Adam (@adamhurwitz) • Hey
An account about nothing | Open to product consulting | Open sourcer | safeDAO Guardian 🔰 | BoredBreakfastClub 2152 ☕️
Publications
- I enjoyed listening to @rimeissner on the @CastleIslandVC show, @OnTheBrinkCIV today! It's cool to learn Richard comes from an Android dev background too.
https://pca.st/oqfnq88l
- I'm officially a multipostooor thanks to @yup_io ✖️⛩️🌿🌅
Reading and writing across all of the socials, X, Farcaster, Lens, and Bluesky.
https://hackmd.io/@openinfo/yup
- I'm back! 😎
https://twitter.com/adamshurwitz/status/1683576483468517377
- Today's a good day to link @farcaster.lens, @lensprotocol, and Bluesky with @yup_io.lens. 🙂⛩️🌿🌅
Unrelated, I'm suspended from Twitter without an explanation or reason I can think of. Please like my LinkedIn post for reach. Much appreciated!
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7089241513397768192/
- I'm excited to have submitted my proposal for the Summer of Protocols (www.summerofprotocols.com) with the idea for "Opening and decentralizing collaboration protocols" (www.hackmd.io/@adamhurwitz/sop-open-info). ☀️🫡
- I'm experimenting backing up published research with HackMD using decentralized and encrypted file storage. I've been testing Skiff (Powered by IPFS) and ArDrive (Powered by Arweave). 📄🫱🏻🫲🏼🌐
Skiff has a seamless signup process and sign-in with Ethereum. One thing to watch for is uploading Markdown files changes their contents. Potential solution: A setting to disable auto-formatting of files uploaded to Skiff.
ArDrive's permanent storage is easy to use once an Arweave account is setup and funded with $AR. One thing to watch for is to not accidentally share a private file/folder link that will then make it public. Potential solution: Have an interstitial warning message.
Research
📄 HackMD: http://hackmd.io/@openguide/hackmd
🪢 Skiff: http://app.skiff.com/docs/30e628c2-ad96-499c-9955-29c76d87e739#gynNAXdPNN2hkOByLitx%2Bb5jAygdM7Q9OUfYBNkVWOA%3D
🐘 Arweave: http://hackmd.io/@openguide/arweave
- I contributed to the 🕯️ KZG Ceremony 🕯️ using 0x0b9…db67 to help scale @ethereum.lens.
↓ Add your own randomness using your crypto account ↓
These generated keys will be used to build + secure the data structure between mainnet Ethereum and layer 2s (L2s) like Arbitrum, Optimism, zk-based roll-ups, Polygon's solutions, and etc.
ceremony.ethereum.org
- After days of exploring Markdown tools with GitHub sync for teams and communities to build with, I'm most impressed with HackMD's dynamic published pages that take < 1 min to launch. 🌐📄
See my open guide on HackMD made with HackMD.
https://hackmd.io/@openguide/hackmd
- I listened to this 37signals show twice on time management with David Heinemeier Hansson and Jason Fried.
Takeaways
- "Your job is to look at all of the work you possibly could do and take a slice that's most important."
- "It's not a time issue. It's a scope issue."
... 👇🏻
https://pca.st/7ppez2ms
- The Ethereum KZG Ceremony UX is mesmerizing.
https://ceremony.ethereum.org/
- 18 is a good number.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0u13RokzFg
- I was doing light Messari report reading during dinner (as one does), and was surprised to read my own thoughts on the Safe token distribution featured by Oghenekaro Elem. Thank you!
On distributing unclaimed $SAFE tokens: "They agreed that airdropping active users during the [original] claim period would identify real users who can increase engagement in SafeDAO."
https://messari.io/report/governor-note-addressing-the-low-token-claims-in-safedao
- Tracking my Starbucks beans supply chain with the digital collectible Bean to Cup Journey Stamp #4327 using Polygon. 🫘🗺️
- gm to the builders who care about account abstraction! ☕️🧱
I'm sharing my thoughts on using delegation of access to improve Safe multisigs as an easy-to-use account across all crypto finance and social apps.
Without improving UX + security we'll be trapped with the current options that exploit our data and privacy. Delegate Cash provides a solution that is open + immutable on all EVM protocols.
They support
- Tokens like ERC-20, NFTs like ERC-721, and etc.
- Contracts like Uniswap Labs and @lensprotocol/@lenster.lens
- Wallet addresses
Thanks to @dcinvestor.lens original Tweet that sparked this idea. 💡
https://forum.gnosis-safe.io/t/delegate-safe-access-to-improve-security-and-ux/2646
- Thank you @danromero.lens for the opportunity to explore @farcaster.lens and another platform for social account ownership! 🙏🏻⛩
farcaster://casts/0x17ee8646a56f6b14cd20d78a107134716a48e8a505ccc1e8786b1557454ac709/0x17ee8646a56f6b14cd20d78a107134716a48e8a505ccc1e8786b1557454ac709
- Withdrawal is coming ⟠❄️
To complete the @ethereum.lens proof-of-stake (PoS) merge. The ecosystem continues to deliver as it did with EIP-1559 (Aug '21) and The Merge (Sep '22).
- Digital collectibles* + Starbucks 🫱🏻🫲🏼☕️
I've almost earned my 1st stamp. 🖼
*powered by Polygon Labs and Nifty Gateway
- There's a huge opportunity to discuss the Safe ecosystem during this episode [1] of the @blockworks.lens show about the "Wallet Wars" with @yanowitz.lens.
The Safe ecosystem is a powerful protocol used by many of the largest projects and teams in crypto since ~2017 to secure assets, manage accounts, and handle governance.
Safe has had a large impact so far securing $35b [2] in value currently. There's an even larger opportunity to continue to improve UX and expand further for individuals with easy-to-use features such as social recovery.
In terms of the sign-in with web2 question discussed on the show:
- Start with web2 sign-in to gain mass adoption for newcomers.
- Then, educate and provide on-ramps onto more secure forms of self-ownership.
[1]: https://pca.st/josylpvk
[2]: https://lnkd.in/gB8CPeWk
- Congrats to the @onchainden.lens team for the @banklesshq.lens call out on the beta release of the app on the Safe multisig ecosystem! ❤️🔥
https://pca.st/fttfw7m4
- The best part of this @blockworks.lens show with @avalancheavax.lens is when @emingursirer.lens said Avalanche has no tradeoffs. Alrighty then... 🤌🏻👀😂
https://pca.st/0d8ouoem
- Great to learn Microsoft is building on top of IPFS! The most interesting question was comparing IPFS and Arweave. 🌌🐘
It'd be useful to compare some base metrics. 📊
- Node metrics
- Number and types of nodes
- Geographic distribution
- Protocol governance
- Business model
- Tokenomics
- Fee revenue
- APIs
- Features
- Language support
- Costs
- Investors
- Project/app adoption
- Transaction volume
https://thedefiant.io/yorke-rhodes-explains-how-microsoft-is-leveraging-ethereum
- Web3 has come a long way, & there is a lot to be excited about in 2023.
So what are the tools, products, protocols, & real-world use cases that are production-ready today?
Here are 7 things to be excited about this year from the perspective of a developer of 10+ yrs.
1. Permanent storage
At AWS, S3 was one of the first, most used, and useful services. Web3 storage solutions take managed storage a step further by introducing both immutability & permanence, something you can't get with traditional storage solutions.
This is why companies like Instagram chose Arweave to build out features that are simply not possible through other centralized architecture.
With newer protocols built on top of Arweave, like Bundlr, EXM, and Warp, the barrier to entry for users and developers has gone down drastically as it's now trivial to build high quality, performant applications on Arweave with better + easier to use APIs and gateways with improved UX.
2. Messaging
One of the big value propositions of web3, as a developer, was this idea of shared data and infrastructure.
Unfortunately at the time when I joined the space, April 2021, there wasn't much actually possible outside of DeFi, NFTs, DAOs, and digital payments.
While these are all very interesting use cases, digital payments were the only thing that might be compelling to the "average" person in the world (something I'll touch on later).
Fast forward to today - one of the most exciting new protocols launched in the past year is @xmtplabs - a protocol for implementing encrypted and secure messaging.
If you need messaging in your app, or maybe you just want to build a new messaging app that has some cool new features that don't exist elsewhere, you can now tap into XMTP and leverage not only a high quality service - you also inherit the users of all of the other apps that have ever built with XMTP.
You no longer have to bootstrap an entirely new user base, all users across any app built with XMTP can pick up your app, sign in, and can continue their conversations from their other apps.
This is already happening and gaining momentum in the @lensprotocol ecosystem and elsewhere.
This value proposition that is enabled by shared, public, immutable data and infrastructure is the most powerful, underestimated, and underrated thing about web3, and the reason to be building with these tools and technologies.
3. Account abstraction (AA)
Scalability, accessibility, and UX are the biggest obstacles to adoption for blockchain technologies.
Account abstraction helps solve two of these challenges head on (accessibility and UX) and has quickly become one of the most prioritized features in protocol roadmaps, and popular topics in the blockchain community.
Account abstraction enables features like:
1. Social, email, or arbitrary account login
2. Gasless meta-transactions
3. Batching multiple transactions
4. Gas payments in arbitrary tokens
5. Multi-signature security
6. Social recovery
and more.
Protocols like Fuel are being built from the ground up to treat account abstraction as a first class citizen, while specifications like EIP4337 allow existing protocols to build account abstraction into existing protocols traditionally dependent on EOAs.
Biconomy has been working on tackling these challenges for years and offer an easy to use SDK and APIs to start building with right away, and whose implementation of account abstraction is based on EIP4337.
With gasless transactions and cheaper and cheaper execution environments, developers and teams can start to consider treating blockchain infrastructure the same as we've been treating traditional cloud infrastructure.
We can subsidize transactions which would remove the huge barrier to entry for the vast majority of the population - asking them to not only onboard the right tokens from the right exchange on the right network, they can instead just use our apps like they would any other app.
4. Better execution environments and L2s
Not long ago the speed, cost, block time, and time to finality of almost all networks was so slow and expensive that most use cases were prohibited, and the UX of the existing use cases was subpar to put it mildly (compared to centralized infrastructure).
Today, there are protocols that are either already being used in production or will be coming to market in the next ~6 months that provide an equal or better UX than traditional "web2" applications, made possible by sub second finality and transaction costs as low as less than $0.001.
Arbitrum Nova combines the latest step in the evolution of their technology, Nitro, with a data availability committee to offer a smart tradeoff between decentralization and security that provides a compelling solution for use cases like gaming and social media applications, like Reddit who is using it for their community points system.
Fuel bas built an entirely new execution environment and developer stack from the ground up, and is the fist modular execution environment. Using SwaySwap, which is built on Fuel, is already a better experience by a long shot than any traditional banking app I've ever used. (looking forward to trying it in production)
https://fuellabs.github.io/swayswap/swap
As a developer, having a fast and inexpensive execution environment paired with the highest quality DX I've seen in the blockchain world (including their own Rust-based language Sway, accompanied by a suite of high quality developer tools) is probably the most exciting place to be building, especially since they will be integrating not only with Ethereum but possibly other pieces of the modular stack like @celestiaorg.
Polygon has so much going on it's hard to keep up, not only with the volume of quality web3 infrastructure they are shipping, but the fact that countless companies like Nike, Instagram, Starbucks, Reddit, us at @lensprotocol, and others have chosen to build there.
There is a lot more happening, these are just some of the things I'm personally interested in.
5. Better abstractions
If you're a developer you've no doubt heard of, or possibly used, Vercel.
Vercel is wildly popular because it provides the best UX available for building and deploying web applications and features like serverless functions, which are very powerful while abstracting away the inferior UX of other cloud and managed service providers.
Decentralized infrastructure like Arweave and IPFS enable some of the same functionality, but in the past the UX and DX for building was not close to what services like @vercel offer.
With platforms and services like Fleek XYZ, Akord, and EXM developers can build and deploy applications and leverage storage functionality + serverless functions on these protocols without having to deal with tokens at all and instead just use an API key like they have done in the past.
The value proposition is that you inherit all of the use cases of traditional infrastructure but with immutability and, with Arweave, permanence.
6. Social graphs
There are ~4.9 billion social media users in the world as of today. Worldwide it is forecasted that there will be 5.85 billion social media users by 2027.
Social features pop up in almost every application we use today.
I joined @lensprotocol a few months after creating a tutorial video teaching developers how to build with Lens and realizing how web3 social could potentially be the key to mass adoption.
Like Serverless infrastructure and managed services (like Twilio and those offered by AWS, GCP, etc..) enable developers to quickly build scalable applications without having to manage back end infrastructure, Lens Protocol provides web infrastructure for building scalable applications with social features.
Instead of having to build, maintain, and iterate on their own back ends and APIs, they can instead focus on building out their web or mobile application while the Lens team continues to iterate and improve upon the back end infrastructure.
In addition to that, when they launch their app on Lens they inherit the x-100s of thousands (and in the future, millions) of users and ecosystem instead of having to bootstrap everything from scratch.
Combining the improved UX coming to market now with real-world use cases like social and messaging opens the door to countless opportunities for developers to build out unique and high quality experiences that literally cannot be built with centralized technologies, and importantly these are not strictly financial use cases for once.
7. Sybil resistance
One of the other big challenges of building in this space has to do with sybil attack and solving sybil resistance.
Multiple options for solving this now exist, most notable @gitcoin Passport and @worldcoin.
There is a lot more happening that I didn't cover, but for someone with somewhat limited bandwidth these are some of the main things I'm excited about this year.
2022 was a tough year, and it's hard to predict what will happen next, but for builders there has never been a more exciting or opportune time to be in this space ✨
If you've read this far, congratulations! You can earn 1 WMATIC by simply mirroring this post to your timeline (up to 100 WMATIC), made possibly by @wav3s ⚡️
- I'm exploring tools and platforms to build open-source guides with crypto communities I'm a part of and beyond with the goal of expanding the ability to collaborate.
So far I'm impressed with HackMD.
- It's built on-top of the open Markdown language with MD file types
- Version control through the hosted service or directly with GitHub
- User roles/permissions
- Custom URLs for publishing
- Integration with Arweave for publishing
- Templates
- Work offline with MD files
- Back-up and download all files
- Simple APIs to integrate with outside services
- And more...
Next, I'm looking forward to comparing with Skiff Pages Markdown-based platform.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bFQzyZ9aBNmKvuuM60EPfhb62YApEMPRZ6Z5f1pvE1k/edit#heading=h.tlc8dq42unjj
- This is my favorite collect so far by @emptybrother7.lens. Simple and mesmerizing. 🧘🏻♂️🌅
https://rarible.com/token/polygon/0x2abe4c290d1060c4486b30c06c8b84c7cf2870f5:5?tab=overview
- A lot has happened over the past few months in the @LensProtocol ecosystem.
In this thread I want to highlight some of the projects, updates, and products we or the community has shipped over the past year and also shed some light on what's coming next. 🌿❤️🔥⚡️
For anyone unfamiliar with @LensProtocol - Lens is a protocol, API, and suite of tools that enables developers to easily and quickly build social media applications, or integrate social features like follows, likes, publications, profiles, and encrypted chat.
Since the official launch on Polygon on May 18:
https://twitter.com/LensProtocol/status/1526944792013316097
... there have been around 100 apps that I would consider serious that are being built or that have launched on Lens.
https://www.lens.xyz/apps
There are also many apps integrating Lens social features into existing apps.
This use case will be a popular and growing one this year as it is a low lift and requires minimal work, but with a lot of upside.
Want to parse social posts in your wallet? Lens
Want to add a comments section to your blog? Lens
Already have posts/comments but want to add Collects, linked re-posts, and linked likes to your posts? Lens
Want to add a discussion forum to your site that's token-gated for your DAO? Lens
Want to leverage a user base of x hundreds of thousands (or in the future, x millions) of users without having to bootstrap a network from scratch? Lens!
Like managed services and cloud computing has abstracted away the need to build abd maintain complex back end infrastructure from scratch, Lens abstracts away to the need for developers to build and maintain the infrastructure necessary to implement social features themselves.
Whether or not Lens is built on traditional or decentralized technologies should not matter to the average user or developer.
At the end of the day, many of the features provided by Lens are only made possibly by blockchains and decentralized protocols like Arweave and IPFS, but they should not be at the forefront of the discussion.
Instead, the applications should speak for themselves: the UX and value proposition should be compelling enough on their own for the average internet user or developer to want to use or build on Lens, regardless of the underlying tech stack.
Part of providing a compelling UX is abstracting away the need to know about or understand blockchains and wallets at all.
As of now, this is not part of the average Lens front-end, but is something we'll be considering this year as we move toward scaling Lens to >50,000 TPS and enabling permissionless access to the protocol (both of which are on our somewhat near-term roadmap).
For developers, we plan to double down on providing the best possible DX we can offer for developers.
Last year we made consistent updates and improvements to our docs and API and launched two new SDKS:
Lens React SDK
https://twitter.com/dabit3/status/1606383208089718794
and React Native Lens UI Kit
https://twitter.com/dabit3/status/1600188853297377280
We have a lot of plans for these two libraries, and will also be considering shipping additional products to facilitate and improve the ease of development for devs building on or integrating Lens.
The engineering team led by @wagmi continues to ship new updates to the Lens API at a rapid pace.
You can keep up with the updates by following LensAPI on Lens: @lensapi
A small handful of highlights I will call out that were shipped last year:
- gated publications powered by @LitProtocol
- dispatcher enabling signless transactions
- optimistic UI updates
- feed highlights
- degrees of separation
- profile interests
+ many many others
In November, Lens adopted @xmtplabs to provide secure, private, and encrypted profile-to-profile DMs for the entire Lens ecosystem.
This was huge as it was one of the most requested features from Lens users and the reception has been incredible.
https://twitter.com/xmtp_/status/1588200030820704257
The Lens grants program has deployed funds to over 50 teams building on Lens.
We plan to continue working closely with, and providing support for, certain developers and teams who are building interesting or valuable applications on Lens through our grants program and / or providing engineering support through private channels.
We will be attending, mentoring, participating, and sponsoring strategic events in 2023, including branching out into more traditional "web2" events.
We plan to attend all major @ETHGlobal events, DevCon, & a few other web3 / blockchain events.
We also plan to create small to medium-sized meetup-type events this year in cities around the world starting with Sao Paulo in a couple of weeks.
Here, people can meet others in their community who are using or building on Lens, and also get allow-listed for a profile until permissionless access is enabled for everyone.
There is a lot of hype around web3 social right now:
https://twitter.com/ljin18/status/1610688970173878272
I agree that 2023 will be a huge year for web3 social and for Lens.
We are focused, motivated, and excited to continue building off of the momentum created last year to make 2023 a breakout year for Lens.
There is a lot more happening outside of DevRel, with dedicated teams working with creators (@christina & @bradorbradley) and also other areas of focus like integrations and partnerships.
I have not done a good job highlighting everything else happening in the ecosystem and with the other teams.
If you do want to keep up, follow Lens team members on Lens and on Twitter, starting with:
@christina
@bradorbradley
@fabri
@yoginth
@stani
@paris
@donosonaumczuk
@wagmi
@davidev
@sasicodes
@pealco
That wraps up this overview.
I'm beyond excited and motivated about what we will be working on this year and invite you enjoy the ride with us!
If you've made it this far congratulations, you can earn 1 WMATIC by simply mirroring this post (up to 200 WMATIC)
🌿
- I received my first POAPs in the Rocket Fuel community!
It's going to be a big year for Rocket Pool and decentralized Ethereum staking. ⛽️🚀
https://app.poap.xyz/scan/0x0B948EFB1b515d8071363a210C362297d2C9db67
- "The only kind of software that is out the gate great is software that's built for the people who worked on it." [Link at quote] - David Heinemeier Hansson
This is why @lensprotocol and @lenster.lens will be great! 🌿
https://pca.st/apfvurpu#t=21m13s
- This is a lot of fun. Thank you @thegallerydao! 🙏🏻🌄
- I told my mom about @thegallerydao and this is what was created with her "harmony is beauty to the ear" prompt.
- Autonomous semis = Autonomous consumer vehicles
The future fully self-driving Tesla semi's positive impact on supply chains will drive autonomous consumer adoption. Companies outside of the first states to adopt, California and Arizona, will see the financial benefits of self-driving for their businesses and will push for autonomous initiatives nationwide. These initiatives will also apply to consumer vehicles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrhSIDu4_Zw
- The latest LastPass hack is a great opportunity to upgrade overall security with Bitwarden.
📜 Strong track record
🌐 Open-source
📱 Works on all devices
🫱🏻🫲🏼 Social recovery
🏛 All the compliance: GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, SOC 2 Type, and SOC 3
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AnZHW66lcysA6K1Cj7FWBiiGhRTeUItDpCepF9CYKmo/edit#heading=h.w7jpqwm4ry3z
- What am I missing fam? Any more Lens focussed mobile apps I can test out over the Christmas break?
- Submitted my first ticket #1377 for @lenster.lens 👨🏻💻
https://github.com/lensterxyz/lenster/issues/1377
- Hello @lensprotocol world. 👋🏻🌿🌍
I'm excited for a platform where users own their data. @lenster.lens has early builder adoption and protocols to grow. Platforms during the '17/18 crypto cycles had many "influencers", low tech stack compatibility, and little product market fit.