Technology trends are mercurial. With early commercial mobile phones - let’s call this the OG Nokia era - the shared industry design goal was to shrink them down. Blackberry and Apple then swept through and the switch to smartphones saw them beef back up. The point is that innovation isn’t linear. What’s built today, even if it fundamentally changes society, can end up as a relic tomorrow. The finished product was actually just another step in a broader design process.Credit: Damian Newman (T...

Technology trends are mercurial. With early commercial mobile phones - let’s call this the OG Nokia era - the shared industry design goal was to shrink them down. Blackberry and Apple then swept through and the switch to smartphones saw them beef back up. The point is that innovation isn’t linear. What’s built today, even if it fundamentally changes society, can end up as a relic tomorrow. The finished product was actually just another step in a broader design process.Credit: Damian Newman (T...

The gm Portfolio is focused on decentralized exchanges which will be the majority of its core positions. Why DEXs? At this early stage of the DeFi arc, the products that have found the highest level of product-market fit are DEXs, perpetual swap platforms, and lending platforms. Other niches, such as options and insurance, are still very much in their infancy. So why focus more on DEXs and not on lending platforms or perpetuals platforms? Because they have additional layers of risk that DEXs ...

The gm Portfolio is focused on decentralized exchanges which will be the majority of its core positions. Why DEXs? At this early stage of the DeFi arc, the products that have found the highest level of product-market fit are DEXs, perpetual swap platforms, and lending platforms. Other niches, such as options and insurance, are still very much in their infancy. So why focus more on DEXs and not on lending platforms or perpetuals platforms? Because they have additional layers of risk that DEXs ...

We created spicy.vote to experiment with an alternative way of exploring DAO governance. The starting proposition was that, in order to get to the spicy core of effective governance, we need to first understand those pivotal, divisive votes that make or break DAOs. The majority of proposals are upgrades or consensus-driven changes, but it’s often the most contentious proposals that tell the more interesting stories. Our core notion for this round of updates was that informed voting would lead...

We created spicy.vote to experiment with an alternative way of exploring DAO governance. The starting proposition was that, in order to get to the spicy core of effective governance, we need to first understand those pivotal, divisive votes that make or break DAOs. The majority of proposals are upgrades or consensus-driven changes, but it’s often the most contentious proposals that tell the more interesting stories. Our core notion for this round of updates was that informed voting would lead...

Previously I have written how liquidity “primitives” like Uniswap don’t attempt to have a direct relationship with the customer. They are deep in the DeFi stack. Their primary goal is simply to aggregate as much liquidity as possible such that the entities at the top of the stack, such as aggregators, are forced to route user interactions through this liquidity. While other DeFi primitives like Curve Finance and AAVE have continued to focus primarily on liquidity-maximization, Uniswap appears...

Previously I have written how liquidity “primitives” like Uniswap don’t attempt to have a direct relationship with the customer. They are deep in the DeFi stack. Their primary goal is simply to aggregate as much liquidity as possible such that the entities at the top of the stack, such as aggregators, are forced to route user interactions through this liquidity. While other DeFi primitives like Curve Finance and AAVE have continued to focus primarily on liquidity-maximization, Uniswap appears...

What’s the most important factor for success in crypto investing? I wish I could say it’s fundamental analysis because I spend a lot of time doing that. And unfortunately for the savvy traders, I don’t think short term trading skill is the answer either. Rather, it’s the ability to time the cycle well. Get in and out at the right time, and even the stinkiest of poopcoins will net you a ten bagger. Time the cycle wrong, and even Ethereum will cost you a 70% drawdown. Even though cycles were do...

What’s the most important factor for success in crypto investing? I wish I could say it’s fundamental analysis because I spend a lot of time doing that. And unfortunately for the savvy traders, I don’t think short term trading skill is the answer either. Rather, it’s the ability to time the cycle well. Get in and out at the right time, and even the stinkiest of poopcoins will net you a ten bagger. Time the cycle wrong, and even Ethereum will cost you a 70% drawdown. Even though cycles were do...

With AI-generated content and profiles proliferating exponentially, I’ve been frequently asking myself “Is this human-generated?” and “Do I even care?”. I believe that though seemingly simple, these are two of the biggest questions in determining the future of social media and guessing at what new customs will emerge from the coming chaos.ChaosWe are just entering the “confusion” stage with AI-generated content. AI is leading an information revolution, rapidly democratizing the dissemination ...

With AI-generated content and profiles proliferating exponentially, I’ve been frequently asking myself “Is this human-generated?” and “Do I even care?”. I believe that though seemingly simple, these are two of the biggest questions in determining the future of social media and guessing at what new customs will emerge from the coming chaos.ChaosWe are just entering the “confusion” stage with AI-generated content. AI is leading an information revolution, rapidly democratizing the dissemination ...

Note: this assumes a high level of familiarity with Curve ecosystem tokenomics. For a primer, read this first. It’s been a while since I caught up on the Curve Wars. When I last wrote about Convex, it was in a power position and I didn’t see much hope for Yearn to compete, at least in terms of veCRV control. Since then, new Yearn tokenomics have been introduced, and particularly interesting is their apparent focus on capturing more CRV. Note that Yearn’s veCRV share has inched up while Convex...

Note: this assumes a high level of familiarity with Curve ecosystem tokenomics. For a primer, read this first. It’s been a while since I caught up on the Curve Wars. When I last wrote about Convex, it was in a power position and I didn’t see much hope for Yearn to compete, at least in terms of veCRV control. Since then, new Yearn tokenomics have been introduced, and particularly interesting is their apparent focus on capturing more CRV. Note that Yearn’s veCRV share has inched up while Convex...

This is our second ChatGPT tinker. Make sure to check out PixelWhimsy, an NFT collection developed (almost entirely) by AI. Lots of DAOs bloomed out of DeFi summer, most wilted, but a few remain perennial. Those thriving today are a hotbed of collective opinions, decision-making, and execution. We decided to use ChatGPT to cut away the thicket of governance and offer a glimpse into those DAOs where votes have the biggest, opinion-splitting impact. spicy.vote is our aggregator for active and c...

This is our second ChatGPT tinker. Make sure to check out PixelWhimsy, an NFT collection developed (almost entirely) by AI. Lots of DAOs bloomed out of DeFi summer, most wilted, but a few remain perennial. Those thriving today are a hotbed of collective opinions, decision-making, and execution. We decided to use ChatGPT to cut away the thicket of governance and offer a glimpse into those DAOs where votes have the biggest, opinion-splitting impact. spicy.vote is our aggregator for active and c...

As mentioned previously, I believe crypto-specific blow-ups and forced liquidation is behind us. Yet the gm Portfolio is in cash with the thesis that crypto will go down with the rest of the public markets should the economy enter a recession and public equities suffer a bear market. Here are some things we are monitoring as milestones along a way towards taking long positions in crypto: 1. Yield curves steepen (un-invert). Currently, the US Treasury 2-year/10-year and the 3-month/10-year spr...

As mentioned previously, I believe crypto-specific blow-ups and forced liquidation is behind us. Yet the gm Portfolio is in cash with the thesis that crypto will go down with the rest of the public markets should the economy enter a recession and public equities suffer a bear market. Here are some things we are monitoring as milestones along a way towards taking long positions in crypto: 1. Yield curves steepen (un-invert). Currently, the US Treasury 2-year/10-year and the 3-month/10-year spr...

The 1982 Blade Runner is a masterpiece. A recent rewatch brought up questions about AI and how crypto-biometrics could ultimately curtail the concerns around it The story uses the fictional Voight-Kampff test to gauge emotion responses of rogue Replicants (androids). If they fail, they get retired. Our great conflict with artificial intelligence is the idea that it will one day be capable of unrestrained, subversive decision making. There’s a looming fear that the novel products we’re using t...

The 1982 Blade Runner is a masterpiece. A recent rewatch brought up questions about AI and how crypto-biometrics could ultimately curtail the concerns around it The story uses the fictional Voight-Kampff test to gauge emotion responses of rogue Replicants (androids). If they fail, they get retired. Our great conflict with artificial intelligence is the idea that it will one day be capable of unrestrained, subversive decision making. There’s a looming fear that the novel products we’re using t...

The DeFi ecosystem needs lending markets for the long tail of protocol tokens.Being able to borrow and sell a token (short) is good for price discovery. One reason so many tokens acquire insane valuations in a bull market is there is no way to short them. I could find nowhere to short LUNA with size back in May.Perpetuals aren’t available on these long tail tokens because there’s no way for a market maker to be delta neutral during negative funding rates (long perpetual, short spot) without a...

The DeFi ecosystem needs lending markets for the long tail of protocol tokens.Being able to borrow and sell a token (short) is good for price discovery. One reason so many tokens acquire insane valuations in a bull market is there is no way to short them. I could find nowhere to short LUNA with size back in May.Perpetuals aren’t available on these long tail tokens because there’s no way for a market maker to be delta neutral during negative funding rates (long perpetual, short spot) without a...

Ethereum will not be a core position in the gm Portfolio anytime soon. Why not? First, it’s too big already with a current market cap of around ~$215B at the time of writing. It will certainly perform well in a bull market and may be the safest crypto of them all, but it’s much harder for a wave to move an aircraft carrier than a sailboat.Second, everyone will have Ethereum in their portfolio. Where is the fun in that? Ethereum may be a part of the gm Portfolio eventually, but only late in th...

Ethereum will not be a core position in the gm Portfolio anytime soon. Why not? First, it’s too big already with a current market cap of around ~$215B at the time of writing. It will certainly perform well in a bull market and may be the safest crypto of them all, but it’s much harder for a wave to move an aircraft carrier than a sailboat.Second, everyone will have Ethereum in their portfolio. Where is the fun in that? Ethereum may be a part of the gm Portfolio eventually, but only late in th...