Native USDC is coming to Cronos. Some of you are thinking "don't we have USDC?" We have a bridged version; slow & expensive to move size Native USDC lets real volume move onchain In time for the Cronos app this summer: predictions, sports, crypto, stocks, commodities crypto-com-chain:native

Counter-Strike rugged its entire community. They put out a pretty savage update that lets you bundle items to trade up, and now people are using ~$5 worth of items to draw what once was $1000+ knives. They just rinsed everyone in the market who had anything of any value.

It’s 2 billi now

All that matters!

Happy @OpTic Day!!! Meeting my brother @H3CZ was one of the best things to happen in my life and OpTic led me down a great road in the gaming industry! Time flies. Some of these pics are like 14-15 years old!

$1 billion US dollars wiped from the market cap on the update. Covert skins ripped up absorbing knife & glove depreciations. Interesting post by OP on rebalancing of the market over time. Fascinating that game economies get to be the size of $6b and can be influenced by devs.

We are bringing OMoO back (for a week or two) for Black Ops 7. I’m gonna blow the dust off my PC and @Twitch/@YouTube channel for old times sake. I’ve got 72 days to prepare. @H3CZ @di3sel @hutchinson I’ll wear my @OpTic jersey day 1 🤣 4v1 clutch 12 years ago

"Wait they got @Shotzzy?" lmaooooo

Oh man, I’m so sorry. I know how much you loved Henry! He’s hanging out with Lil Weezy now though. 🙏🏻

I would rather see Shedeur throw 30 interceptions in a game than see the 5’9” checkdown merchant ever again.

You’re gonna make a grown man cry. The days are long, but the years go by fast. Optic fam for life! 💚

My tl;dr on the Counter-Strike move: (1) They hate 3rd parties profiting outside the game, enough to knowingly tank $2B in market value (2) They want players back on the native marketplace to recapture that revenue; raising red item values helps rebalance the economy.

The whole Solana paid Western Union is tiresome. Foundations have treasuries to activate partners within their network. You have no idea what the deliverables are, so you're unable to measure the ROI of these deals. Let me tell you: EVERY ecosystem is competing and putting $ up.

Crypto is still so unbelievably small. It’s good to keep in perspective. When I was at YouTube, we had 450 million logged in users watching gaming content every single day (DAU). That was 4 years ago. We barely touch 40-70 a month. It is insanely early still. No one leads.

Couldn't have happened without you, Sister Judith!

I mean, @timthetatman is pulling more live CCU's on @YouTubeGaming than @Twitch right now. It's undoubtedly my YouTube bias, but I'm fully convinced that Twitch needs to move into the VOD space more aggressively and expand beyond just hardcore live gaming. You can't generate enough live broadcast hours, which you need to drive watchtime, through gaming/IRL/Just Chatting, and to continue driving an increase in DAU. @JakeSucky fix this.

20x leveraged shorts opened up on bayonet fades is maybe a good reason why web3 gaming doesn’t exist yet 😂

Take the upgrade and give it to your significant other. Always. 100% of the time.

My old stomping grounds. I worked at @GeekSquad 20 (!!) years ago in HS and early college before @MLG. 🤣 Blast from the past!!

Alright, I need to get back in the trenches. I've been sitting on the sidelines for too long.

(1) this is a sick stat, thanks for sharing (2) I think it actually has much less to do with supply shock than it does that they can, and will, unilaterally make dev decisions that can wipe billions in market cap. It’s more a confidence issue. It’s this today, what tomorrow?

Congrats to you both! You’re gonna be great parents and can’t wait for Scump Jr, baby!! CoD Champ 2042!

Whipped up a carbonara from scratch tonight. 10/10.

Birthday dinner with the boys! Grateful for another year around the sun.

I made a honey & miso french onion beef with chive potato cake. It was a 10/10. Adding it to my top fav dishes in my bag.

My guy @H3CZ mannnnn. 1 of 1. 🐐

A lot of discussion and announcements around prediction markets: purely for fun, I've built a demo app. Meet Betcha, my attempt to broaden the prediction markets TAM. 📊 Current state: Prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi are powerful truth-seeking tools because money on the line and arbitrage keep prices honest as new information hits. Most participants today are traders and bettors who are very fee-sensitive, so raising fees will be challenging. Growth has to come from much higher volume, which is achievable, but it will take time. 🏛️ Sportsbook/Regulatory Environment: Because CFTC-regulated event contracts create a potential path into some states that have not legalized sports betting, prediction-market rails can help sportsbooks reach markets they previously could not. Reframing parlays and prop-style outcomes as “predictions” is clever and expands reach from zero revenue in states where they can't operate sportsbooks to something. Still, these products will likely remain volume-constrained, struggling to match a traditional sportsbook’s vig. The positive is that the sportsbooks won't be getting gouged by state-level taxes as part of the process of leveraging prediction markets vs. sportsbooks. I still think this will be an exciting category that emerges, but it will take time. I want to see Polymarket build its own PM sports-specific app to compete here vs whitelabel (cc: @shayne_coplan) 📈 Market expansion thesis: Stop optimizing just for traders. Try building for the culture that lives on TikTok/Twitter/Reddit. They're already making predictions - just give them a scoreboard and an easier way to participate in returns. 🎪 Behavioral unlock: The mass market will never identify as "bettors." They want social proof, bragging rights, and gamified experiences. Critically, they're far less fee-sensitive when entertainment value is high, and that's the opportunity Prediction markets have a volume and take rate dilemma, and I think fun consumer apps like this can help solve it. Fine-tune the algorithm to serve event contracts I actually care about, let me lock in a pick fast, and build simple social features on top. Anyway, here's my demo. Any feedback/discussion is welcome!

Despite clear PMF, growing regulatory clarity, and finance and government turning bullish on the tech, heavy bearish sentiment lingers because speculative vaporware is over and has burned people’s pockets. I’ve never been more bullish on crypto.

@H3CZ I’m ready for OMoO streams for BO7. @di3sel @hutchinson I’ll fire up twitch.tv/fwiz if I have to

Kalshi did $100M+ volume on college football opening weekend = likely $1-2M revenue in 48hrs The NFL hasn't even started Once sportsbooks integrate w/ their infrastructure, they will hit 10 times the volume; there's definitely an ongoing paradigm shift happening in that world

I've been thinking about Twitch since the TwitchCon madness. My simple summary is: I think they should bifurcate the product, making Twitch a one-stop shop exclusively for gaming, and have a lifestyle streaming app to produce their other endeavors, running them separately.

It’s the most bearish I’ve ever seen in my 4+ years, far more than post-FTX/3AC/Terra

Happy to help!! You’re onto something. Keep building, my man. 🤝

Going back to the beginning of Twitch it's hard to name each period of peak influence, but something like: Sodapoppin/Lirik/xQc/Ninja/Tim/Shroud/Kai/Adin/Speed

Real ones hedge their impulsive degenerate skin purchases across multiple games

Halloween festivities were a success 🎃

How I wake up to notifications from Robinhood since October 10th.

Every fiber in my body is restraining me from putting the Christmas tree up today.

@H3CZ save me inventory

I spent 12 years working w/ creators, and devoted considerable time to exploring creator revenue beyond ads. We are far away from creator capital markets being a viable product offering. I'm still heavily rooting for Zora & Pump as they evolve and inspire all creator platforms.

I've pretty much rolled entirely off of ChatGPT. Gemini is just far superior; it's not even close. Anyone who thought @Google wasn't going to cook here is out of their damn mind. (disclaimer: I am inherently biased as an ex-Googler)

That spot is a brutal position to hold. I am a Valorant apologist though and it’s my primary game now. 😂😭

I don’t get how the Photos app on iOS is still horrible.

I don't get where this is coming from on the TL? A company choosing Google Cloud over AWS doesn't owe you a technical breakdown of their decision. The "why not an L2, we deserve an answer" feels pretty entitled. The regulatory environment has drastically changed in 12 months (both in a positive way to give more clarity to institutions, and simultaneously has enabled crime szn), which in turn has given a full green light to large enterprises to come in the way they want to, with control, privacy, and in a way that doesn't create any inherent regulatory risk. They are not looking at this from a libertarian point of view; this is simply about better financial rails for them, and blockchains & stables will significantly save large corporations billions with a much better UX. Easy win for them. And these companies don't need existing distribution; they can bring their own to the party. A lot of L1's introduce fragmentation, sure, but we haven't really natively solved interop via L2's? I think we're all constantly too reactive and impulsive to what is happening. These entries, regardless of how they come in, are going to be net beneficial for the long-term progress of blockchains.

I think that’s probably right; a rebalancing of some sort. I wish they’d be more explicit with the market dynamics they’re looking to change, but they may have legal concerns over their ability to so significantly influence it? Not sure. It’s certainly calculated - it’s Valve!

😂 all good, man. Thank you for that. I appreciate you and the Solana eco, and love the passion. Keep cooking.

Major sportsbooks are just egregiously behind at this point not having PM products launched inside of states they can’t operate in. Even further behind not building an international onchain solution. Insanity.

It was enjoyable chatting on the @OpenSea podcast about various topics with @OliverMaroney & @brycent , but discussing my career journey that led me to YouTube before I entered the crypto space was particularly enjoyable to cover. Can't believe it was 11 years ago!

Discovery in that one should be interesting

Who will be brave enough to reach out to be #161 rejected in the year

You weigh less than me!!! You can call me fat boi next hang. All jokes aside, I'm super proud of you. You're a beast. Much love, brotha.

I am so mad at myself for not buying into your ZEC bull posting and I’m kicking rocks this morning in anger

Lmao cheapest reds are like $40 (more now) but was being a bit hyperbolic. I was trying to generalize for a broad audience. I got out the market 5 months ago.

Yeah cause they skimped out on sizes and hiked prices.

The @cryptocom app is incredible. I just downloaded it yesterday and was blown away. - US Stock market available (you can copy trade whale baskets, etc) - Prediction markets up and running - All tokens you’d ever want access to, a lot of staking and rewards options inside

The next 24 months in crypto are clear (finally)! - Tokenizing specific assets and making them more productive - Stablecoins (duh) - And payments slowly get worked out (Tempo, etc). All the major TradFi players are moving onchain, and regulatory clarity is being established.

Well, that's not true. I have been in conversations where Solana is bidding on deals, but I can't speak to whether they did or didn't here with Western Union. The point actually isn't that, but that Solana should be able to invest in projects/teams/companies to deploy on Solana.

Get them both out of Cleveland, holy shit

I did it - overrated :)

Sick!

Zoomer, hi, Ryan here. I was under the impression that’s not how DATs work. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Double zksync bull post in one day.

Handsome white guy.

“No investors on Twitter”

Insane response and punishment. Definitely not warranted. On the positive side, this came up on TL and I’m stoked to be buying the Vandal replica!! Your work is incredible!

Binji, you were such a legend at @Optimism and I loved working with you. I’m so excited for your next chapter at the EF. Keep crushing.

It took me a minute to process it all, but the rebalancing of the market into lower value assets that absorb the depreciation of knives and gloves is fascinating. I mean it comes at a terrible cost to high value traders and holders, but better distributes value long term.

So incredible! Keep going, @luanalopeslara!!!

Tiresome as in people trying to give Solana shit. They don’t deserve any flak.

Lmao you’re not kidding, man. They ran the crypto playbook. 😂

Do it, lads. Just let it rip. I wanna see it.

I think best practices for teams experiencing the market turmoil for the first time, how they should think about product development/roadmap, treasury management, hiring, examples of teams who have done it well in the past (SOL launching bottom of the barrel during COVID), etc.

With the 🐐

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Yeah, I did it at every company I've ever worked at, including Google and YouTube, and I would call it investing in growth with the capital you have at your disposal.

A staple. Resting my composure on my double chin.

Welcome back home, LeBron. One more Cleveland title is gonna look good on you. 🤝

I actually thing long term this drives market cap of assets higher and it’s a high IQ play that comes at a high cost to a minority of users but benefits a large amount of users

I mean, I get it. I used to download skins back in 1.6 for CS and TFC. The value of any of these things when they exist in a marketplace is simply what the market participants value it at. It’s a multibillion dollar business. They have to make game development choices with that in mind.

This is the kinda relationship I yearn for from a co-worker tbh 😭🙏🏼

Starbucks was $3M FWIW

This is incredible. So glad the Gensler era is over so that you’re able to confidently do this. This is great for everyone!

They had to know this would tank market value - feels intentional, maybe to cool off prices of the market? The only other play would’ve been upping drop rates in crates, which would’ve pissed people off too. No idea what the plan was here otherwise.

My boy Jamie "Pet Rock" Dimon with historical levels of misdirection over the years. Truly a 1/1.

It’s a great team going through a bit of a pivot, focusing on more than just interop and leaning into TradFi adoption (you can see by the open roles), and the more customizable aspects of the OP stack. They’ve got great talent at OPL still, they are just less public-facing!

One is a punishment and one is a blessing. What kind of poll is this? 😂

Sportsbooks are becoming increasingly threatened by prediction markets. It's telling when they explicitly say their moat is banning their best bettors. - The UK example is rubbish; sportsbooks have been obscenely well funded over the years, thus have been able to splurge significantly on marketing and product experience, whereas prediction markets have insanely low take rates, and have up until now been a relatively obscure product for fringe traders. I wouldn't look at the UK with the two products co-existing as any signal of what the future holds, and it's misguided if that is a genuine take of what's guiding their forward looking strategy on this. - Kalshi and Polymarket are evolving fast, and for the first time, we’re seeing prediction market products that are both well-funded and well-positioned. That shift is forcing sportsbooks to rethink how they compete, and they can’t ignore it. In the end, this competition benefits consumers by driving fees down and improving the overall product experience. With these products already onchain (Polymarket), or inevitably moving onchain (Kalshi), tapping into mass liquidity, and likely launching their own tokens, both companies will be able to unlock countless ways to improve the experience to compete with the sportsbooks and generate significant revenue. Clutching onto their parlay vig + banning their most talented bettors isn't sustainable in this new environment. It's insane not to acknowledge that. Over the next five years, the sportsbooks that innovate, launch prediction markets onchain, and build out their own businesses will be the ones that adapt and survive.

(1) Creator ROI: A vast majority of creators are not going to want the inherent risk of balancing rabid users caring about a market cap, and thinking through how they continue to add value to it. Creators are easily overwhelmed with the content output cadence alone, which they feel obligated to with their audience. They also get deeply obsessed with their stats and data. I just don't think the juice is worth the squeeze when balancing all of this right now. (2) Distribution: Getting any subset of existing creators to move from YouTube/TikTok/Twitch/Instagram to distribute elsewhere (even simultaneously) is no easy feat. We struggled to even move Twitch streamers to upload YouTube content for some time. Growing native creators on Pump and Zora will take time to materialize (I believe they can, and will be able to do this over time, though) for it to inspire creators on other platforms to get comfortable with attempting the same monetization model. Twitch did a great job pushing YouTube monetization by launching Subs/Bits, etc., but it took many years for them to develop native platform creators - e.g., Ninja, Timthetatman. (3) TAM: Only a subset of users even want to pay for their creators; KaiCenat has 205,479 paying subs on Twitch. You're talking about arguably the biggest creator in the world, converting but a small fraction of his total audience.

🔥🔥

It's situational, and the macro theme of this is overstated, but I think most major projects (DeFi & blockchains) should institute some mechanism. Optimism is sitting on ~$80,241,004 USD worth of ETH. It should be put to use in some capacity (staking, reinvesting, buy/burn, a combination of these things). $80M isn't going to materially move the token price, so I don't think just thinking purely buybacks makes sense either. There's also other gestures ecosystems that still control a significant amount of the treasury could do (recommitting to locking it up for an extended period, and instituting a vesting schedule for that treasury, etc.) that would go a long way with holders. I've become more aligned with @ajwarner90's perspective on buybacks, which is that the general macro of buyback expectations is overblown and unnecessary. I honestly think the departure of retail traders and desperation for token price appreciation has pushed this narrative too far.

Yeah, I tend to agree that it is better to be transparent about deals than not. (1) Real journalists are going to dig (2) People make shit up that is far worse and inaccurate than what the actual framework of the deal is. I've seen this at YouTube, Polygon, and Optimism.

I’m so sorry for your loss. We’ve had 3 miscarriages, so I know the pain. But I want to leave you with encouragement - we just had our third baby last week. Stay strong and have faith.

My American mind wasn't able to comprehend you not thinking in USD

Solana's probably the best bet for now. Nothing sizable there yet on the PM front, trenches need something new to rotate into, easy onboarding for normies, DAT hype will persist for the next 12 months, etc.