Summer of Protocols

teddit

hard truths:

1. crypto isn’t growing, in fact it’s more cringe than ever because of the new admin embracing it / $trump

2. it’s not realistic to generate a full-time sustainable income on farcaster, $degen and $higher were anomaly wealth events

3. majority of the world doesn’t think in terms of markets 24/7

I don’t think “cringe” matters in the long term. It does pose some minor short-term risks but the arbiters of “cool” rarely prevail historically. 

The bigger risk is that crypto doesn’t dig in deep enough technologically to fulfill its potential for censorship resistance, hardened commons, public goods funding (fine Vitalik, “open-source funding”), zk black magic etc.

These potential features are what might make it a technology in the same weight class as AI. Right now they’re like evil twins, except one is a giant and the other an Oompa Loompa. This is also why d/acc is an important direction, but currently very unequal

Stablecoins are… fine. They buy time. Like bretton woods.

But it is important not to let perceptions of cringe/cool distract from the tech roadmap. This is infrastructure tech. What retail influencers and techlashers think simply doesn’t matter. Those same people also think AI is stochastic parrots and social media should be replaced by actually cringe trad rituals.

Delver at contraptions.venkateshrao.com, running summerofprotocols.com, host of /gloom ☀️