

Optimism is public benefit corp – very encouraging
More skeptical of StarkNet (raised a lot of VC)

Just share the code, even if its messy – so many benefits from open source

Need more DAO tooling for day to day governance, a unified platform
Helpful to have OpenZeppelin’s version of the governor contractor – based on Compound’s – ENS DAO was one of first to use it

Will see more professional DAO delegates

What excites him
–see DAO move to long-term vision, setup an endowment to last 50-100 years
-integrating with DNS
-offchain names – names w/o reg fees
-happy to see Ethereum hasn’t fallen into trap that Bitcoin did which resists any change
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DAO provided meaningful outlet for community to contribute eg, small grants program
“Giving them permission to be involved”

Often low participation is because people have selected themselves out of it – you don’t have to be prominent to make a contribution