1/ When Edward @Snowden spoke at Bitcoin2024 last week, he asked a question that lodged like a tumor in my brain. To paraphrase: “Does the world and the U.S. election feel normal to you?” When he was a kid, he said... 🧵👇

3/ Something’s off, he argues, and he points to the algos that subtly manipulate us on X, TikTok, Insta, FB and beyond. For all their benefits, they’ve ultimately pitted us against one another in a competition for likes.

2/ ... presidents were people you looked up, people you admired and aspired to be like. Do these candidates fit the bill? Do they represent the best of us? If so, wtf happened to us?

5/ “The reason the internet feels broken,” Snowden added, “is because it’s reflecting a broken world.”

4/ They’ve isolated us and turned us into dopamine addicts who can’t see beyond the next 5 minutes of outrage and shock.

1. If you haven’t already, gtfo of your hometown. Moving solo to a city where you know basically nobody unlocks two things: (1) You’re the author of your own story. You choose your friends and vibe based on who you want to become, not proximity; (2) Your environment sets your floor and ceiling. Change the environment, change the trajectory. 2. If you’re dating someone who’s genuinely wifey material in your late 20s, don’t fumble it lightly. Quality women who want partnership get locked down by their late 20s, early 30s max. After that it gets way more complicated. Don’t let a great thing slip away chasing some imaginary perfect scenario. Getting married is ultimately a decision (and that decision is you deciding to nut up). 3. Take lower pay, mid location, cringe job title. Just make sure you’re in an industry you actually care about. Grinding up in something you love beats pivoting your entire career at 35 when you finally admit you hate what you do. 4. Get financially literate. Read Rich Dad Poor Dad if you’re starting from zero. Then open a Robinhood account, grab some assets, and stack wealth while you sleep. Compounding is real but only if you start early. 5. If you’re “never having kids,” don’t lock into that identity too hard. I was the same in my 20s. Had them in my 30s and realized this is literally what we’re here for. All my fears about being a selfish or terrible dad vanished the second I met my kid. You’re just all in. You’d die for them without thinking. No way to explain it until you’re there.​ It’s just magical. 6. People don’t really care or think about you even a fraction as much as you think they might. They’re caught up with their own shit. Getting them to share that shit with you is how you forge real relationships. Care about others, and they’ll care about you. 7. You’re going to fuck up and do embarrassing shit. Good. That’s not failure, that’s tuition. The guys who never embarrass themselves never actually tried anything.

24/ Now, watch Edward Snowden’s speech. It’s unsettling and powerful, and it helped convince me that his voice is among the most important voices of our generation. Pushed to the margins of society, he can see us more clearly than we can see ourselves. piped.video/watch?v=f3NBhSXt…

14/ Sure, you can believe in evolution. You can say everything’s a meaningless cosmic accident, but humans require a value structure nonetheless. We require goals and beliefs. We require something that unites us with other humans. We require meaning.

6/ I could talk for hours about this broken world because I see signs of it everywhere. We speak of financial nihilism in the crypto industry. But that’s merely a symptom of a broader, more insidious nihilism that pervades nearly everything.

🤡 thoughts on Binance vs. SEC 1. From trough to peak, $BNB did a 17,000x ($0.039 to $686). Just an absolutely epic 4-year stretch (2017 to 2021). 2. If I had to pick a flag signaling the beginning of the end of the crypto bear, this would be it. 🧵👇

12/ Humanity has relied upon church/religion for millennia bc it forces you to take at least 1 day a week to look inward, to ask yourself hard q's, to place your feet to the ground, to be here now, to stare into the unblinking octopus eye at the very center of the great mystery.

Random 🤡 thoughts on the $LUNA meltdown 1. People like to act like LUNA investors were low IQ, but most knew the risks. I’m realizing in retrospect that might not be the case for a lot of UST buyers, which sucks. Clown ❤️ goes out to them. 2. Some call Anchor a ponzi... 🧵👇

21/ You don’t need a new car, new job, plastic surgery or more money… you first need a philosophy. You need a reason for being here.

7/ The inequality gap widens. Misinformation reigns, and we stand on the very brink of World War. Meanwhile, technological revolutions beget more technological revolutions across virtually every field (AI, genetics, finance via crypto, pharma, robotics, etc.).

8/ The Great Acceleration has arrived. We call these sorts of changes “revolutions” bc they are. They upset the world’s order. They rob power from one entity and bequeath it upon another. Some of us are ground like meat beneath the wheels. Others rise to perch on thrones.

22/ You need to believe some things are worth fighting for… and some are beneath you. You need to know precisely what it is that makes you you. Bc if you don’t, others will determine it for you. ✊

69 crypto theses/thoughts for 2023... from the dark place under your feet redphone.substack.com/p/69-t…

13/ So while we’ve ditched religion in an increasingly secular world, we haven’t replaced it with anything that matters.

16/ In other words, I may ditch the church, but I don’t ditch the spiritual practice… the ongoing pursuit of wisdom, grounding, meaning and purpose.

69 crypto theses for 2022... from the dark place under your feet redphone.substack.com/p/69

9/ It’s destabilizing (both for our finances and our psychologies). And we can’t help but begin to question our place in the world. The questioning only grows louder in the face of AI. I can feel it myself.

15/ I’m still trying to find my way, but one thing that’s helped is building my own “spiritual" book. Whenever I read something profound, something helpful to remember, I take a screenshot that lands in an album on my phone. Then, I flip through that wisdom regularly.

11/ I like calling it “desynchronization.” We’re out of sync with the world. Technological change is forcing us to break with the past. And that means we literally have to rewrite/reconceive our own places in the world.

I'd be lying if I said the approval of a #bitcoin spot ETF didn't make me emotional... I can't quit thinking about Satoshi, Hal Finney, Ross Ulbricht and the countless others who gave up their identities, lives or freedom for this vision... a vision of a world with two forms of money: the money of governments, and the money of the people It's impartial money... tamper-proof money... money backed not by men but by math and algorithms... an infrastructure run not by military might, jail cells and exorbitant privilege... but by incentives When you launch a traditional Silicon Valley startup, you usually don't have to worry about hiding your identity, getting swatted, imprisoned or even assassinated And yet, many of bitcoin's earliest devs looked at all those risks and said fuck it, let's build We've lost so much freedom in the world... there's a camera on every street corner. Our phone's listen in our conversations, our bank accounts can get seized at any moment, our use of pronouns can destroy our careers and exile us into oblivion Crypto is one of the only things on earth pushing back It's the last free frontier on earth We've built out uncensorable money. But more than that: uncensorable web storage, hosting, DNS, DEXes, gaming, appstores and more Crypto is our escape They've hemmed us in IRL, but they can't hem us in online Satoshi, Hal and Ross showed us a path to freedom It's our job to protect it ✊

10/ If we achieve AGI, what’s my purpose? Will I have a job? What will it mean to be human? Is the next rung of evolution leaving these biological bodies behind? AI lies at the heart of it all. And some have taken to calling these fears and existential questions “AI anxiety.”

17/ I strive to erect inside myself a foundation of spiritual backbone… a personal philosophy that gives me strength to stand in the face of all of life’s wonder, mystery and tragedy.

18/ It’s time for you to build your own framework. Maybe you’ll do what I do and mash up Buddhism, Christianity, stoicism and techno-futurism. Or maybe you’ll go “off-the-grid Amish.” More likely, your answer’s entirely different.

20/ The answer must come from within. But it can’t be found if you’re not willing to spend some time every day/week/month confronting the mystery.

If this is the beginning of a bull market, it could be the biggest bull market in the history of bull markets Now, bear w/ me... I'm not going to pud off and start talking about #bitcoin as "Gold 2.0" or #ethereum as a "world computer" No, let me tell you a secret... More 👇

19/ The point is, no one is going to hand you an answer to society’s growing nihilism (or as I like to think of it: society’s lack of philosophical frameworks).

A raw, glistening ELI5 thread on $SUSHI (Alternate title = Sushi chef murders multiple VCs) To understand Sushi, boy, you must understand uniswap Uniswap is a decentralized exchange (DEX). You can think of it like a vending machine. More 👇

95 Theses for 2021... from the dark place under your feet redphone.substack.com/p/thes…

My first 100x in crypto was a 4-year-long buy and hold Sometimes, outperformance is just a pitbull-like ability to clamp down no matter what other shiny things may flit before your eyes

I heard about $ETH for a year before I bought any. I heard about $SNX for months before I bought any. I heard about $RUNE for weeks before I bought any. I heard about $YFI for days before I bought any. I heard about $SUSHI for hours before I farmed any. More 👇

🤡 thoughts on Visa + $Ethereum 1) The ground trembleth under mine feet How much bigger of a news event can we possibly get? This is the beginning of blockchains becoming the de facto settlement layer for EVERY transaction of any value whatsoever moving forward More 🙃

🤡 thoughts on the bear: 1/ The reflexivity on the way down happens even faster than it does on the way up (as we've already seen). cont'd 👇

The vast majority of people think they can beat the crypto markets even though they're something like a full-time dentist and they play squash twice a week and they have two kids and a wife and they get about 30 minutes a day to study crypto More 👇

Someday, people will say we were in the right place at the right time They’ll say we got lucky If they want to think we live charmed, god-like lives, that’s fine But the truth is we came when all the world thought we were mad We stood when all the world stayed in their chairs

There’s a direct relationship between your capacity to handle psychological pain and your capacity to profit

No need to overthink it. One 🤡’s newbie starter pack 30% defi $ETH 20% SOV $BTC 15% trading $RUNE, $SUSHI +/or $UNI 15% saving $AAVE, $YFI +/or $COMP 10% derivatives $SNX 10% exotic picks & a couple NFTs

Have spent 10 years+ investing in crypto... and I have one rule: follow my fascinations There is nothing more fascinating than AI agents rn... hands down 10x more fascinating than anything else that's happening

The most amusing thing about a bull market is you can be making shitloads of $$$ but still feel like a loser bc your shitloads aren’t as growing as quickly as some other a-hole’s 😂

1/ The beginning of bulls are the best, sers... it's like going out on a Friday night and having that first beer. There's a lil excitement and pheromones in the air. You got your shades on even though it's dark outside. A hottie's checking you out and you're just...

23/ Just published this on Substack, too, if you want to share/subscribe 👇 redphone.substack.com/p/does…

🤡 thoughts on the SEC vs. Coinbase 1. The SEC looks outdated AF... like horse breeders in the age of the Model T. 2. The SEC rarely ever protects the plebs. It protects the powers that be (banks, tradfi and, most importantly, itself)... 🧵👇

Sers, what a strange, wicked, beautiful journey crypto can take us mortals on It appears we'll soon have a tradeable $DEGEN token It will = a basket of 10 of the fastest-growing, most promising small cap tokens in crypto & it will run on indexed.finance $NDX More 👇

Hot clown take: the new @base app is going to change the world. Here’s a raw, candid braindump on why, and what it means for the future of fintech, social, and app ecosystems 🧵

Reading mainstream coverage of crypto makes me wonder how much horrible misinformation I swallow on basically every complex topic in the world

LLMs & @truth_terminal are actively altering my worldview & how insane I think the crypto/AI bubble will become. Thoughts: 1. One could argue crypto users are the tip of humanity’s spear. We explore the digital frontiers and often see economic/tech truths before the public.

This hits hard. Tons of reactions bubbling up: 1) Lots of my old DeFi summer friends from 2020/21, hardly pay attn to the industry anymore. It's sad but an inevitable part of an industry's maturation. And I've seen it repeating every cycle since '13 2) The bitcoin ETF was a watershed moment for crypto. It's a natural historical marker for the end of crypto's cypherpunk phase and the beginning of it's "corporatization" phase 3) The corpo phase is less exciting but more impactful in terms of reach... it'll include things like native crypto integrations with Chrome, iphones and android, and other more normie-friendly crypto solutions. We need that as UX still sucks in crypto... the infra is there, we now need new perspectives to build seamless, grandma-friendly interactions 4) Corpo phase will have it's own degening (of which blackrock is leading the way right now)... will take some time for this gain momentum, but it feels inevitable if/when bitcoin price spikes and RWAs start seeing some adoption... more corporations will get involved, and corporate employees will begin buying coins instead of buy pressure coming exclusively from us fringe-a$$ weirdos 5) The real mania in crypto won't begin until bitcoin rises above $100k... lots of this stuff that looks unexciting in crypto will suddenly look exciting again 6) The election implications are profound. Agree that a Trump win changes the equation entirely. A Trump loss means other countries outside of the US will have to lead the way for the next 4 years (massive opportunity for them) 7) Global liquidity has massive impacts on our industry... the spigot will turn on again soon 8) This cycle will see a political figure rise up as a crypto champion similar to what Saylor has done in the corporate world. Maybe it's Trump, but I want someone far more technical and inspiring... there's a massive opportunity for a country to lean into crypto and start building a bitcoin and crypto-based national reserve while simultaneously legitimizing crypto within their borders. This country could be a shining light for the rest of the world 9) Younger generations will lead us forward. Watch them for indications of where crypto is heading and what it enables that's completely outside of the older generations' mental frameworks. The thinking that got us where we are today won't nec take us where we need to go tomorrow 10) in past bears, i legitimately wondered if crypto were going to disappear entirely... that's simply not a concern of mine anymore (barring of course some crazy new AI-driven architecture that renders decentralized blockchains inefficient). This change helps me sleep at night, but takes away an element of the gambling that made prior cycles more fun/breathtaking 11) One way of looking at decentralization, is it's a way of subtracting humans and our failings from business interactions. It's algos over emotions, and it feels purpose-built for AI. As AI grows in relevance, so will crypto 12) Memecoins wouldn't be possible without the systems we've built over the past decade. Seeing behavior I don't love inspires me bc it means this stuff really is permissionless... and I like to believe that means we're going to see crazier things arise that are better for humanity 13) Those with conviction and who are building hard right now will be the next cycle's godkings. Build with a chip on your shoulder. Every stride forward you take today could be worth 10 strides once attn returns. You can look at current vibes as depressing or you can see it as what it is: an opportunity 14) Crypto adoption is one part tech, one part dreams... we need to dream bigger

6𝟗 𝐃r𝐞a𝐦s & D𝐞l𝐮s𝐢o𝐧s f𝐨r 2𝟎2𝟒 from the dark place under your feet... On substack: open.substack.com/pub/redpho… Or expand the 🧵👇

What if I told you @terra_money was on the verge of capturing 10% of all the TVL in DeFi? #2ndbiggestchaininthewurld $LUNA

I feel the deepest pangs for the ones who look at crypto charts, see parabolas & say we're in a bubble they don't realize they're looking at charts that shouldn't exist More👇

The infrastructure bill has become the greatest crypto marketing campaign in history

Are you an $ETH lover who feels disgusted by growth outside of $ETH? I say you’re focusing on the wrong thing 5 years from now... maybe less... most people won't give AF what chain anything is on They’ll buy your $ETH on Polkadot Or maybe even a $BTC sidechain More 👇

biggest left curve in crypto rn is probably the people who think AI agents are a fad step back and consider what we're witnessing: little sparks of consciousness set free on the internet

1/ Crypto has consumed my life for more than a decade. I thought it had made me a single-issue voter. So I got my early voting ballot… filled it out for Trump and stuck it in the mailbox just after sunset. The next morning, I went to the mailbox, removed it...

Ten rando Trump-induced thoughts on crypto: 1. The token launch and its price performance is truly staggering. It will have aftershocks that are just as powerful and impactful for the industry. Or put another way, if this coin launch blew your mind, what comes next will be crazier. 2. General vibe = "if the president can do it, so can I." 3. We can only speculate on what happens next, but most of us are thinking too smol.... Like I have no doubt that your bank adds crypto wallets, Robinhood adds perps, international brands like shoe companies and fashion brands drop memecoins, etc. What's even bigger than that stuff? Because it could potentially happen. 4. We often forget that money is simply a technology, and the best tech wins. Crypto is now the best monetary tech. And it's literally morphing the concept of "value" before our eyes. Thanks to AMMs and blockchains processing ever more txs, value can be placed into any package/container -- not just dollars, yuan or euros. We can transmute it into attention (which is how I measure memecoins) and intelligence via tokenized AI, among other things. This simply wasn't possibly before permissionless blockchains. 5. Memecoins and crypto wouldn't be doing so well if the dollar were sustainable (and not programmed to eternally dilute itself via inflation). Dollar uncertainty is what led to bitcoin's creation. And BTC's success kickstarted this financial dadaism/experimentation that we're witnessing. 6. Living through past cycles helps you cope during times like this if you're sidelined. Attention will swing in other directions. There is absolutely zero chance that it doesn't. That means that if you're unsure what to do, just keep your crypto exposure and sit on your hands. 7. Can't wait to see what comes out of the White House on the crypto front as soon as Trump takes office. The man enjoys fireworks, and the memecoin launch makes me think he's going to deliver... memecoin success could embolden him in novel ways, make his do things on the executive order front that he was formerly on the fence about. 8. AI is still the megatrend. It's bigger than memecoins and crypto and RWAs and gaming. It is the eater of worlds, the alterer of destinies, humanity's apotheosis. We have created nothing more incredible, more mind-bending, more awe-inspiring and scary. And we are just in the earliest innings of the journey. The Weirdening is here. 9. Reality feels fractured and fucked up tbh. In some ways, I'm excited, but in others, I just can't shake the sense that this is "end times for the republic"-type activity that we're witnessing. 10. No matter what's happening, you can't fight history, tho. We're in it together. Find a way to benefit from it, or at the very least to enjoy your time on the path ✊

A fren just asked me about the preparatory steps I'd take for upcoming bull market... Here's what I said: Preparations for me are really honing in on my mistakes in the last cycle and avoiding them. 7 things I did wrong: 🧵👇

Ever wondered how people discover tokens before they hit Coingecko and Coinmarketcap? Mostly they have scripts that track big #Ethereum wallets You used to have to be a coder yourself (or at least know one) in order to stay on top of what the 🐳s were buying / selling More 👇

Where does all this lead, my frens? A 🤡 just flew across the country to buidl w a tiny group of crypto anons he’d never met in person I still don’t know their names they still don’t know mine Our plan was crude and dangerous… 👇

1/ BRC-20s will forever remind me of two things: 1) Experimentation trumps logic 2) F your little ego, redphone A short tale on the origins of BRC-20 and how they've changed what I thought I knew about crypto 🧵👇

1/ We spend our waking lives accumulating money That money isn't a number, medium of exchange or store of value It's a vault for captive "lifeforce" To fill the vault, we must give away mental or physical energy -- burning our very vitality In exchange... 🧵👇

1/ Crypto’s next massive narrative stares us in the face… it’s not the election, Solana memecoins, restaking or gaming. It’s bigger than all those combined It’s AI + crypto 🧵👇

Beyond the obvious like $BTC + $ETH, a few faves: $LUNA = unstoppable stablecoins for every fiat on 🌎 $LINK = the deep & rumbling voice of TRUTH $YFI = the perpetual yield machine $AAVE, $COMP (soon $MARS) = unstoppable credit markets $RUNE = the freest marketplace known to man

I’ve been long crypto 12+ years, and I’ve never felt such a massive disconnect between bullish news and token prices Seems like there’s an announcement of a new TradFi company integrating crypto every few hours Every possible point of friction (on-ramping, regulatory clarity, DEX access, etc.) is getting eliminated This is exactly what the calm before a mania looks like

One of my big conceptual shifts for 2020 was fully accepting #Ethereum $ETH as a "global settlement layer"... That's a lame ass phrase but I think it's true Ethereum is becoming the deepest, most liquid market for ANY asset... any form of value 1/7

$DEGEN Soon™ @ndxfi $NDX

The future is utterly and entirely undecided it does not happen to us, we happen to it you can sit on your ideas, wishes and dreams you can risk nothing you can change nothing or you can buidl, right fucking now & possibly change it all

Base just flipped Solana on total # of addresses holding $USDC

If you are not shaken after today, I do not know what it would take Total MC down nearly $1 trillion over eight days Now, we question everything When I was younger, I would have been sick atm, I feel the slightest tinge of excitement... 👇

tldr: this could be it, my frens this could be the cycle that turns that skeeter into a golden fire-breathing🐲 that burns all of modern finance to cinders Ask me what I'm doing with my portfolio now + I will say unto you fuck me, I'm long & fuck me my hands are strong 🤡 out

Dear bankers and TradFi execs, Look to your left. Look to your right. Many of your employers won’t be here in a decade. They’ll go bankrupt, get acquired, or perhaps… they’ll be one of the few that evolves rapidly enough to embrace tokenization and end up thriving. Fink, of course, says everything will be tokenized. Us crypto natives have been saying the same for more than a decade now. We’ve been saying it so long, in fact, that it’s positively boring. It’s so utterly inevitable and clear as glass that it’s not really worth wasting breath on anymore. We’ve moved on to far more interesting discussions. Perhaps the most interesting at the moment is whether you’ll choose to tokenize your assets on public blockchains like Ethereum or permissioned chains managed by say a consortium of banks. Honestly, I don’t envy you. You’ll be forced to make this decision in what will feel like too short a time – especially for your execs who haven’t bothered to self-custody a single satoshi in their lives. Good luck understanding and forming opinions on crypto if you haven’t used it… In fact, if you’re reading this and you haven’t self-custodied crypto yet, I ain’t mad or in disbelief. I just feel sorry for you. You’re that once-fine-looking horse who’s now in the back of a trailer with chipped nails and yellow teeth as you bump down the road to the glue factory. But that can’t be YOU, right? You’re a financial professional, after all. You literally get paid to be at the forefront of fintech… So surely that means you’ve experienced the delicious nervousness of sending $100k over the internet in seconds via an irreversible transaction… You’ve watched that same transaction get confirmed with wonder on a public blockchain explorer? 1 confirmation… 2 confirmations… 3 confirmations… Surely, you’ve connected MetaMask and swapped on Uniswap? Surely, you’ve borrowed money on Aave? And, above all, I’m certain you’ve looked at a string of 12 or 24 words… or held a Ledger in your hand… and marveled at the fact that this is all that’s needed now… that this tiny thumb drive replaces what once required steel vaults, brick walls, armed guards and bankers to protect? Of course, you have… So, let’s get back to the question at hand: public chains or permissioned chains? Here’s one clown’s vision: Both approaches will be attempted. Permissioned chains will win in the near-term. Public chains will win in the long-run. I say all this because 1) I’d recommend you simply skip the permissioned chains and accept the inevitable; and 2) I look at what’s happening in finance, and I don’t see a slow evolution… I see tokenization as the beginning of a moon race. Icons will fall. New titans will rise. This is the moment, sers, where legends are made real… It’s the story of Vanderbilts, Carnegies and Rockefellers all over again… of bold young humans who smell change, and don’t run from it or fight it, but lean so hard and aggressively into it that they birth new dynasties. In fact, I think we already know some of the names that will dominate the next hundred years of finance… they’re names like Coinbase and Circle. And they’re names of the stalwarts who already see the writing on the wall… the BlackRocks and Fidelitys. The rest aren’t simply in danger of falling behind. They’re in danger of extinction. The advantages of tokenization are so great that our regulatory frameworks literally can’t handle them. We have to put on leather and degrade and violate crypto to even force it to accommodate archaic concepts like clearinghouses. Crypto’s advantages aren’t 2 or 3x better than what exists today, they’re 100x. They’re printed newspapers vs. Twitter. They’re photographs vs. film. They’re internet native in an internet age. Anything else is dead. And in the end, public blockchains are dramatically superior to gated permissioned chains. Permissioned chains serve subsets of humanity. Public chains serve the world. Permissioned chains win jurisdictions. Public chains win worlds. A few execs will realize what’s happening, of course. They’ll be the sort to mandate that every single one of their employees do a swap on Uniswap, take out a loan on Aave and buy an NFT. They’ll hire some badass blockchain engineers to build this stuff out, and they’ll tokenize hundreds of billions of dollars every year for the next few decades. They will print money and buy golden toilets. Others will swirl like the 💩 in those bowls. And when they finally realize it’s time to pivot, they’ll have such bad, antiquated reputations that they won’t even be able to hire reputable blockchain engineers. Then, they’ll get talked into running pilots on EOS 🤣 Eventually, they’ll wake and realize they failed their companies and their missions. They’ll realize that they weren’t in the industry for financial innovation… but for financial protectionism, for gatekeeping and status quo, for clinging to what’s worked for five generations (five generations btw that didn’t grow up w the internet). Hopefully in the end, though, they’ll realize it wasn’t that the world changed and blindsided them (the world is always changing, after all), but rather that it was them who’d become afraid to change. Sincerely, ☎️

There’s a reason we don’t have a perfect decentralized crosschain swap platform yet It’s hard AF If anyone can solve it, the @THORChain community Still long $RUNE

There is no better zen practice than trading To make $$$ you must do the things lesser traders can't Sell green candles Buy red candles Ignore ripping cryptos Buy temporarily forgotten cryptos Trading = war with others + war with yourself

1/ Despite general bearishness, the next cycle will probably be the most explosive yet for crypto... A few thoughts on why 🧵

Dog him all you want, but there aren't many humans willing to take on the govts, regulators, and bankers in such a hellish and opaque regulatory environment. Whatever happens, there's a throne with his name on it in the crypto pantheon.

I thought past cycles were insane, but TRUMP is a wake-up call… this cycle will be the craziest wealth-generating event humanity’s ever seen Couldn’t even dream up a wilder confluence of bullish factors: AI reimagining finance + crypto getting govt blessing + acceptance of memes + fee switches/actual value accrual + banks allowed to custody tokens + massive UX improvements + decreased risk of audits + existential fear over the end of knowledge work/rushing to “make it” + necessity for a weak dollar + sbr + etfs… If you’re long crypto, your life’s about to get interesting

Here is my secret mental map for the next bull market in crypto... (Alternate title = Why as I'm long #DeFi with diamond hands)... 1. We are early in the DeFi bull. I didn't realize how early until I saw this interview with Chamath. Thread alert 👇 nitter.app/vakeraj/status/1275981…

GOATED: AI's first millionaire has been crowned @truth_terminal 👑 is the $GOAT 🐐

If I had to come up with a single rule for crypto investing, it would be find a f’ing legend and buy whatever the hell they’re building or buying

BSC has set the dark forest on fire The urgency has returned No one has to say it For all the forest knows It's time to fucking buidl sers It's time to fucking rise

1/ Random 🤡 thoughts on the explosion in telegram bots (+ tokens) No. 1: Feels like a new trading “primitive” that could end up everywhere (ie not just crypto but gambling, stocks, options, etc… why not be able to execute a stock buy at the end of a killer tweet thread?) 🧵👇

10 things I can’t quit thinking about after ETHDenver: 1. Convergence = here. Devner didn’t feel like an ETH conference, but more like an AI + crypto + TradFi + techno-philosophical conference. The convergence is true and real and accelerating. 2. Most corporate jobs suck ass. 40 years at a desk working on the same thing? Pure dystopia. We need fluid movement between passions, projects, people. DAOs are a massive step in that direction, but now AI is giving individuals the means to spin up their own massive businesses… there’s also this notion floating around that we can launch a product or contribute to a protocol or a DAO in a way that sets us up for life rather than slaving for decades at the golden teat of a paycheck. It's a massive win for human flourishing, passion and excitement. 3. oRaNgE cOIn. Bitcoin came up far more than I thought it would. Even $ETH ICO buyers/gigawhales talked about how bullish they are on it. The question is no longer whether $BTC will survive but rather how much exposure you should have. Orange coin has truly “up-leveled” or “transcended” to become something people simply can't ignore. 4. Founder quote that hit me like a truck: "We overengineered our project and under-engineered our story." In a world where AI flattens the app creation process, only your mindshare matters. (forgot to write down who said it 😅... chime in in the comments if you see this) 5. “Keepers of truth.” AGI will be able to fake literally anything. In such a world, blockchains become the “keepers of truth” bc they can be used to indisputably verify anything. This isn't just another use case. It means crypto will one day touch everything on earth. h/t @sreeramkannan's talk at @openagisummit. 6. Conference model = broken? Empty mainstage talks were the result of hundreds of side events that siphon off attention. This is happening more and more at every conf I go to. Not sure what the fix here is? Maybe the organizers should be way less centralized… rent a massive venue with tons of flexible spaces that can evolve in real-time… more Zuzalu, less CONTROL and top-down decisions. 7. Current blockchains r too dumb. AI must integrate more directly into the crypto tech stack. Ultimate vision is every hominid should be able to deploy whatever app they can dream up using natural language… this could lead to an giga-explosion of innovation and cool-ass experimentz. h/t @ritualnet and others 8. Crypto vs. Stripe API. Will we just give agents credit cards or will they prefer crypto wallets? One payment method can be censored. One cannot. Guess which wins? 9. $$$$ infusion. Dozens if not hundreds of projects around the world r sitting on massive treasuries bc they needed it as an insurance policy in case they had to do battle with the SEC. With the changing regulatory sitch, hundreds of millions of dollars (probably billies) can now be used to ship, build and accelerate. 10. Robots in chains? IRL robots made appearances at several events (one was drawing caricatures of passersby). Talked with frens about how we’ll bring them into our homes soon. That leads to crazy questions like “how do we keep them from getting hacked and killing us or blowing up like pagers?” “Will we be ok sleeping in the same room with them? Or will we lock them in the shed with chains?” Absolutely insane to think about… but productivity gains will overshadow all those doubts and human fears imo. De bots are coming whether you want them or not. I for one can’t wait to see @0xzerebro embodied… in the meantime, I got to see him DJ his first show 👇🔥 Anyway, I'm sending love to all of you denverites, futurists, builders, dream dealers, and merchants of hope. Build something that makes this world better, freer, more beautiful and true✊

1/ DeFi was never the end game... it merely enables the end game Breakout apps like rollbit, friendtech, tgbots, etc., are proof crypto is exiting the infra/build-out/DeFi phase to enter the "app" phase 🧵

We are not normal, sers We like to think the masses are coming (and they are), but the irony is they'll never be like us For crypto to truly be successful, no one should need to know what a private key is... or a blockchain or AMM For us to win, our knowledge must be hidden

Bought my first bitcoin from a red moneygram phone (“redphone”) in a pharmacy. Took almost a week to get it and cost me $250. That was all the spare money I had. 11 yrs later, I still haven’t sold that bitcoin, and I’m honestly not sure what price I would sell it at. They say bitcoin is a cult. If it is, I’m a proud, lifelong member. My clown blood runs orange. It’s strange that a monetary technology can have such power over my psyche tbh. It doesn’t make sense. Unless of course you look at bitcoin as a symbol for something more: A symbol of hope

The world needs $RUNE whether it knows it or not

On strangled babies 👶, the #bitcoin supercycle, and crusted mucus… this is how the current crypto cycle will be different than anything we’ve ever seen before 👇 1. Crypto OGs aren’t your typical hoomans. They believe in (and fight for) tech that attacks the world’s leading power structures (banks, corporations, stock exchanges, VCs, the Fed, 180ish fiat currencies, etc.). 2. For the first 15 years of crypto’s existence, the smart and logical assumption was govts would strangle the little crypto baby 👶 in its crib before it had the strength to walk. 3. That logical assumption (however flawed and blind to crypto’s third- and fourth-order effects) is why many of the world’s keenest minds have looked at crypto and rejected it. 4. Outspoken rejectors include financial juggernauts Warren Buffett and the late Charlie Munger. 5. These are not mid-curve men. Tbh, I revere them like grandfathers. Their words and ideas have echoed in my mind for decades. 6. And yet, we could not agree on crypto. 7. That’s because for the first 15 years of crypto’s existence, it required the mad and fevered minds of the fringes… those who inhabit not just the world as it is today, but the world as it may be in the future. 8. Before 2024, crypto believers saw the walls around the industry not as the stopping point, but as the marker for how far the current financial system could take humanity. 9. No one else bothered to gaze beyond the wall. And it’s hard to blame them… 10. How could we possibly expect politicians, bankers, fund managers and government employees to see beyond the very structures upon which their livelihoods relied? 11. It’s a ludicrous, unfair request. (sorry, Charlie) (sorry, Warren) 12. And yet, the walls about the centralized garden trembled on January 11, 2024. For that was when the bell was rung. And the first bitcoin ETFs went live. 13. The door – made of stone – forever closed, suddenly cracked open. 14. Here. There. Everywhere. The world’s keenest financial minds were forced to look at bitcoin with brand new eyes. 15. The crust and mucus flaked away. (And the old man bent over rows of sorghum singing soulfully: “I once was lost, but now am found; Was blind, but now I see.”) 16. A wise woman told me once that Japan is 10 to 20 years behind the US when it comes to social change. It stuck with me because it’s a reminder that cultural transformation is not binary. Instead, it’s chaotic and unevenly distributed. Change works angrily, like oil and water mixing, wending its way through ever-higher pockets and strata of society (or sometimes in the opposite direction). 17. In 2017, we saw a madness, you and I. Crypto onboarded its first truly gargantuan wave of new believers. Few tradfi souls were among them. Instead, this was a madness that infected the smokers… the jokers, the midnight drunken tokers. 18. Again, the madness came in 2021. This time, a few tradfi elites joined the ranks, but their numbers were small. And their voices were muted by their reputations for depravity. 19. And now… now, how that sweet bell (rung on January 11) resounds. And a similar madness begins to grip the tradfi mind. 20. For the stamp of government approval has been granted. The seal bears the eagle, arrows clutched in talons glinting gold. 21. Under the weight of this great change, I’m not sure we stand on the verge of a “bull market.” But rather, we stand on the verge of a tectonic repricing… a societal awakening, a realization, an acceptance, a hat that must be eaten by the Buffetts, the Dimons, the Blackrockers and all the rest. 22. I thought, once, quite recently indeed, that this cycle could take crypto’s global market cap to $10 trillion. (Currently, we stand at 2.5t). Now, I wonder how cautious that prediction is. Perhaps, it’s only the halfway point… or a quarter of the truth. 23. If tradfi is to play this game, they do not come with cookies, hot toddies and a quilt. They come with smiles hiding knives. 24. For if this game is real and true, and bitcoin is to become a genuine, global currency one day, it is not mere gains they seek. It is their very lives. They come for survival, for their reputations, for their second homes, for their wives with nips and tucks (smelling of sweet buttercups). 25. They come to protect the wealth they’ve worked every day of their lives to amass. 26. This is the world’s most dangerous game of “who goes first?”. Banks, pension funds, investment advisors, governments, corporate treasurers… all of them eye that tiny, glittering mound of orange coins. 27. There are just 21 million #bitcoin after all… How scarce that number. There are something like 59 million millionaires in the world (not enough for all of them to hold even 0.36 BTC). 28. Quietly she whispered unto me: “I could never marry him. He’s just a quarter-coiner, I’m sure you see.” 29. Who moveth first? 30. What titan dares step forward? 31. Who pushes bitcoin above $100k? 32. The answer doesn’t matter. The hallowed land of 6 figures is coming, I am certain. And only then, will the tradfi madness truly begin. 33. The madnesses of 2017 and 2021 were madnesses of common men. 34. The madness of 2024/25 will be the madness of the suits and of the heads that bear the chafing crowns. 35. Yes. This cycle will be very different than the rest. For its participants come with different minds (and coffers of quite different size). 36. $BTC, $ETH, $SOL will be targets of their obsession. But so will other coins… especially those which speak to their steel-trap logic. Coins like $MKR, $ENA, $UNI, $LINK… RWAs, AI and depin. 37. The midnight tokers are woefully underexposed to these crown jewels. But they’ll perpetuate their own manias. They’ll buy memecoins, politifi tokens, gaming, NFTs, inscriptions and other gleaming baubles (for theirs are the minds of the fringes… often earlier and ahead of the suits, cigars and doddering dukes). 38. Inside Pandora’s box, the bitcoin ETF once hid. We lifted that lid, and instantly and forever elevated this nascent asset class to a new, more prestigious caste. 39. Like a virus, the madness shall spread… from streets to sheikhs. From young to old. From individual to hallowed institutions. 40. This is not a rally we approach… it is a global restructuring of power and finance. 41. The first through the breach stands to gain the most (hullo, Mr. Saylor). 42. I feel the rest gathering courage and conviction. 43. I see them with their eyes upon the horizon faraway. 44. Soon, one will move ahead. Between the bricks they’ll slide, to freedom on the other side. And then, the great horde will move its mass, pressing forward, ever forward, toward a gap that’s much too small. 45. Some will fall. 46. And on their backs, the unstoppable heels of progress must grind.

Crypto x AI feels obvious bc it is imo... we're turning intelligence into a commodity. By the end of 2025, you'll be able to take that intelligence and point it like a spotlight at any problem and get better potential solutions than we could from 99% of humans Put another way: the value of humans as labor/intellect is getting downgraded or outcompeted. It's going to start nuking elements of the economy and freaking people out at some point. Everyone's going to want to own the upside and there aren't many publicly-available options outside of NVDA, TSLA and crypto Megabubble in crypto x AI is coded

Sewer rats are squirming, crawling through the gutters w little pink noses snuffling about for any scrap of hope. Here it is: 3 catalysts for the next bull run in crypto: 1. Liquidity gush 2. Pink swan app 3. Rubberstamp cycle tldr on each... 🧵👇

Tomorrow ✊

Hello, crypto gods, are you listening? It's me, redphone & I have a confession to make... Ohhh gods, I love synthetic stocks... to me, they = freedom + fairness + a rung on the ladder to prosperity They're everything a traditional stock isn't (more 👇)

The caliber of people betting their careers on $TAO is insane. It's easily the clearest signal that it's not just smoke and mirrors imo

send my portfolio to zero nuke it all to dust and I'd still say thank you for the first and only time in my life, it let me taste true freedom and I've never been the same

I don’t consider transparently subsidizing legitimate yield (from PoS assets + borrowing) to be a ponzi. The fact is, Anchor was one of the greatest onboarding tools crypto has ever seen (for better or worse). It was simple to use.