If you think the metaverse comes packaged in a set of VR goggles or branded with a Web2 corporate logo, you don't understand the metaverse.
I suspect the reason most people don't understand the metaverse, including all the trad tech journos who've spilled tons of ink on it this week, is because they haven't experienced it yet.
"Unfortunately no one can be told what the metaverse is. You have to see it for yourself."
Ready Player One was a useful analogy for the metaverse before it got off the ground, but does more harm than good now.
It makes people think the metaverse is just people sitting at home with VR headsets on, talking to their parents as a living room hologram. 🙄
VR != metaverse
One of my best friends who isn't in crypto just saw these tweets & asked why I'm using Zuck's lingo. 😭
We have a lot of work to do, friends....
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FATF published its updated crypto AML guidance today. It's marginally better than the March draft.
As often happens, industry explained why the draft made no sense, & FATF's reaction was just to make it more vague. No answers here. The saga continues.
🧵 of threads & writeups:
From @coincenter's @valkenburgh, explaining the good, bad, & ugly of the updated guidance & why it's "far too vague and verbose to actually create reasonably clear and narrow limits for surveillance obligations."
From @fund_defi's @millercwl, who you're probably not following yet but definitely should be, if you care at all about DeFi. Miller nails how the guidance could (but won't necessarily) impact DeFi protocols.
1/ Some personal news: after 2.5 amazing years, yesterday was my last day at @compoundfinance ❤️
It's been a genuine honor helping @rleshner, @justHGH, & the Compound Labs team build the future of finance 🤖
I'm taking October off, then starting a new challenge (stay tuned) 🧵
2/ I joined Compound in May 2019 in the depths of crypto winter. BTC was around $6k & ETH was around $200.
The Compound v2 protocol was one month old. TVL was about $10m. Only a handful of DeFi projects existed & they weren't even called DeFi yet.
What an incredible journey 🤯
3/ I worked on some big projects over the years, like decentralizing the Compound protocol & launching Compound Treasury.
It's been fascinating to see the community take charge of decentralized governance, & it's been fulfilling to create a novel financial product on DeFi rails.
1/ I'm very excited to be working with @graadient & the Grwth Lbs team as a strategic advisor as they build out & decentralize @groprotocol 🎉
Gro is a next-gen yield protocol that fills a huge gap in DeFi market structure: autonomous risk management 👇 thedefiant.io/gro-protocol-l…
2/ Gro uses risk tranching to create two stablecoin pools, PWRD & Vault, with different risk & reward profiles.
By design, PWRD offers lower yield while Vault offers higher yield at a cost: Vault bears the risk of loss for the whole protocol. In other words, Vault protects PWRD.
3/ Gro addresses one of the most common critiques I hear about DeFi: the lack of crypto-native, professional-grade risk management tools & products.
This is one of the aspects of DeFi that excites me most: its unique ability to mitigate risks in a programmatic & transparent way.
1/ A quick explainer on what happened with the infrastructure bill last night:
We were on track to pass the Wyden-Lummis-Toomey amendment to fix the worst issues with the bill, & then Senators @RobPortman & @MarkWarner came from nowhere to blow it up.
Now the vote's tomorrow 👇
2/ As a refresher, the current infra bill draft has a provision expanding the Tax Code definition of "broker" to include:
"any person who (for consideration) is responsible for regularly providing any service effectuating transfers of digital assets on behalf of another person."
3/ This definition is wildly overbroad. It captures nearly everyone in crypto, forcing them all to surveil users in order to comply with tax reporting obligations.
We spent all week asking Congress to remove it, change it, or add exceptions for miners, developers, & many others.
1/ 🚨 Here's the deal with the US infrastructure bill:
A new provision has been added that expands the Tax Code's definition of "broker" to capture nearly everyone in crypto, including non-custodial actors like miners, forcing them all to KYC users.
This is not a drill 👇
2/ The bill expands the definition of a "broker" to include "any person who (for consideration) is responsible for and regularly provides any service effectuating transfers of digital assets."
Earlier drafts said "even if non-custodial" & explicitly included DEX & P2P markets.
3/ This definition is so broad, it could apply to nearly every economic actor in the US crypto industry, if read literally.
That includes PoW miners & PoS validators, since "providing a service to effectuate transfers of digital assets for consideration" seems to fit both.