0/ Just finished binge reading all of @_jillruth 's blog posts on jill-carlson.com and medium.com/@jillcarlson. 0-fluff, easy to read, and deeply insightful 😀
Here are my biggest takeaways in 10 tweets (not comprehensive):
Here are my biggest takeaways in 10 tweets (not comprehensive):
1/ In-app tokens provide a clear utility value, but often at the expense of user experience. Only tokens that can justify being independent assets will survive.
2/ Token projects are often short convexity - meaning their exposure to their appreciating tokens diminishes as they sell to deploy capital, while exposure to their depreciating tokens remains constant as they hodl (or increases as they buy back tokens from open markets).
3/ Traditional finance repackages assets to form new instruments (CDOs ... yikes). Cryptocurrencies and tokens invent entirely new assets - and requires the requisite innovation in tech, law and market structures.
4/ Quoting Jill's quote of @originaIbanksy : "If you want to say something and have people listen then you have to wear a mask." Pseudonymity allowed different parties to impose their interpretations of what Bitcoin's True North is - for better and for worse.
5/ Permissioned blockchains create markets between pre-chosen parties whereby they can exchange assets whose value is agreed upon. The challenge is how to tie that value back to the real world. "If I can't go buy a Porsche with my cryptodollars, what good have they really done?"
6/ We have a problem with maintaining an accurate record of physical goods, but a blockchain likely *won't* provide much more value on top of a well-managed database. This is a last mile problem. The challenge is linking data to the actual goods - not designing a better database.
7/ Forks result in irrational value creation, instead of rational division of value between forked assets. (e.g. $6 billion in additional value was created in a moment - the moment BCH forked from BTC)
8/ Echoing @jbrukh (interview here: bit.ly/2Lu51wK) - protocols are not intrinsically (more) valuable than app tokens; they are only as good as their products and applications. If a protocol accrues value and keeps it - it's because products are delivering value.
9/ Blockchains are useful only when you are dealing with an asset, when assets change hands, and perhaps most overlooked of all - when transactions suffer as a result of third parties. If a central authority determines ownership of the asset, don't use a blockchain.
10/ Finally, a point that I've always shared: blockchain is a high variance innovation: it can be used for positive innovation, but ultimately we do not get to choose how it might be used (see Petronomicon).
11/ Bonus: fascinating addendum on Argentinian sovereign debt vs. "holdouts": medium.com/@jillcarlson/p…
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