Full essay: paragraph.xyz/@eclecticcapit…

some personal news: Really excited to share that I’ve joined the investing team @BainCapCrypto!

1/ In spite of the bear market, music NFTs are getting a second wind -- catalyzed by the recent announcement of @soundxyz_ protocol. We all know music NFTs are encouraging new behaviors in the industry, but an under-discussed & important model they unlock are "fans-as-A&Rs"🧵

Appchains are gaining serious momentum in crypto right now. I've put together a market map of projects currently building DeFi-focused appchains👇Did I miss any interesting projects?

1/ For many, the zkEVM is seen as the “endgame” for scaling Ethereum. There are many applications of zero-knowledge technology within blockchain — including zk-L1s, zkEVM rollups & zk-zk-rollups — but zkEVMs are all about using the succinctness of zk-proofs to scale Ethereum 🧵

"Blur accounted for 75% of February's total NFT volume, surpassing OpenSea's 18% share." 🤯 Some pretty insane numbers out of the latest @Delphi_Digital NFT report Also very fascinating that NFT volume on ETH *doubled* during February alone...

1/ Excited to share Part I of our MEV Series: volt.capital/blog/mev-series… The MEV conversation until this point has been focused almost exclusively on Ethereum. However, this series explores MEV within the Solana and Cosmos ecosystems.

1/ The design space for blockchains has recently opened up: we no longer just have “monolithic” chains, but also: • modular chains • data availability & consensus layers • rollups & execution environments • application-specific chains & more volt.capital/blog/the-defi-a…

1/ After last year's surge of enthusiasm around "consumer crypto," many expect 2024 to be a breakthrough year for crypto's application layer. But how ready are we?

the Avalanche guys are definitely some of the best explainers of highly technical concepts that I’ve come across thoroughly enjoyed this interview w/ @kevinsekniqi on understanding blockchains from first principles. 10/10 highly recommend. piped.video/Tq5LwBdr-mw

1/ I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve joined @VoltCapital to focus on research & investing in early-stage crypto companies. Some reflections on why I chose Volt Capital 🧵

Sharing my latest curiosities & predictions around the future of media 💫 (link to full essay below)

1/ Part I of our MEV Series focused on blockspace markets across ecosystems (including @ethereum, @solana & @cosmos) In Part II, we explore the order flow side of the market 🧵

I’ve avoided tweeting much over the last few weeks (as to avoid becoming insufferable), but as we reach the end of the year, I wanted to publicly thank & celebrate a few of the people who’ve been instrumental to my growth in 2023: @benroy__ — Every thriving community needs quality curators - people who go out of their way to create meaningful experiences and connect others - and Ben is that person to many. It’s thankless but critically important work. I’ve met more incredible people through Ben than almost anyone I know, which is increasingly unsurprising the more I get to know him. A true community treasure 💎 @MohamedFFouda — Back in April during a team offsite, Fouda told me he felt I’d be been holding back a bit when it came to really using my voice and standing firmly on my own opinions. He probably doesn’t even realize it but I attribute a lot of the progress I’ve made around trusting myself and standing firm in my convictions to that moment. This is addition to being a truly A1 researcher and all around genuine human being 🐐 @themoonboots — Probably the realest person I’ve met in this industry and also the person who taught me the value of being deeply connected & aligned with those you work with. I’ve been blessed to have so many incredibly talented friends but have shied away from working with many of them out of fear of friendships being damaged, but one of the many things I’ve learned from Aidan is that working with friends can be one of the most powerful unlocks ever when done properly. Our industry would be better off if more funding went to founders like him. @whatdoteth — Simply the best recruiter in crypto! Aside from being a genuine friend, the main thing I’ve learned from working with Marc is how essential it is to be deeply intentional around not only recruiting, but also about setting a strong cultural tone for a company from Day 1. We talk about the importance of talent in the startup world a lot, but when it comes down it, few actually take it very seriously. It is everything, and Marc gets that in a way that very few people do. @blknoiz06 — AKA my degenerate spirit animal 🤣 But in all seriousness, it’s hard to express how isolating it was to be a noob analyst focusing on Solana — the funny stares and laughs I got from many only compounded the feeling of being an outsider despite working full-time in the industry. Z was one of the few that got it from the jump and it’ll never not be inspiring to see him change lives on here daily in-spite of (unwarranted) hate many send his way 🙏🏾 @jonmoore202 & @CodjoeP — Last but mostly certainly not least… my guys! All I can really say is thank you for being not only some of the sharpest people in this industry but also *trusted* friends. Y’all have no idea how much it’s meant ❤️ Wishing everyone a restful holiday season 🎉 2024 will be one for the books!

Fun Fact: One of the main reasons I’m able to work in crypto full-time now is because I was able to quit my web2 job off @blknoiz06 calls, which also afforded me the time to truly go deep on research 🤝🏾

1/ Been experimenting with @Replit’s new bounty program and wanted to share a bit about the experience!

Been having wayyyyy too much fun with this📱💫 @solanamobile … but also, perks & cool features aside… it’s just been amazing to have something so tangible to share with normie friends & family. makes it more real (catch me @natalie on both @saydialect and @xNFT_Backpack 🫡)

Incredibly excited to announce @drip_haus as our home base for all Solana-native assets & experiments 💫 As Ben & I have shared before, we started Liquid Culture not only to have important conversations with interesting people, but also to experiment with the tools & products being built here. Starting today, you can check out & follow our new channel on DRiP — lots of fun things coming soon™️

officially a Hub Analyst @MessariCrypto 💕

💫 New Essay 💫 brief intermission my usual crypto ramblings to share some insights & findings from my personal foray into generative AI throughout 2024 (credit to @kalladomcdowell for the term + general inspiration) full link below!

💫 NEW POD 💫 Last week, I was joined by the incredible @matdryhurst to discuss the implications of frontier technologies on the future of Art & creative production. This was a really really special one — hope you all enjoy 💫 links below!

1/ The rise of modular blockchains (decoupling execution from consensus + data availability) ushered in a wave of experimentation in the VM design space & Solana’s Sealevel VM is well-positioned to benefit from this trend Exploring how the SVM could become an industry standard🧵

💫 NEW POD 💫 @lay2000lbs joined me to talk about his journey through consumer crypto & his current work at @tfh_technology (fka Worldcoin) We chatted about why developers should consider building in the World ecosystem (~20M users) & much more! links below 👇

1/ In the bull market, trends around Google searches for the word “NFT” are cited as a proxy for adoption and popularity, but ironically, this term fading out of the lexicon entirely will likely be the real signal of mass adoption. volt.capital/blog/beyond-721…

won my first hackathon! 🤓💫 huge thanks to the @websim_ai team for hosting, truly had a blast

💫 NEW POD 💫 Last week I was joined by @achilleas40 - easily one of crypto's most interesting & under-followed people (go follow him!) We talked about his vision for "Artchains" & the unique design-space afforded to onchain creatives by @celestia & much more. links below 👇

💫 NEW POD 💫 Ben and I had the pleasure of chatting with @segall_max, COO of @privy_io 💫 We got into the evolution of wallets & onboarding — from the days of @friendtech to today's seamless mobile minting experiences — and a ton more! (links below)

Is crypto ready for its consumer era? Excited to announce the next edition of @voltcapital Research Club — a technical dive into NFTs, Decentralized Social, and the Evolving Consumer Infra Stack 💫 Join us on September 26, hot takes welcome & advised! forms.gle/6t3f5fEvNEXFpD2ZA

🚨NEW POD 🚨 Consumer Crypto OGs @Flynnjamm & @jonmoore202 joined me last week to dive into the world of onchain distribution — exploring how creators are using @boost_xyz to go viral onchain, some exciting experiments in the works related to AI agents & much more Links below!

Excited to share a surprise bonus episode we did with @RyanOuyang_ of @iyk_app! We chatted about IYK’s origins and product vision, as well as some more personal topics around being a young founder + dropping out of school to work on startups. Really enjoyed this one! link below as always 💫

🚨VERY special pod alert🚨 Stoked to be releasing an interview with my co-host, the one & only @benroy__ We dive into a ton of different topics, from his background in politics & IR to community building to Canada’s tech talent exodus + more As always, full episode is below💫

Excited to share that as of today, @liquidculturefm is officially LIVE on @podsdotmedia! 🎊🥳 Outside of commenting on the trends & events of the space (which is always fun), Ben & I think it’s also important that we make an effort to really use and engage with the platforms, tools and infrastructure that’s being built here. For us, there’s no better way do this than by launching Liquid Culture on Pods — a platform that leverages crypto rails to enable podcast creators to own their audience and monetization, end-to-end. Huge thanks to Lucas and the team for getting us set up 🙏🏾 we’re stoked to see where it goes! You can now collect any existing episode as a free mint for the next 7 days:

really insane — I timed myself and it look less than 90 seconds to get onboarded 🤯

💫 NEW POD 💫 We're kicking off @liquidculturefm SEASON 3 with @cyberpunk, who joined us to talk about his project @playcambria — an onchain, Runescape-style experimental MMO with real stakes & risk We covered a ton of fun topics related to onchain gaming 💫 links below 👇

Proud & excited to share with the world my first ever musical release, #Weak. Now available on Soundcloud (link in bio) Enjoy ✨🙏🏾 #justthebeginning #moretocome #justgettingstarted soundcloud.com/nataliemarie9…

Really excited to share that we're looking to add another member to the @VoltCapital team! This is a very pivotal & special time for us as a team and industry, so highly encourage applying if you're obsessed with crypto and looking for an exciting new journey to embark on 📈

💫 NEW POD 💫 Last week we were joined by onchain legend and @liquidculturefm power-collector, the one and only, @funghibull We riffed on a ton of fun topics around the state of onchain media & collecting, what he's cooking up @shillrxyz & much more 💫 links below 👇

13/ Some nostalgia for the music people, courtesy this incredible article by @TimLarew complex.com/pigeons-and-plan…

1/ In 2022, the conversation around bridges has mostly focused on hacks, but it's also worth taking a step back to reflect on the evolution of bridges & cross-chain app development 🧵 volt.capital/blog/mapping-th…

The unfortunate reality is that every major web2 media platform is broken in precisely the same way. The cost of spinning up bots & fake media is $0. Traditional engagement metrics are FREE to game despite platforms & advertisers doling out REAL money on the basis of these metrics. Adversarial speculative farming will eat the ENTIRE internet if we aren’t careful. Robust identity primitives are a “need to have,” not a “nice to have.”

IMHO — Solana NFTs surpassing ETH NFTs as the go-to standard for integrating NFTs into consumer apps will be one of the most important “flippenings” to watch out for …and that’s not to take away from network / Lindy effects that may exist around ETH, but 10-100x improvements to cost (and in many ways UX) really can’t be ignored

1/ Wanted to make sure I give a huge shout out to the @PennBlockchain organizing team for putting together last weekend’s conference! Really exciting to see the future of talent coming into the industry. ✨Some highlights from the panels I attended:

Who’s going to @Permissionless?

Ben & I were joined last week by @backseats_eth and @marka_eth to talk all things Chonks 💫 We riffed on bunch of different topics including the evolution of PFPs, being inspired by Jack Butcher & Opepen, upcoming drops & much more links below!

Very excited to be judging the Hackathon at this weekend's @PennBlockchain Conference! This will be my first time back on campus since the pandemic began 🎉 Anyone else going?

14/ For more resources on Music NFTs, make sure to follow @Cooopahtroopa @dgreenstein1 @AbelowRob @magisformagic @soundxyz_ @catalogworks and @arpeggi_labs

I genuinely find takes like these so incredibly disheartening, especially when they come from people who’ve spent little to no time exploring Solana’s social or technical layer in good faith. Not to mention deeply disrespectful to the thousands of *real people* who’ve invested their time, energy and capital into something when there was nothing to gain but being laughed at. There’s real people behind these logos and $$ signs.

some personal news to share 😇: we spent the last few months trying to create the product we would've wanted as a noobs entering the crypto space & the product that would help us *continue* our journeys into the space 1/5 🧵

🚨NEW POD ALERT🚨 I had the great pleasure of chatting with @aliquotchris from @saydialect about the future of Blinks, crypto UX & much more💫 this is also our first proper episode with someone from the @solana ecosystem — one my favorite conversations thus far Links below!

🚨NEW POD🚨 @anquetil joined me to talk about Aether — the onchain AI agent he built for his community! We got into a bunch of fun topics, including his work on @higheronchain, personality design & social dynamics as it relates to AI agents & much more💫 links below!

12/ As a music lover & artist, I keep a list of the artists I discovered 3+ years before they achieved success – the list is now at 20, but I’ve made $0. Music NFTs enable artists to more easily leverage & retain early fans as angel investors & marketers at scale; a win-win🎼

8/ The genius of platforms like @soundxyz_ in leveraging the immutable time-stamping of blockchain is to turn what would otherwise just be music JPEGs into more valuable collectibles by creating moments around them (i.e. release parties, golden eggs, etc.)

11/ Independent artists who own their master recordings stand to benefit the most from music NFTs as they won’t have to ask for permission to monetize their art – they’ll also be able to use tools like @0xSplits to reduce the friction & legal fees associated with profit-sharing.

the $unibot phenomenon feels super relevant to the “intents” conversation, although I haven’t seen it talked about in that context yet - private tx relay aggregation - multi-wallet trading - leveraging Telegram for UI (abstracting usual tx signing) - copy trading features & more ….and people seem to *really* want these features. fascinating.

💫 NEW POD 💫 Ben & I got to hang with @austin_hurwitz and talk about all the exciting things happening in the Doodleverse! One of most fun & insightful conversations we've had — really hope you all enjoy this one 💫 links below!

7/ There was an entire ecosystem of fans, DJs, blogs, music journalists & Youtube commentators who did curation work for FREE and without any ability to 1) trustlessly prove they were early OR 2) gain exposure to potential upside if an artist they supported succeeded.

Wow 🤯 huge props to the @ourZORA team for this collab -- really incredible looking forward to collecting

🚨NEW POD🚨 Had the pleasure of chatting with @joeyiny about his work on @crateplace and the future of monetizing music🎶 We got into Joey’s (very) unique perspective on how to build sustainable platforms for artists, the downside of NFTs and collecting & much more💫 links👇

1/ As we approach the end of another action-packed year in crypto, it’s worth taking a look back at some of the key hackathons from the last year and reflecting on what trends have been emerging as top of mind for builders. Hackathon finalist trends: A 2022 retro🧵

4/ A heartfelt thank you to everyone who's been part of my journey thus far (you know who you are!) …and for those interested in jamming on future of the consumer internet, onchain media or anything even remotely related to those topics.... my DMs are open as always 💫

Last week, @timmutoke came on the pod to talk about building @weareplayerzero 💫 We covered how he got into avatar design, evolving perceptions of the metaverse, customer acquisition challenges for game developers & a ton more! links below as always 💫

Ben & I got the chance to jam with @danidoesnotxist and @cwet3k — the lovely ladies of Tribute Brand 💫 Really fun conversation on the current state of digital fashion & self-expression online + some alpha on their latest experiment @fashiondotfun links below 💫

This one is for the IP nerds 🤓💫

6/ Before music curation and discovery were co-opted by centralized platforms like Spotify & TikTok, there was a rich and vibrant community of music blogs and curation sites. This was a time when fans played a huge role in the A&R process.

3/ As cliche as it sounds, I'm genuinely as optimistic about the future of our industry as I've ever been and grateful to work with others who feel the same. There's an overwhelming amount of work still to be done, but I can't imagine spending this period of my life anywhere else, working on anything else.

my latest writing 🌊 as always, feedback & thoughts are welcome link.medium.com/MMZMGfsvOpb

lmaoo I wish these politicians would stop telling people not to drink bleach. if you thought that was a good idea then by all means, PLEASE go ahead and do it. you can have mine

4/ Even more, with streaming (& often touring) only being profitable for the most successful mainstream artists, it's clear that the long-tail of artists face 3 core issues: 1) financing 2) monetization 3) rights management & profit-sharing Enter the “fans-as-A&Rs” model.

last day at m*ta 🥂 last day investing my precious time & energetic resources into anything other than what serves me and the causes I care about happiest day in a while ❤️

2/ Spending time getting to know @alexhevans @stefancoh & the team over the last few months has been a refreshing reminder that serious, thoughtful, people-first investing still exists in crypto.

💫 NEW POD 💫 Had the incredible pleasure of interviewing one of my closest friends & creative inspirations @seneca_labs We covered everything from his non-traditional path into AI research at Google, to rediscovering AI as a creative medium, to self-hosted exhibits, to the deeply religious themes in his Artwork 💫 You will not find a conversation like this anywhere else on the internet! links below!

To Enshrine or Not to Enshrine? Join us for the 5th edition of @voltcapital Research Club where we’ll be exploring the rapidly-growing ecosystem of liquid staking derivatives, associated core protocol security risks, the roles of Lido, Eigenlayer & more. forms.gle/g8dG9L9FcJT4gKNcA

“Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That’s why it’s so hard.”

2/ Record labels share a similar business model to VC: labels provide capital & resources to the artists they sign in hopes of making a return on investment once the artist achieves mainstream success.

Beautiful day to find the best yields on Solana ☀️

9/ Their latest release – Sound Protocol – allows artists to easily deploy their own non-upgradeable song contacts. This unlocks the ability to customize mint formats on a per-song basis, letting artists truly get creative around how they package and release their music.

2/ Full piece: volt.capital/blog/cryptos-id…

Very cool to see the full flexibility & modularity of @LayerZero_Labs architecture on display here, think alot of that was missed in the criticism they got earlier this year Huge shout out to @PrimordialAA and the team for absolutely crushing it 💪🏽

still bumping BLP on the daily but yessir

Is there any good research into how much overlap exists amongst the validator sets of @cosmos chains? Seems like the implications of this are pretty important for ICS, mesh security and cross-domain MEV

first time publishing some original research - this time on blockchain security ✨🔐 link.medium.com/M5cZjXAnbob

newest editions 😍 absolutely obsessed with this project @afrobubble

5/ Just as VCs are responsible for sourcing deals & supporting portfolio companies, label A&Rs (Artist & Repertoire) are tasked with identifying, recruiting & developing young music talent.

Another banger from @kelxyz_ 🔥 Achieving this much scalability without introducing the mind-numbing complexities of fragmented rollup UX & liquidity, shared security, bridging, etc. (not to mention associated MEV problems) is…. severely underrated IMO

I really can't believe there are people who watched the Gambino video and all they took away from it was "he is further normalizing violence against black bodies." Wow. #ThisIsAmerica

3/ Like startups, most artists will never achieve “unicorn status,” so just as the economics of VC only justify investing in companies with the potential to hit venture scale, the same goes for artists. This means the long-tail of artists are left w/o financing options.

gm wishing everyone a safe & productive week 🙏🏾🤙🏾

this is still probably the best thread to ever be published on this app

14/ Huge thanks to @vibhu @Flynnjamm @vmny @themoonboots for the thoughtful reviews & conversations and everyone working to solve this problem for the industry 🙏 If you’re building, thinking or writing about anything related to these topics, please reach out!

increasingly bullish on the trends around "alternative schooling" practices -- especially here in the States where the cost of higher education is headed to infinity, the quality to 0, and public school curriculums become more politicized by the day

💫 NEW POD 💫 Pod besties @0xsmac & @jonmoore202 joined us last week to riff on everything that’s happened in 2025 so far (TL;DR too much) We chatted about where we are in the current cycle, market dispersion, the future of crypto VC & ofc, some hot takes 🔥 links below!

just deployed my first smart contract to an Ethereum testnet 😁🤓

**their

this is definitely a major pain point on the user side as well. Even for quality projects, it feels like more than 90% of "community chats" I'm in are plagued by this. strongly in favor of more thoughtful approaches to token-gating & creating exclusive spaces for power users.

i was not hip to how much of a human trash bag this man is.... 🚮

trying to crank out one more long-form essay before the end of the year... soon™️

This might be the largest PFP collection ever 🤯 Huge shout out to @ChildOfBusiness if so, finally got my hands on a rare edition✨made my day

this is *extremely* cool, but also curious how long it will take the ETH community to discover xNFTs… these information silos aren’t helpful to the speed of innovation IMO