derivative trends i can't stop thinking about (maybe 1 - 3 years out still):
1. the surrogacy stack
2. concierge internet, i.e. premium curators
3. water / cooling innovation for data centers
4. cognitive fitness as status
5. compliance tech for AI, sanctions, prediction markets
happy new year!!! what a wild rollercoaster of a year but a few things i’m grateful for:
- becoming an aunt
- gaining soon-to-be sister-in-law
- @woj LA era
- more time with family
- dream job
- deeper friendships
- encouragement to do hard things (and did some of them!!!)
excited for 2026!
markets and liquidity are only intuitive or common sense if you think in systems, incentives, and constraints; reality is that most humans don’t by default.
instead human instincts are built for storytelling, fairness, value, and linear cause/effect.
people in crypto are an exception, not the rule.
incredible example of a Rorschach test
"what a time to be alive" feels like a take, but it's actually noncommittal and lets the reader supply the emotion (excitement vs. lament)
running through the replies and quote casts demonstrates this exact projective psychology
merry christmas!!! grateful to all the internet people i met here that turned into IRL friends or groupchats, the founders that have built products i use regularly, and all of the ups and downs along the way. hope you are all doing something you love today ❤️
recently used two prediction market mobile apps — one on waitlist and one in somewhat stealth — that completely reimagined the UX in the best possible way
took out the mental friction and multiclick effort you see on most websites today and made placing a trade simple, fun and intuitive
bullish
"A 2025 paper by researchers at Northwestern and the University of Chicago found that crypto investing is most common among middle- and lower-middle-class renters.
On its own, this fact is sort of bizarre: For most asset classes, investments rise with income. But these renters, who are on the verge of homeownership, seem to be 'gambling for redemption'."
a motivating part of working at @privy is how tightly GTM and eng pair for customers + product
i’ve worked at places that told me not to “distract the engineers" but at privy, we’re encouraged AND trusted to pull eng into high signal feedback so we can ship the right features fast
ps we're hiring!!!
Phantom announced prediction markets with Kalshi today.
apparently Coinbase will roll them out them next week.
Robinhood building their own.
crypto.com and bitget wallet also offer prediction markets.
okx too (with limitless, launched in october).
all dope but none of them have built-in social.
i hope farcaster integrates prediction markets
bc i love @dwr's takes on the future of the world
and even if we can't see his bets elsewhere i KNOW he would 100000% dogfood farcaster's prediction markets + social feed
so accordingly we would get more @dwr takes
for someone who doesn't have time to track every single trade in real-time, Senpi lets me participate in the market without losing time, sanity, or a lot of $$
plus love to see @privy's signers functionality in action :)
awesome that the Senpi team has now shipped HL so i can do the same with perps 👀
strong opinions, loosely held:
1. skeptical that memecoins will have mass appeal outside of canon viral events like $trump or $fartcoin; it’s small group of traders that hasn’t grown significantly over the past year
2. prediction markets are better fit for mass appeal because they have a lower barrier to entry and success, largely driven by a) binary nature of the outcome, b) an expiration date so you don’t need to time your exit or be online 24/7 to win, c) most often priced in USD stables
3. perps are a better fit for sophisticated traders, mainly traditional finance investors (eg hedge funds); this will become more apparent as more sophisticated traders enter the field and take advantage of information arbitrage in a way most retail traders cannot
getting lots of "what are builder codes?" replies and DMs
HL (imo) pioneered builder codes as an onchain, per-order attribution mechanism that lets apps / frontends earn fees on orders they route for users. built-in rev share for builders.
now kalshi, polymarket, and others (incl Ethereum with ERC-8021) are starting to do this as well. some other fun facts:
1. HL and PM have data APIs so volume and leaderboard data are public.
2. if you use polymarket builder codes, polymarket covers gas fees for the builder.
3. even Phantom is using HL's builder codes (generates $100k in daily rev last month).
this allows app developers to monetize their contributions to trading volume in a more predictable, product-driven way.
could be convinced by this argument, but doesn't take into consideration that good traders *do* care about the underlying chain (for now, at least).
each chain has its own trading dynamics (e.g. activity, timeline, trends) that influence the decisions top traders are making on how, when to trade assets.
