Ryan Selkis (d/acc) 🇺🇸 Profile picture
Nov 22, 2022 11 tweets 3 min read Read on X
1/ THE STATE OF CRYPTO
2/ Bad week, bad month, bad year...

Esp. for the over-levered, greedy, and unethical!

The long-term builders have been hurt by association, but they aren't the ones who've been perpetuating fraud or fleecing investors.

The innovators will be here when the trash is removed.
3/ Who's hurt and who's left?

Opaque lenders: dead
CeFi bucket shops: dead
Low float tokens: dead
No diligence VCs: dead
Paid personalities: dead

And good riddance!

Who's left, what has been built in the past several years that is new, novel, and interesting?
4/ This is my favorite slide of all time (h/t us @MessariCrypto we created it).

Crypto is inevitable because we've made - despite setbacks - significant progress with bitcoin, stablecoins, distributed computing, scalability, onchain financial primitives, and governance. Image
5/ On Bitcoin:

There were some narrative violations this year. (Rainbow chart dead. Bitcoin mining struggling. Saylor, El Salvador entering max pain.)

But BTC as "outside money" will have renewed interest in 2023, and we're entering historic buy range:

6/ On Stablecoins:

They represent 4/10 top crypto assets. Volumes are BIG, and stablecoin issuers *actually generate yield at the true risk-free rate of return* aka US treasuries.

Stablecoin legislation seems likely. Sky is the limit here, and that's good for DeFi applications.
7/ On Layer 1s:

The Merge happened, the software equivalent of the moon landing. Major derisking event for Ethereum (and economic catalyst).

Cosmos, Solana, Aptos/Sui, Polygon, Optimistic/zk Rollups, Avalanche...all made major progress!

Fees are also way down! Good UX!
8/ On DeFi:

We're two years into a secular bear market. DeFi has been in a deep winter, and faces technical headwinds (hacks) and reg challenges (DCCPA). BUT the primitives are here to stay.

AMMs, Flash Loans, Perps, NFTs, etc. are 0 to 1 innovations, and progress compounds.
9/ On NFTs:

NFTs are data wrappers. You can now transact any IP, synthetic asset, consumer digital good, identity token, etc. on chain. They look like toys to start, but they are almost unfathomably important as a technical primitive.

Short apes, long NFTs.
10/ On DAOs:

We have on-chain voting, delegation, liquid democracy, subDAOs, community treasury management, and rapid formation and wind downs of community organizations. BTC and ETH are in their 3rd innings, maybe.

But like NFTs & DeFi, we're in the first inning for DAOs.
11/ The frauds will rot in jail. The thieves will get their comeuppance. The trash will be taken to the dump.

But there are TENS OF BILLIONS in cash getting deployed into crypto's development, and all time highs in talent, potential, and opportunity.

Don't get discouraged.

LFG

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More from @twobitidiot

May 20
1/ The FIT21 vote this week will be a big one in DC:

+ We'll see if crypto remains a partisan football
+ It's a legacy defining moment for @RepMaxineWaters
+ Waters vote will likely make or break @hakeemjeffries chance at Speaker of the House for the next Congress.

Why?

🧵
2/ There's three things you should know about the political dynamics of this vote. I'll unpack them all.

1. SBF embarrassed the Democrats and Waters
2. As Waters goes, so goes the Dem conference
3. Liz Warren's SAB 121 rebuke opens the door for a potential landslide FIT21 win.
3/ First, the SBF picture.

Yes, THAT one.

The truth is that Waters and McHenry have had a cordial relationship, and worked productively together for many years. Their approach to crypto has legitimately been a good faith, bipartisan effort.

Sam screwed it up. Image
Read 12 tweets
May 7
1/ The philosophical intersection of crypto and American politics.

🧵
2/ My view of crypto, and my advocacy and decade-long building in the space, has always been political.

I think some people forget our political roots simply because Libertarians have declined to a minority of industry participants.

But those roots are deep.
3/ They go beyond "sound money" ethos.

Whether you're talking about BTC, smart contracts, DAOs, or even USD stablecoins / RWAs, crypto enshrines Constitutional values into financial code.

Crypto is the greatest tech for individual rights since the original crypto (encryption).
Read 16 tweets
Mar 3
1/ There have really only been two things that have ever pulled crypto into new bull markets: ETF hype, and new pockets of speculative bubbles.

The reason things are moving faster this year, is that we have both at our backs.

🧵
2/ Aside from its impact as a meme, the 21 million bitcoin hard cap has been irrelevant since the first or second halving.

The real driver of the 2013 bubble was the intro of Grayscale's Bitcoin Trust.

It launched in Sept, and for the next 60 days bitcoin went vertical.
3/ The 2014-2016 bear market was brutal. Many companies almost died. Bitcoin's future was uncertain. The ascent back was torturous.

Then in early 2017, ICOs were born.
Read 11 tweets
Feb 15
1/ When Gary Gensler says crypto “is just an accounting ledger” he tells on himself as being oblivious to history.

Here's a story that combines why Gensler is an idiot, how crypto is transformative, and the history of Messari all in one.

My three favorite things!

👇
2/ The history of accounting is arguably the history of human civilization. It's fascinating to read even the bare bones Wikipedia on the subject.

In short, no accounting, no civilization beyond tribes.

And no double entry accounting, no capitalism.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_o…
3/ For the sake of brevity, I'll skip what you may already know about the origins of money thanks to crypto ("there's this island called Yap"), and anything that you could read about early accounting in that wiki.

I'll skip to the "merchants of Venice" who birthed capitalism.
Read 12 tweets
Jan 20
A close friend of mine (who is liberal) asked me today: “I understand the support for Vivek, but how can you swing over to Trump overnight?”

I compared Trump to an entrepreneur and comedian, but not in the way that you are thinking.

👇🏼
For starters, Trump was right about a LOT of issues. Immigration, NATO, tax reform, China. Just ask…Jamie Dimon:

But the big issue that always comes up is “but Trump is a jerk / dictator / insurrectionist. Democracy is at stake.”

If you think J6 was a literal insurrection, the conversation usually stops there. The guy with the horn helmet and face paint did not almost halt democracy.
Read 11 tweets
Jan 2
1/ HAPPY NEW YEAR

The Messari Theses for 2024 are now available for free.

Here's 105 thoughts for the new year. 👇 Image
(You can read the full 190+ page report here, by signing up for a free Messari account.)

Otherwise, some highlights...

messari.io/crypto-theses-…
2/ 24 top thoughts for 2024:

#1 When in doubt, zoom out.

Crypto is inevitable, and when you question the long-term trajectory, it's helpful to zoom out and appreciate how far we've come.

Here's crypto's 5 year performance scorecard: Image
Read 27 tweets

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