Building agentic finance Previously built onchain social tokens via Roll. DeFi trenches ex-bloomberg, ex-coindesk
New York, NY
- Tweets 3,496
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- Followers 8,781
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We were debanked by @jpmorgan @Chase after a 7 year banking relationship. 7 years!
I went to several branches in Brooklyn and Manhattan, talked to our relationship manager, talked to a "specialist" in the Manhattan SoHo branch, called their number, spoke to like a dozen people at Chase by the end.
All very nice people, telling me in a nutshell it was above their paygrade to know why.
Not a single person could tell us why. They didn't know. The system just said "close the account, no reason provided".
We asked in founder/investor groups and a surprising number of companies had recently encountered the same thing. It was really shocking.
This @pmarca conversation on @joerogan is really important as a schelling point for all crypto founders to tell their stories publicly. Marc said 30 founders, but the reality is probably 1-2 orders of magnitude more at the least.
Read about the extent of operation chokepoint 2.0 (shoutout to @nic_carter for some excellent work uncovering the underbelly here, links below)
Hopefully this cascades to an end result of real accountability to everyone involved, from politicians to bureaucrats to bankers.
Quote tweet this and tell your story if you've been debanked
They’ve uncovered a new way to destroy companies:
30 tech founders were secretly debanked.
No warning. No explanation. No appeals.
Pure, silent government power.
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Super excited to show what we've been working on for the past 6+ months.
Announcing @0xForm, a SocialFi blockchain on the OP Stack via @Optimism using @CelestiaOrg DA and with support from @Calderaxyz
Yes, yet another L2. Read on why 👇
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Incredible to see the amazingly talented teams building in DeFi now. Some flavor to whet your appetite on what's to come on mainnet 👇
SocialFi assets 🤝 DeFi protocols ➡️ Community-based asset class
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We're live with Form Meditations!
🌟 Major Milestone: Meditations Staking and Form ETH $FETH are live! Unlocking the next era of SocialFi.
Users can currently stake @renzoai assets, @pendle_fi assets as well as ETH and stETH to earn 3x Form points, 2x ezPoints, 3x @nucleusearn points and much more!
@turtleclubhouse coming soon 🐢
meditations.form.network/
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1/ Some notes and thoughts on @naval's new periscope. Really interesting as before, even with much less crypto!
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As Bitcoin touches $100 billion in value, don't forget that the Winklevoss twins are officially Bitcoin billionaires (1% BTC supply)
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More threads:
Kept quiet about this for almost a year out of fear but since I'm in good company with @tyler @cameron @brian_armstrong @elonmusk now..Last December, I got a call from JPM saying "we have to close anyone's account that we know their primary source of income/wealth is crypto. This is directly from the top from Jamie. I'm really sorry."
I had a close relationship with my banker so I assume 99% of people wouldn't even get that kind of transparency/explanation. Wanted to add my own name to the debanked OCP list @nic_carter. It's real. It happened. Hopefully now it will soon be over.
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The human stories of social money
In the last 9 months, social money was the way for hundreds of people to get their first crypto
Social money as a category has emerged
This is what takes Ethereum and crypto mainstream
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21/ Optimize for independence rather than optimize for pay. Being accountable for output rather than input is the dream.
We live in a world of leverage, so use that as much as possible. Judgement is far more important than hard work.
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25/25 Love of learning - more important than what you learn. Keeping your intellectual curiosity alive is very important.
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@CryptoKitties took NFTs mainstream back in 2017.
There are many aspects to this as a collector.
Here is some detailed information on fancies, a core collectability aspect of the game.
Thread 👇
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12/ Respect for what Elon Musk does. "Elon is the only guy who I watch and feel I am not doing anything interesting with my life".
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11/ If you try to do business with someone and you have e.g. envy, resentment, they'll feel it. Humans are wired to feel what the other person feels. Being anti-wealth will prevent you from becoming wealthy.
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Congrats on under-the-radar launch of $AXS from @AxieInfinity
You can now buy $AXS directly from Uniswap via the Roll List from @tryrollhq without having to enter the contract address manually.
CC @Jihoz_Axie
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10/ As an aside, if you really want to learn about signalling @robinhanson probably has some of the best thoughts on overcomingbias.com/ and his new book Elephant in the Brain - amazon.com/Elephant-Brain-Hi…
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We had no US banking for several years while one US company enjoyed a monopoly secured by its heavyweight investors. That singular bank was recently assassinated. We barely made it by focusing on Europe. @krakenfx has too many stories of clients and employees losing US banking.
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I had a spreadsheet of banks that denied me after I founded TradeHill and I'm still banned at HSBC, BofA, Chase, Citi, Wells and others. I'd try to talk to 5-10 a day at points. @jespow
Somehow made it through this and I've got a ton of respect for what he also endured.
Wells closed an account and everyone that was a signer on that account had every other account they were a signer on closed. This led to personal accounts and in the case of a guy that advised a few startups something like 12 accounts closed of companies he worked with.
Citi took almost a month to get my funds back to me and it came in the form of a check I found outside my door on the SF sidewalk. $320k or something like that on the ground next to a guy passed out in his own piss. Foreshadowing where SF was headed.
We had no issues with holding Bitcoin and only closed because we literally couldn't bank USD.
I even snuck in to the DFI and confronted a guy about regulatory clarity when they had failed to respond to emails and wouldn't take a meeting.
I got thrown out of the building without an answer. That was 2011 or 2012 the early Bitcoin days were wild.
It lingers, I tried to open a personal HSBC account 10 years later and got denied, chase won't give me a prepaid card.
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Cash App for consumers, CME derivatives for Wall Street. Seems like some good catalysts all around for wider adoption of Bitcoin over the coming months.
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1/ The process was pretty smooth. @renprotocol made it really easy to acquire renBTC from BTC.
1. Deposit BTC into an empty address they provide
2. Connect ETH address via @3boxdb
3. Wait for 6 confirmations and trigger a transaction to send you the renBTC
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9/ On his status elites tweet - wealth is a positive sum game, status is a zero-sum game. Lots of status signalling is against wealth. Don't seek status by attacking wealth. Great to create wealth for everyone.
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24/ Fear death? No one has a real relationship with death. We just ignore it. Otherwise, we can't function normally. Every moment is a death - you can never go back; dying and being reborn every moment. Fundamental mysteries of life are somewhere locked up in death.
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Y'all know the benefits of a Bitcoin ETF. Here's the cost side. This is even if you don't care about decentralization and just look at BTC as an asset.
Thread -
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8/ Fiction book recommendation - Snowcrash amazon.com/Snow-Crash-Novel-… "incredible cyberpunk novel, very forward looking. predicted VR, crypto, parts of the internet"
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It's funny to see all the 'DLT Experts' in every financial conference in US/Europe in 2016 now touting Bitcoin and crypto on Twitter.
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Netflix's 'Dirty Money' Episode 4 is a good intro to this. Seems like even HSBC execs were surprised how easy they got off.
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This has been a really devastating day. We'll get to the bottom of this and do our best to make it right by everyone affected.
Thanks to the amazing community that reached out to support us ♥️
Earlier today, the private keys to our hot wallet were compromised.
We're investigating this with our infrastructure provider, security engineers and law enforcement.
Additionally, we're putting together a $500,000 fund for creators affected by this.
rb.gy/mohc8b
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7/ Diet/nutrition is like politics - everyone thinks they're an expert and their identity is tied into this.
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Kinda surreal to see my BTC on Ethereum this way, but thanks to additional incentives to earn SNX, REN, CRV, BAL, seemed worth a try
Quick thread on the process and risks
I’ve had to re-explain this quad incentive pool so many times over the last few weeks. Example:
Farmer: Ok, Ok, I think I get it now, you take the Curve tokens and you put them into Balancer and then you get paid COMP?
Me: um, no.
Glad it’s live so I can say read the blog post!
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Had multiple bank account closed for no reason for my first Bitcoin mining company from 2017-2020
Fortunately this was not at my main personal bank account, but they don’t give a reason, there’s no appeal, no discussion
People at the local bank branches have zero power over the decision
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23/ We may be the first generation to really experience the internet, but the last generation that misses life extension. Overall - fantastic time to be alive.
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A year and a half ago, @el33th4xor and team released a "Bitcoin-NG" whitepaper: usenix.org/system/files/conf…. Today, Waves is implementing it on the Mainnet: blog.wavesplatform.com/waves…
Very interested to see how this works in the real world especially under a high transaction load.
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16/Quit job to move to SV? No brainer 2 years ago, if you were in tech industry and want to create something-maybe still the best idea.
Blockchain+ICO+internet+better video conf + Slack + permanent nomadic tech class means there are options now. Full flattening will take decades
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"Wrapped" tokens are a nice way to play the ERC20 token game with NFTs.
As usual, @CryptoKitties led the way with $WCK but there is a lot to unpack here.
A quick thread 👇
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The crypto market goes from under $20 billion beginning of the year to over $120 billion today. And this is mostly without wall street.
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Thank you @pmarca for shining a light on these events.
When I was 13, I opened a bank account to save the money from my summer job. 25 years later, I was debanked from this account in Operation Chokepoint 2.0 for being in the crypto industry.
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18/ On Equality- equal opportunity but different choices map to real world with different outcomes. Equal opportunity through free education, estate taxes, etc..
Equal outcome is exact opposite - slippery slope to communism. Equal outcome systems are awful.
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Not just barriers to entry, the taxpayers subsidize "too big to fail" banks.
That's why the cost of gov borrowing is 4.5% but Chase pays you 0.01%.
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Link to the full @pmarca episode: piped.video/watch?v=ye8MOfxD…
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Chilling
"It was 100% a political kill—one that was executed through intimidation of captive banking institutions."
How Libra Was Killed.
I never shared this publicly before, but since @pmarca opened the floodgates on @joerogan’s pod, it feels appropriate to shed more light on this.
As a reminder, Libra (then Diem) was an advanced, high-performance, payments-centric blockchain paired with a stablecoin that we built with my team at @Meta. It would’ve solved global payments at scale. Prior to announcing the project, we spent months briefing key regulators in DC and abroad. We then announced the project in June 2019 alongside 28 companies. Two weeks later, I was called to testify in front of both the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee, which was the starting point of two years of nonstop work and changes to appease lawmakers and regulators.
By spring of 2021 (yes they slow played us at every step), we had addressed every last possible regulatory concern across financial crime, money laundering, consumer protection, reserve management, buffers, and so much more, and we were ready to launch.
We had worked on a slow rollout of a limited pilot that some members of the Fed’s Board of Governors were supportive of. At last, Chair Jay Powell was ready to let us move forward in a limited way. The story, as I heard it, is that Jay Powell was told by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen at one of their biweekly meetings that allowing this project to move forward was “political suicide,” and she would not have his back if he let it happen. I wasn’t in the room when this conversation happened, so take these words with a grain of salt, but effectively this was the moment Libra was killed.
Shortly thereafter, the Fed organized calls with all the participating banks, and the Fed’s general counsel read a prepared statement to each of them, saying: “We can’t stop you from moving forward and launching, but we are not comfortable with you doing so.” And just like that, it was over.
One essential point is worth making here. There was no legal or regulatory angle left for the government or regulators to kill the project. It was 100% a political kill—one that was executed through intimidation of captive banking institutions. That was the hardest part of this story for me personally. Not that we had failed, but that America, this country I immigrated to and became a proud citizen of because of its rule of law and value system, behaved in such a way for political reasons. It was a very tough pill to swallow.
The bright side of the story, though, was the many learnings from this wild ride. By the end of the project, we had made so many concessions to get a thumbs-up that the whole design of the network became a Frankenstein of our initial ambitions.
We also learned the biggest lesson of all, which is that if you’re trying to build an open money grid for the world—eventually moving trillions of dollars a day, designed to be here 100 years from now—you have to build it on the most neutral, decentralized, unassailable network and asset, which, hands down, is Bitcoin.
And now this is what many of us who went through this scarring journey are building together at @Lightspark. And this time, we won’t stop until we get it done!
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14/ (BI cont) Sentiment is good, execution is flawed. People want to work/express themselves. No one wants to feel useless.
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13/ Basic income is very tricky. The best BI is one you create through technology abundance. Money - insatiable, always want more. BI + Direct Democracy may be a complete collapse into socialism. If 51% vote all the money from 49%, they would.
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In a nutshell, The DAO was NOT decentralized. Slock.it team had considerable power and control.
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The most exciting things being built on Ethereum today are new asset classes:
Social money (community assets)
Gaming NFTs (gaming assets)
Art NFTs (rare artistic assets)
These will be the most transformational developments looking back 5 years
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1/ Not much information on Twitter about yield farming on Polygon @0xPolygon, which has been very steady and profitable for some time now.
Here's a non-degen sustainable yield farming guide on Polygon. You can get over 50% APR.👇
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6/ Sensible diets that work avoid the combo of fat+sugar. Sugar makes you hungry, fat makes you satiated. Hard to find this combo in nature other than some tropical fruits like coconut or mango.
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We are entering the boring phase of crypto (wrt price) which usually means the most exciting phase of crypto (wrt building projects).
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Interesting to see Bitcoin reach near 50% crypto dominance during the bear market and only around 47.5% in this bull market.
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Yet to see a more comprehensive town hall from a project than what @WhaleShark_Pro pulled off just now. Updates, announcements, and 80+ community questions answered 🤯 $WHALE
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20/ On Eduation - We are mis-educated. Univ. is credentialing. Arisocracy in US is people who went to good schools. Separate credentialing from education. (Aside: again, read @robinhanson for more).
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1/ You can now stream social money from @tryrollhq on @SablierHQ ! Here's why this is a defining moment for #defi on $ETH -
Social money on Sablier! You can now stream these tokens:
+ $ALEX
+ $CALVIN
+ $CAMI
+ $CNSL
+ $DUDE
+ $FORCER
+ $HUE
+ $JULIEN
+ $STANI
Maybe ask their creators if they'd give you their time in exchange for a stream?
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If you invested $1000 in #Stratis ICO, you'd be a millionaire today but still owe short-term capital gains because it hasn't been a year!
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1/ Super excited to announce this round, with a wonderful set of investors! 🙏
Social money has emerged as a category, but as they say, we're just getting started. Some high level thoughts after this round 👇
🥳 We’re happy to bring on some new investors to further the social money category and take it mainstream.
This is one of the most exciting categories in Web3.
Social money is a new type of capital that will shape this decade for digital creators. ⬇️
medium.com/roll-protocol/wer…
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Huge congrats to @AxieInfinity team for this raise! They have been relentlessly at work for the last 3 years, building through the bear market.
CC @Jihoz_Axie @Psycheout86
NEW: The CryptoKitties-meets-Pokemon blockchain game @AxieInfinity has raised $860,000 in a strategic sale of its $AXS governance token led by @Delphi_Digital.
@doreenjwang reports
trib.al/OmC8Nks
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"Dem leaders called Visa with similar messages"
I can confirm Dem leaders called Visa with similar messages. Our crypto team had to backtrack our support.
There were plenty of critiques of how Libra might work but the fact that the experiment was not allowed to move forward was a huge step backwards for the USA.
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1/ Everyone in Bitcoin needs to be aware of Drivechain. Here's @Truthcoin's (long) video on the topic: piped.video/watch?v=gUbGT70w… @CryptAxe
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1/ Social money fits into the broader framework of
- A new form of emerging capital "User Generated Capital"
- Permissionless trading
- Community ownership
These trends become even more important in light of recent events
In this guest post, @Bradley_Miles_ breaks down the rise of user-generated capital: an emerging category using social money, NFTs, and DeFi as a way to grow the creator economy. messari.io/article/the-rise-…
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What a harsh reality to face! In 2020, I was debanked by Bank of America, despite being a loyal customer since the age of 15. All my personal checking, savings, and business accounts were abruptly shut down in a single day without any explanation. The experience was not only shocking but also devastating, as it effectively dismantled the financial foundation of my life. Worse still, it left me unable to process payroll for my employees.
The only possible reason I could imagine at the time was my transactions with Coinbase. Ignorant me thought it was an act against the crypto industry—until now. It's clear we need to SHUT DOWN Elizabeth Warrens' CFPB and allow crypto fintech companies to thrive, empowering a new generation of hardworking innovators who deserve access to progress and success!
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We just hit a 1000 unique active users on Roll. Excited to take cryptoassets mainstream, one community at a time! @tryrollhq
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While living in Switzerland, I got my personal UBS account closed all of a sudden. I never had any crypto flows through them, I got regular payroll there and paid for my living expenses.
They said they were using point X of their terms of service which allowed them to kick customers out without any explanation. They refused many times to tell me why they were closing my account. When I got the notice, I had 1 day to transfer everything elsewhere or it would be a slow painful process to reclaim it.
I went to the bank in person for something else and I saw the guy that used to meet with me when they wanted to sell me something. I pressured him a bit to tell me why they had closed my account. After a while, he hinted that me being the cofounder of Aragon made me a risky customer and they were dropping me. There were also hints that my account/services with them weren't high enough for them to consider the risk worthwhile. It was as if the fees I was paying weren't enough of a bribe for them to bank me.
I still have some money trapped with them for some Swiss pension whatever bullshit which requires a mountain of paperwork in German to get out.
Ditch your bank.
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4/ Some interesting thoughts on why tokens on public blockchains. Public blockchain is a governance network for distributed resources. Keep track of it = ledger w/credit+debit = tokens
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1/ The Defiant has become THE place for the best Ethereum content. @CamiRusso is really knowledgeable about the space and not afraid to ask the hard questions. Was a really fun chat about Roll (@tryrollhq) - a quick thread 👇
Social Money is so uniquely Web3🌈
Anyone can issue personal tokens & earn/trade/send them to
1) exchange value w/out exchanging $
2) strengthen ties global in communities
3) reclaim capital captured by tech giants
@tryrollhq cofounders explain here:
bit.ly/38Y5eEV
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Whatever your thoughts on the actual projects, Dan knows how to make a sh!t ton of money in crypto
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A great summary of #tokensummit by @laurashin forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2… @wmougayar @smithandcrown @coinfund
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This is the original link to the Periscope: pscp.tv/w/1MnGneBLZVmKO
And this was his first Periscope last month: pscp.tv/w/1eaKbqrWloRxX
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'Regulated ICOs' all sounds well and good, but if that destroys the liquidity in the market, are they going to be any good anyway? /1
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A thread on the economics of social money 👇
hackernoon.com/the-economics…
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Consumer apps are hot now, but @CryptoKitties is the OG consumer application in the space.
It took NFTs mainstream overnight, with news coverage from NYTimes to Bloomberg to Tech Crunch.
Cryptokitties was one of the first still standing crypto articles on Wikipedia.
A lot of builders, from @doodles to @Jihoz_Axie to @pranksy and @natealex were from the original CryptoKitties community discord.
It spawned the culture of the movement, and of the broader crypto culture on Ethereum as well. All contracts, including the breeding contract, is immutable and has never changed.
It was also the first time true interoperability was at play. Developers were permissionlessly building apps like Kitty Hats (hats for your cats of course).
While the zeitgeist of the space has moved on, CryptoKitties remains something for the history books.
Here is a detailed guide to fancies, if you're a collector 👇
@CryptoKitties took NFTs mainstream back in 2017.
There are many aspects to this as a collector.
Here is some detailed information on fancies, a core collectability aspect of the game.
Thread 👇
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DAOs holding DAOs to invest in DAOs and sometimes people - incredible!
Proud to announce that we have acquired a small stake in the $KARMA token and are also proud members of @karma_dao. We'll be actively participating in the community, presenting projects we find and sharing more about what we learn with DAOs.
medium.com/@andrwlee/announc…
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22/ Most exciting changes right now? We live in tech marvels but take it for granted. Pace of tech change is accelerating so much. Reach for all humans to live a life of abundance.
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To those who have newly discovered NFTs, check out @ConnieDigital art - an NFT OG and always on the cutting edge of tech. $HUE
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I had this happen to me in 2019. My pregnant wife was calling. She was at the grocery store checkout with a bunch of groceries waiting in bags. “None of the cards are working.” She was embarrassed and upset. I could hear our 1 year old crying in the background. “I’m coming” I said. I was about an hour away. As I walked to my car it hit me that if I didn’t have enough gas I wouldn’t have a way to get more. I would be stranded. I wouldn’t have a way to get to my wife and daughter.
Luckily I had enough gas to get home. Later on @TD_Canada called to say it was an “honest mistake” that they didn’t give us any heads up, but that we should still proceed with pulling all our funds off TD immediately. Right before Christmas.
It was a surreal experience. It motivates me. An upgrade to the system is coming.
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We've added some amazing new projects to our Uniswap List (and on the Roll exchange from @tryrollhq) 👇
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1/ Today, we’re excited to announce the first step of integrating social money with open finance @tryrollhq
1/ Some news: A Social Money Exchange Powered by @uniswapexchange
We’ve forked the @Uniswapexchange frontend and will begin listing social money tokens in the coming weeks.
Anyone can begin trading ETH for social money and vice-versa. Read more 👇
tryroll.com/social-money-exc…
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"20+ year customer of Wells Fargo"
20+ year customer of @WellsFargo and then they closed my checking account last year with no explanation. The local branch couldn't see anything on their side to explain why. Last week they closed my credit card too. Had wired to Coinbase in the past.
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5/ On Ketogenic diet - not an expert on diet, but seems artificial. Doesn't agree with @zooko (we've been eating plants for thousands of years).
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1/ The book Elephant in the Brain from @robinhanson and @KevinSimler had some surprising insights to the real world. TLDR - read the book even if you think you know a lot about signalling/etc.
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So in 6 months of $HUE:
-Get rewards on @tryrollhq
-Buy art+NFTs on @opensea
-Pool/trade on @UniswapExchange
-Stream on @SablierHQ
-Tip via tip.cc
-OTC via @airswap
-1-click liquidity via @DeFi_Zap
and this is just the beginning 🤯
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