1/ There are 4 phases of a bull market.

Buckle up, we just entered the most fun phase.

Welcome to Stage 3 🧵 2/ As a reminder, Stage 1 was Rebirth

This occurred Jan 2023 – Jan 2024

In the Rebirth, bear market exhaustion is the prevailing feeling.

Apathy kills all narratives.

Your friends and the media still focus on the bear market blowups.

Layoffs keep happening.

1/ Been thinking about prediction markets a lot.

There's a huge crossover between media and prediction markets, which make them very relevant to Blockworks.

If I were competing against Polymarket, here's what I'd do 🧵 2/ First there are some financial / structural things to put in place.

I have no idea how hard these are. Probably hard.

I'm sure Polymarket has thought of all these and there's a reason they aren't doing them.

1/ I finally read Leopold Aschenbrenner's essay series on AI: Situational Awareness

Everyone, regardless of your interest in AI, should read this.

I took notes, they're sloppy but figured I'd share.

Welcome to the future: 2/ from gpt4 to AGI: counting the OOMs

- ai progress is rapid. gpt-2 to gpt-4 went from preschooler to smart high schooler in 4 years
- we can expect another jump like that by 2027. this could take us to agi
- progress comes from 3 things: more compute, better algorithms, and "unhobbling" (making models less constrained)
- compute is growing ~0.5 orders of magnitude (OOMs) per year. that's about 3x faster than moore's law
- algorithmic efficiency is also growing ~0.5 OOMs/year. this is often overlooked but just as important as compute
- "unhobbling" gains are harder to quantify but also huge. things like RLHF and chain-of-thought reasoning
- we're looking at 5+ OOMs of effective compute gains in 4 years. that's another gpt-2 to gpt-4 sized jump
- by 2027, we might have models that can do the work of ai researchers and engineers. that's agi (!!)
- we're running out of training data though. this could slow things down unless we find new ways to be more sample efficient
- even if progress slows, it's likely we'll see agi this decade. the question is more "2027 or 2029?" not "2027 or 2050?"

1/ Spent the day at the Coinbase State of Crypto summit.

10/10 event.

Many pensions, endowments, brokerages, asset managers, banks, etc in attendance. Leaving very optimistic.

Scribbled notes during some talks, sharing here: 2/ Brett Tejpaul (head of institutional) opened up the event.

- there's a huge generation of wealth ($70 trillion) going from old to young. 90% of this young generation is disillusioned with the financial system

- 1/3 of the top 100 hedge funds in the world are already onboarded with Coinbase

1/ There are 4 phases of a bull market.

We just entered stage 2 🧵 2/ Stage 1: Rebirth

The exhaustion from the bear market still exists.

Sparks of hope pop up, then fade. A few new narrative arise but are quickly killed by apathy.

Your friends and the media still focus on the bear market blowups.

All the while, prices are quietly recovering.

1/ I got hacked yesterday.

At the risk of looking foolish, I'll share how it happened so you can avoid this nightmare. 2/ For the past few weeks, people have been trying to get into my accounts.

Crypto accounts, email, twitter, etc... every few days I get an email that someone is trying to access one of my accounts.

Thankfully I have non-text 2FA set up for everything so nothing got hacked.

1/ Conferences can have a massive ROI.

Or they can be a complete waste of time and money.

After hosting conferences for 5+ years, it's clear there's a distinct difference between companies who understand event marketing and those who don't.

Here are some tips 🧵 2/ First, booths.

Booths are an absolute must-have.

It's your home base. It's the place where your team congregates and where you can send prospects to meet you.

The reason some companies don't see ROI from their booth is because they treat their booth like inbound sales.

1/ Go time 🚀

Introducing GovHub: crypto's most powerful governance platform

Here's what you need to know 🧵 2/ We envision a world where trillions of dollars of value flow through open protocols.

In this world, governance plays a very crucial role.

But, keeping up with all the proposals and determining their importance is nearly impossible.

Enter… GovHub.

It's time!

Introducing Grantfarm: crypto's most comprehensive grants platform

Here's why we built this 🧵 1/ Grants are this beautiful thing that happen in crypto.

Protocols, teams, and DAOs have a request for something.

And anyone in the world—no matter who you are, where you live, or what you studied—can handle the request!

At its core, it's a system that speeds up innovation.

1/ NEWS: Coinbase just launched their own L2

We had their team on Empire earlier this week to get the backstory.

Here’s everything we know 🧵 2/ Coinbase’s L2 is called Base – it's built on the OP Stack.

This is different than built on Optimism.

The OP Stack is the open-source code that powers Optimism.

1/ Buckle up, we’ve entered the toughest phase of the bear market.

Welcome to Stage 3 🧵 2/ As a reminder, Stage 1 was The Unwind

The excitement (+ greed) from the bull still existed.

Narratives popped up. Valuations got cut but companies didn't kill products or do layoffs.

Stage 1 didn't feel like a bear... it felt like we pulled back to "realistic" valuations.

If this is really the end for Genesis, this could be more impactful than FTX.

FTX hurt liquid funds and consumers. Genesis impacts nearly every company in crypto.

Let's dig in. 1/ For those who aren't familiar, Genesis started as the first OTC Bitcoin desk in 2013. They're now crypto's largest lending desk.

Genesis is part of DCG, Barry Silbert's holding company that owns CoinDesk, Foundry, Genesis, Grayscale, and Luno. DCG also runs a huge VC firm.

NFT Pro markets are coming and traders plan on arbitraging your jpegs in size 🧵 Right now, NFT trading is the equivalent of crypto trading in 2017.

OpenSea is like Coinbase's consumer app in 2017. You can buy and sell some assets but not much else.

That's all about to change.

Season 1 of Bell Curve is officially in the books.

The thesis was that the birth of fixed rate borrow and lend in DeFi would kick off a credit driven bull run.

We called it: "The DeFi Credit Boom"

Here's a review 🧵 Ep 0: @MikeIppolito_ and I laid out the thesis for the season.

a) CeFi's implosion will push activity into DeFi

b) The next wave of DeFi products will be unlocked by fixed rate borrow/lend

c) Structured products that utilize fixed borrow/lend will be key part of the next bull

1/ Green ETH will be the best narrative in crypto's history.

Here's why 🧵 2/ Let's start with ESG mandates.

Most large institutions now have ESG mandates.

Fidelity, BlackRock, Goldman, etc... whether or not they like it, they now have to consider the environmental impacts of their portfolios.

⚡️ Announcement ⚡️

Today we launch Bell Curve, a new podcast from Blockworks.

We've put an insane amount of work into this show.

Details below. 1/ Bell Curve is a show for those who, like Mike and me, are confined to the middle of the bell curve.

Each season @MikeIppolito_ and I will explore a crypto thesis.

Over the course of 7 episodes, we'll review the thesis with big guests.

At the end of the season, we'll recap.

Have spent the last few months going deep into @MakerDAO.

After lots of reading, conversations, and learning, I've decided to become a delegate.

A few thoughts 🧵 1/ I have strong conviction that DeFi will grow exponentially in the coming decades and that Maker has the opportunity to become the backbone of DeFi.

If that happens, Maker will become one of the most impactful initiatives in the history of global finance.

1/ In bear markets, it's crucial to remember why you're building.

I'd recommend reading the classics this week.

Here's a running list of my all-time favorites 🧵 2/ Go back to basics.

Bitcoin Whitepaper: bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Ethereum Whitepaper: ethereum.org/en/whitepaper

1/ There are 3 stages of a bear market.

We just entered stage 2 🧵 2/ Stage 1: The Unwind

The excitement (and greed) from the bull market still exists.

Mini-narratives pop up for weeks at a time. Assets still have floors. Valuations are cut but companies don't make the tough decisions (kill products, layoffs).

Things seem alright.

We release the 100th episode of @theempirepod today.

Big thank you to all of our listeners, our sponsors, our production team, and co-host @santiagoroel 🙏

Here are our top 15 episodes of all-time. 1/ Why Terra is Buying $10 Billion Bitcoin

Guest: @stablekwon

open.spotify.com/episode/3ohqcp…

Brain dump from one of the craziest weeks in crypto history 🧵 1/ Crypto is anti-fragile.

Every project (except BTC and ETH) is still fragile.

Even the top projects have only been around for ~3 years.

BTC and ETH remain the kings.