...I have to say the next 12+ months are going to be tense.
Middleware protocols may be the deciders 🧵
Middleware protocols provide a specific service to the interface layer, be they financial, social, or technological.
In 2019 @placeholdervc posited they would achieve cross-chain, winner-takes-most dominance in their respective services - we're seeing things move that direction
Meanwhile, many #EthereumKillers have gone through their "fire period" and are entering their "growth period."
While many will claim to not be focused on dethroning #Ethereum, make no mistake, the knives are out.
Middleware-protocols sit in a really tough position:
#Ethereum is currently high-cost to use, pricing out many users (centralizing)
However, the economics, governance, and ethos of Ethereum tends to fit well with the founding intent of many middleware-protocols (decentralizing)
#EthereumKillers are currently low-cost to use and tend to be faster, opening up access to users that are priced out of #Ethereum (decentralizing)
However, the economics, governance, and ethos of many Ethereum Killers reeks of Silicon Valley shareholdership (centralizing) 🤢
To complicate things further, there are a handful of quality layer-2 solutions on #Ethereum (@optimismPBC & @zksync stick out), which are racing to offer smart-contract functionality to entice the big middleware protocols.
Not to mention the race to ship ETH 2.0...
In the year ahead, large middleware-protocols have the power to cement:
Once a few make the call, the rest will follow. #Ethereum will reign on, or face a real challenge.
Expect war.
As a (relieving?) sidenote: crypto will expand far beyond these feudal wars.
But these wars are bound to play out in the coming year due to the 1) relative smallness of the space 2) network effects of liquidity, composability, and developer tooling 3) 2017 over-funding.
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1) You are responsible for every investing decision you make. If you blindly follow what other people say, with no opinion or critical thinking of your own, you're playing a fool's game. Not only will you not hone your practice, but you’ll likely lose money in the coming yrs 🧵
2) I see an increasing amount of misinterpretation in my replies, and many long-time CT personalities showing signs of exhaustion (public or voiced 1:1), which tells me there's a new bumper crop of Xeeters amongst us...
A lot of the misinterpretation comes from not accepting what *you* are responsible for, or misunderstanding the the high-level lay of the land. Start with: the less entitled you are, the more you'll learn.
3) There are many ways to Invest (long-term) or Trade (short-term) & the key is to know which assets, style, and time frames you are choosing -- refine that practice over time, keeping in mind assets, style & time.
For those asking for a market update from me, I don't have much of an opinion. I'm not a trader, but a long-term investor, and move glacially. Have learned when you don't have a strong view, it's best to do little 🧵
Long-tail names have already gone higher than I expected, and it seems $BTC ETF approval is imminent. Can argue that ETF approval brings new flows (bullish), or is a sell-the-news event (bearish).
We'll see ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This I know: crypto is massively volatile, and the moves many assets have had are parabolic. At some point, we'll have a nasty reset, and how low that reset goes will determine my action then (will still be part of the uptrend from the Q4 2022 bottom). Until then...
More is not always more. #Ethereum is here to stay, but bridging UX, transaction cost, and L2 interop+centralization problems need to be discussed & addressed with vigor, as opposed to presuming to have won the crown of the next Internet.
This is more a warning to ETH-influencers, than it is to ETH-builders, as the convos I'm having with Ethereum builders are increasingly including concerns around coordination complexity and decision-making complacency.
I've watched Bitcoin go through a full circle arc of:
From its 2022 bottom, $SOL has now outperformed $ETH 3x.
I ❤️ $ETH, grew up professionally alongside Ethereum’s rise, continue to support many Ethereum projects, and stake ETH to this day.
But this cycle, $SOL has been, and likely will continue to be, the faster horse.
The market distills all available information and is the final arbiter of whose theses are right and wrong in an investing context.
Someone who has claimed $SOL is worthless, or inferior to $ETH, has now been walloped by the market since December 2022.
Someone getting walloped by the market can either re-examine the hypotheses that are leading them to underperform (or at least ask the Qs) — as a trained and calculating investor would — or dig their heels in and misdirect.
With the recent takedowns, it’s worth internalizing there are good investors who have influence, and there are influencers who pretend to be good investors.
Understanding where people derive their influence, and what they’re *actually good at* is important to determining whether you should take their thoughts seriously or not.
Also, many investors operating at scale operate under an RIA structure, which necessitates being less extreme, and more balanced, in how things are communicated.
"Despite the bear market, in 2022 stablecoins on
several Layer-1s (L1s) transacted $6.87 trillion, overtaking @Mastercard and @PayPal." -@Jamie1Coutts
No wonder PayPal launched $PYUSD...
"Though stablecoins' transaction growth has been exponential, and transfer volumes outpaced the likes of Mastercard and PayPal in 2022, they still only have 0.5-3% of the throughput of traditional payment networks." -@Jamie1Coutts
Scaling improvements incoming...
"But in recent years, stablecoin adoption has begun to outstrip that of Bitcoin and Ethereum. Since 2021, stablecoin addresses with over $1 have risen at about 7x the rate of Ethereum addresses with an equivalent value balance." -@Jamie1Coutts