Idan Levinmodular vs. monolithic
The 2023 price rally in Solana has ignited a fiery ‘geeky’ discussion on X between developer communities regarding different blockchain architectures. It is quite common to watch tribes of developers and investors in crypto land fighting over what is the best/right tech, and “modular vs. monolithic” is the current hot discussion. So, it is worthwhile explaining what modular and monolithic are, and why it matters: Modern blockchains store shared state and execute code, and the big question is ...
Idan Levinwhy I don't believe in monolithic blockchains (from first principles)
Blockchains are computers.Computer history has shown us that when you build more bandwidth, storage, and compute capacity, developers build more demanding apps and use these excess resources.That is why, no matter how many transactions/gas you can process per second, if you’re a successful blockchain, it will never be enough.This will result in one of two scenarios: fees go up, or you need to increase hardware/networking requirements for nodes (which leads to centralization).You can’t solve t...
Idan Levinimport, enrich, export - enriching experiences with farcaster social graph
Farcaster offers a new way to enrich crypto financial experiences, whether it’s buying physical items, digital items like NFTs, sports betting, or engaging in prediction markets. This allows for the integration of standalone web applications into a more socially interactive environment.Import, Enrich, ExportOne of the key advantages of Farcaster is its open API, which stands in contrast to other social platforms that often try to lock users in. With Farcaster, you can always export data with ...
Standing on the shoulders of giants 🌌
Idan Levinmodular vs. monolithic
The 2023 price rally in Solana has ignited a fiery ‘geeky’ discussion on X between developer communities regarding different blockchain architectures. It is quite common to watch tribes of developers and investors in crypto land fighting over what is the best/right tech, and “modular vs. monolithic” is the current hot discussion. So, it is worthwhile explaining what modular and monolithic are, and why it matters: Modern blockchains store shared state and execute code, and the big question is ...
Idan Levinwhy I don't believe in monolithic blockchains (from first principles)
Blockchains are computers.Computer history has shown us that when you build more bandwidth, storage, and compute capacity, developers build more demanding apps and use these excess resources.That is why, no matter how many transactions/gas you can process per second, if you’re a successful blockchain, it will never be enough.This will result in one of two scenarios: fees go up, or you need to increase hardware/networking requirements for nodes (which leads to centralization).You can’t solve t...
Idan Levinimport, enrich, export - enriching experiences with farcaster social graph
Farcaster offers a new way to enrich crypto financial experiences, whether it’s buying physical items, digital items like NFTs, sports betting, or engaging in prediction markets. This allows for the integration of standalone web applications into a more socially interactive environment.Import, Enrich, ExportOne of the key advantages of Farcaster is its open API, which stands in contrast to other social platforms that often try to lock users in. With Farcaster, you can always export data with ...
Standing on the shoulders of giants 🌌
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The discussion on Crypto Twitter about why prediction markets don’t work really captures the essence of the expectations gap between crypto core enthusiasts/leaders and the users (“the people”).
Crypto enthusiasts love the idea of prediction markets and the information efficiency they can bring to the world when done on an internet scale (Vitalik’s take’).
Yet, they seem to overlook that, at the moment, prediction markets are - (drum roll)
not fun.
We can label it differently (UX, etc.), but the truth is they’re just not as much fun right now. or perhaps it’s better said - they’re much less fun compared to other crypto activities.
For example:
betting on hamster races on telegram - really fun
swapping meme coins on uniswap - really fun
flipping jpegs on blur - really fun
betting on who will be the next president of Argentina - much less fun. maybe around 10%-15% fun level of the above activities.
In terms of contribution to the efficiency of society:
betting on hamster races on telegram - zero contribution
swapping meme coins on uniswap - zero contribution
flipping jpegs on blur - zero contribution
betting on the next president of Argentina - significant contribution to information efficiency
We need to bring the fun level of prediction markets closer to other activities. then, we’ll reach the ‘changing the world’ zone - lots of fun and significant contribution.
(originally published on idanlevin.xyz on 2024-01-04)
The discussion on Crypto Twitter about why prediction markets don’t work really captures the essence of the expectations gap between crypto core enthusiasts/leaders and the users (“the people”).
Crypto enthusiasts love the idea of prediction markets and the information efficiency they can bring to the world when done on an internet scale (Vitalik’s take’).
Yet, they seem to overlook that, at the moment, prediction markets are - (drum roll)
not fun.
We can label it differently (UX, etc.), but the truth is they’re just not as much fun right now. or perhaps it’s better said - they’re much less fun compared to other crypto activities.
For example:
betting on hamster races on telegram - really fun
swapping meme coins on uniswap - really fun
flipping jpegs on blur - really fun
betting on who will be the next president of Argentina - much less fun. maybe around 10%-15% fun level of the above activities.
In terms of contribution to the efficiency of society:
betting on hamster races on telegram - zero contribution
swapping meme coins on uniswap - zero contribution
flipping jpegs on blur - zero contribution
betting on the next president of Argentina - significant contribution to information efficiency
We need to bring the fun level of prediction markets closer to other activities. then, we’ll reach the ‘changing the world’ zone - lots of fun and significant contribution.
(originally published on idanlevin.xyz on 2024-01-04)
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