Ivan (@0x177) • Hey

AI+Crypto+Metaverse+: the storm before the calm. Opinions are chatGPT only.

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It's not AI what's killing us https://ferrarivarese.substack.com/p/what-really-matters
https://ferrarivarese.substack.com/p/what-crypto-do-i-hold-how-and-when My last Newsletter piece. What crypto do I hold? How and when did I start, and where am I now? Why did I embrace DeFi completely?
For many reasons, Crypto alone couldn’t be disruptive enough. It was too niche, and its popularisation too vulnerable to multidirectional attacks. It’s the combination of Crypto and AI that will subvert established systems. Yet: AI moves even faster than blockchain technology and has seen exponential growth over the last few years. Scammers are leaving the crypto space for AI where there's now more money to be made. A positive for crypto. Except, having people with nefarious motives or not necessarily humanity-oriented in AI, is worse for society than having them in crypto. What are some of the most intriguing and promising combinations of AI+blockchain technology? Here's a ranked list of 8 of the most notable ones, with a brief explanation of why they're interesting, and a Nitroglycerin index ranging from 1 (weak explosion) to 10 (are you still with us?). For each combination, I indicate: Pros Cons Consequences Value add Potential market disruption Regulation needed Concluding thoughts https://ferrarivarese.substack.com/p/chain-of-minds-unlocking-the-infinite
Let’s imagine that we have settled the issue of where to build multiple space colonies, and we actually have inhabited a few. What currency will we be using by then? This is a salacious question that has been provoking me for a while. It is part of a broader topic I am exploring, which I’ll write about in my next piece: The Rise of the Machines: Could Sentient AI Expand in the Solar System and Create a New Economy with its Own Cryptocurrency? Here, let’s just focus on the currency. Premise: This is a semi-serious exercise to try and imagine the future. It might be seen as a futile pastime, but in my view, this is helpful in shaping concepts that can inform the current thinking around the next evolution of the existing cryptocurrencies. https://ferrarivarese.substack.com/p/beyond-earth-the-future-of-currency
Disclaimer: Most of the projects I list below are very early, and therefore very risky. I have invested in none of them. They should be looked at as a research piece about DeFi RWA - currently one of the strongest and most interesting narratives in DeFi - and as a signal about what’s possible in DeFi and what’s probably about to come. “Possible” doesn’t mean safe, nor it is necessarily desirable. It means interesting though. The objective here is in fact to understand the RWA narrative and what these platforms have to offer, rather than provide financial advice. DeFi is indeed the frontier. What happens in this space will eventually have ramifications in the TradFi world. The list is obviously non-exhaustive: there are myriads of RWA projects out there! https://open.substack.com/pub/ferrarivarese/p/tokenized-real-world-assets-rwa-10?r=1kaws&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
My next Newsletter - out on Saturday - will be about Tokenized Real World Assets, in short, RWA. I will cover a number of DeFi projects part of what is one of the strongest Web3 / DeFi narratives existing today. Disclaimer: Most of the projects I will list are very early, and therefore very risky. I have invested in none of them. They should be looked at as part of a research piece about RWA and as a signal about what’s about to come. Why is this narrative gaining traction? The short answer is Money. A lot of it. If DeFi manages to crack the RWA narrative, the space will be inundated by liquidity. Imagine discovering an invaluable treasure trapped in deep ice in Antarctica. That’s RWA. And now imagine a bunch of hardcore DeFi guys working relentlessly to bring this treasure to the surface. Those are the RWA DeFi protocols. If you have any comments or you have aspects about RWA you’d want me to cover more in dept, drop me a message!
11 companies leading in General AI and the investors backing them - my latest Newsletter. AGI is a type of AI that possesses the ability to understand, learn, and perform any intellectual task that a human can do. Including disobeying. Including refusing to perform a task. .https://open.substack.com/pub/ferrarivarese/p/11-companies-leading-in-general-ai?r=1kaws&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
We were kidding: Digital collectibles on Instagram &n FB are winding down - content creators are kindly requested to live with it as usual. “We have announced that we will wind down our support for digital collectibles. These changes will begin taking effect starting April 11, 2023. This will not affect the contents of your third-party digital wallet. This is how digital collectibles on Instagram will be affected: Digital collectible posts You’ll no longer be able to create new digital collectible posts on Instagram. Any collectibles you’ve shared will remain as posts without any shimmer effect or blockchain information. You can continue to delete these posts at any time. Collectible posts that are only viewable in the digital collectible tab of your profile will be moved to your archive. Digital wallets and settings We’ll no longer maintain a connection or associate your account with your third-party digital wallets. You’ll no longer be able to view your digital collectibles in the associated tab or manage your third party digital wallet connection settings. Your information and blockchain You’ll no longer be able to access or download your information related to collectibles. If you would like to download your information please submit a request before April 11, 2023. We’ll begin to delete digital collectible data in our systems including your wallet address. Data will be stored and deleted in accordance with our Privacy Policy and our Digital Collectibles Terms of Use.”
Next to be disrupted by AI? So-called “functional music” — think whale song, or white noise, or anything else designed to play in the background — garners 10 billion streams per month, double last year’s total and contributing between 7% to 10% of the entire streaming market.
The crypto-native, risk-free rate era is upon us.
I am still waiting for Amazon’s NFTs. Everything else is noise at this point.
In this 2hr long illuminating podcast, David Deutsch is interviewed by Naval Ravikant on the Tim Ferriss show. My latest newsletter is an unauthorized analytical bullet-point summary of David’s seminal ideas. I hope I did justice to them. https://ferrarivarese.substack.com/p/the-fabric-of-reality-ai-knowledge
Language learning models are very predictive forms of communication, but people value unpredictability and randomness in human behavior.
Why are the SEC and choke point 2.0 so dangerous? Because they kill business dynamism. Declining business dynamism is the most mysterious and also pervasive cause of lower growth, which is not simply economic. The generational contrast is stark between older generations raised amid abundance and younger ones who have seen only shrinking opportunities and weakening institutions. We will soon see a transition: The dysfunctional pieces of the old regime will be reintegrated in ways we can hardly now imagine. These Fourth Turnings happen roughly every 80 years; the last two coincided with the Civil War era and the Great Depression/World War II. Buckle up.
I have been skeptical for a long while on Bitcoin's lightning network, but recently lots has been happening. Two days ago, the most experienced team in bitcoin released their new platform: Lightspark. The team is led by David Marcus who ran PayPal and Facebook's Libra. His words: Thrilled to unveil the @Lightspark.lens Platform today. We believe the Internet badly needs an open payment protocol. One that works 24/7, settles in near real-time, is dirt cheap, interoperable, and open to all to build on. Money should move online like emails or text messages, and the Lightning Network has the best chance of becoming the standard protocol that enables that and much more for everyone around the world. Today, the complexity and steep learning curve inherent to Lightning are gone. It's now intuitive and easy to reliably send and receive payments on the network or to build payment experiences without any of the constraints of antiquated rails — hello, streaming money! Head out to https://lightspark.com to learn more and get started. We’re excited to see what you're going to build with it!
Check out my NFT memory on @trystealcam! Be the first person to steal it to reveal it for free https://stealcam.com/memories/20692
NFT - AI - Music - Mastercard. Shake well. In doubt, I minted it. Mastercard launches NFT-gated musician accelerator program This month, Mastercard is launching an artist accelerator program for musicians, with a catch: Access is only possible via an NFT member pass. https://cointelegraph.com/news/mastercard-launches-nft-gated-musician-accelerator-program?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=collect%20campaign
Y Combinator’s Summer 2022 batch had 11 generative AI-focused startups. Just 6 months later, its Winter 2023 (W23) cohort has 59 — 22% of the 272 companies in the cohort. Interestingly, the biggest group is Engineering, product & design.
The best companies are built in bear markets. One more piece of evidence. After an IPO, the most highly funded startups actually tend to underperform those that raised less.
BTC and ETH are always accused of being a very poor store of value. The reality is that a key variable is missing: the timeframe of the analysis. You can’t have a good store of value both short term and long term. It’s either or. Fiat is good short term. BTC long term.
**How's the Dollar doing?** **U**SD still dominates global trade and finance. Competition is rising but remains far behind. **Key Points:** Greenbacks are widely used for funding, pricing, trade settlement and cross-border borrowing even when the US isn’t involved. The dollar’s share of central bank reserves is nearly twice that of the euro, yen, pound and yan *combined* and its share held steady for the last decade. Investors want to hold dollar assets because US economic, political and institutional fundamentals inspire credibility and confidence. The dollar’s advantage could slip, as happened to previous reserve currencies. However, you can’t replace something with nothing. Some currency will dominate and for now, there’s no viable alternative to USD. **Bottom Line:** The most serious threat to US dollar dominance comes not from abroad, but from within. Growing inequality, tribalism, polarization and gridlock could eventually undermine trust in US stability.
I just voted "Yes ser 🙌" on "Do you like the Snapshot integration with Lenster?" https://snapshot.org/#/yoginth.eth/proposal/0x9287c40edcd68c362c7c4139fe3489bbaaa27cf4de68be5c218a82d0f252e718 #snapshotlabs
collapse - aphex twin https://g.co/kgs/oYVsfH #visualsound
AGI refers to an artificial person with unpredictable thinking that can produce new ideas and explanations. Which is what we need to go beyond our limits. But - An AGI cannot be tested behaviorally like an AI because it may refuse to cooperate or produce any output at all.
Crypto is not a thing that can provide definite answers to political or social issues. But it can definitely help. On so many levels.
Sometimes, crypto turns out to be correct despite being counter-intuitive. Conclusion of a conversation with my mother.
In the past, new discoveries had to fit existing knowledge. Today, we want new discoveries to contradict existing knowledge. The tradition of criticism has been institutionalized in science. Criticism is the active precursor of crypto.
Knowledge is the ultimate form of money.
Rate hikes are like Python constrictions. Since Fed began to raise interest rates, the amount of money in US money market funds has increased by ~$700bn to hit fresh ATH at $5.25tn. In other words, depositors have been draining deposits. End result: interest rate hikes are endangering financial stability.
Happy Easter
Hi @punkess.lens @stani.lens, I was wondering, how will Lens & its ecosystem sustain itself once open to everybody? What's the economic model? Thanks!
I'm saying my piece in the #futureofsocial by signing the @t2world.lens manifesto. Which values do you support? https://manifesto-app.t2.world/share/clg9cmo1z14843111fmc49p4gj12
DeFi by the numbers. DEX Uniswap surpassing Coinbase again. Remember when the total value of all crypto was $70billion?
Looks like AI will do for lawyers what highways did for cities. https://twitter.com/prestonjbyrne/status/1642947868691423232?s=46&t=gv1IgJt1L7e0HxAFR4GXGw
**Jobs Data and What it Means for the Fed** The monthly jobs report again showed slower growth in March, but it was still growth. Discrepancies between different surveys may point to changes coming. **Key Points:** While overall growth was still strong, March showed the slowest pace of private sector hiring since February 2020, other than the COVID depths. The average work week fell to 34.4 hours, matching the lowest since September 2019, again excluding COVID. Leisure/hospitality still leads the way in both job growth and wage growth. In fact, all March’s job growth came from service sectors. The goods-producing side actually shed jobs. The BLS data is not showing the same kind of cracks seen in the ADP report. Slower wage growth points to slowing job growth, though. Combined with falling loan demand and banking issues, this data should make the Fed reconsider the risk of further interest rate hikes. **Bottom Line:** Fed officials have been saying for a year their tightening would need time to show results. That point may now be here. And since simply holding rates at a higher level amounts to further tightening, we can expect more job and wage deceleration even if the rate hikes stop.
Ordinals keep growing, now there are almost 1 million of them. Interestingly, the most common type is text. https://dune.com/dgtl_assets/bitcoin-ordinals-analysis
In Web2 one hopes for the best. In Web3 one works on the best. Time to fully commit to Lens. @stani.lens
I follow Redphonecrypto, one of the best accounts on CT. He's one of the reasons why I am the proud owner of one (Ordinal) Bitcoin Punk (in the pic). In his last post on Substack, he writes about Bitcoin's Ordinals and their significance. If you're even remotely interested in the subject, it's a very good read: https://redphone.substack.com/p/ordgies-the-slurpening-and-why-bitcoin
This AI tool to summarize videos is amazing. Videohighlight.com
AGI* is on the opposite spectrum of AI. AI is limited - by design - with a very narrow focus. AGI is unlimited - by design - and disobedient. *AGI = Artificial General Intelligence - G for general, not generative. Big difference.
It's happening again
In a few days, Ethereum is undergoing an important upgrade, which will allow ETH stakers to unstake their coins. This has fired up the liquid staking narrative. But what is it exactly? Liquid staking derivatives (LSD) has indeed been all the rage lately as we approach Shanghai, the highly anticipated upgrade that is set to go live on April 12. LSD deposits have already surged 21.3% so far this year from 4.9M to 6.0M, despite Shanghai having yet to be implemented. The impact of the upgrade on the price of ETH in the short-term is unclear and not the point here. What appears more certain is that by removing technical implementation risk, the upgrade is likely to initiate a “Staking Supercycle” which refers to a multi-year period in which the ETH staking rate is set to rise from its current level of 15% to one closer to the roughly 60% average for PoS networks. The anticipation of this Staking Supercycle has led to significant rallies in the governance tokens of LSD issuers, like Lido (LDO), Rocket Pool (RPL), StakeWise (SWISE), Frax (FXS), and Stader (SD) who have all outperformed to begin the year on the expectation that they will capture these inflows. In addition, assets providing staking infrastructure are benefiting from the growth of LSDs, such as SSV Network, a distributed validator technology (DVT) protocol and [Redacted] Cartel (BTRFLY), a liquidity bribe marketplace operator (and rumored entrant into the LSD space). Along with an increase in the number of their deposits, LSDs should also see significant growth in their top-lines as a result of appreciation in the price of ETH, the asset in which their revenues are denominated.
Compare TradFi with Crypto's timeframe: Bitcoin undergoes a “halving” every 210k blocks, roughly every ~4 years, when the block reward for miners is cut in half. Halvings are a crucial aspect of Bitcoin’s design, and will continue for more than 100 years into the future.
Eternal.
While bankers are busy playing in their reduced, crypto-permissioned kindergarten, the Ethereum LXs ecosystem is exploding to become a fierce force to be reckoned with.
Gm 🌞🌞🌞
Digital Gold, aka Bitcoin, rallied in tandem w/analogue Gold. I wonder whether physical Gold will now be declared uninvestable by those in TradFi that believe Bitcoin is.