Btc ETF is about to Drop. Awesome!

But markets are fw looking- and ETH Etf is about to have 'next'.

The ETH community has been depressed.

Its time to just take some mETH. A double-dose in fact.

Christmas may be over but Santa Jordi is just starting:

The mETH giga-alpha 🧵👇 1. What is this mETH thing anyway?

Mantle Staked ETH, or mETH, is a liquid Staking protocol for ether, like Lido and Rocket Pool.

After a recent soft launch in Q4, it is ready for action.

Check the 1m Change in the rankings below.. 👀🫢

Crypto is (so) back! Despite limp equities, $BTC rose like a Phoenix 🪽

The prophecies foretold it.. long time coming!

So enjoy the moment-

Toss dice on Ponzi-coins if you want that PnD adrenaline!

But then we have smth serious to discuss.

*Trigger warning: 'S-word' .. 🧵 The gravity of this message requires precision, so to be clear:

Solana tech is fine/good.

Toly seems super chill, like anyone would enjoy going to Mission Burrito with.

Solana community is nice kinda quirky.

This isn't about Solana tech/culture. Or even uniquely about $SOL.

Haven't expressed Macro views in a while- but as things are about to really start moving- its time.

I spent months analyzing the endgame of U.S. policy.

The outcome I saw is now coming into view-

Gradually at first.. then all at once, the Fed will poo-poo in their pampers. 🧵 So Mr. Jay raised rates a bunch, and then him and his whole crew has been trying to sell us on "higher for longer" and that they will keep going till the inflation "job is done".

Meanwhile inflation is sticky- and paying 5.5% interest on $33 trilion isn't helping USD debasement.

$SUI launch is giving me flashbacks of 2021 NFTs.

Many listened to the Uncommon Core episode on Crypto Game Theory-- what they didn't hear was the first hour debate between me and Su that got left on the cutting room floor:

"Won't new NFTs dilute the value of existing ones?" .. From a more simplistic economic perspective :

The buyers of a category have a limited budget.

Whether its to buy an animal profile picture-

or who want to own an L1 that is trying to sell the allure of crypto-Zuckerbergia, combined with the 'sophistication of MOVE language'-

A story for you, amongst all the April Day shenanigans (++MEMES)..

Laelaps ('hurricane' in Greek), was a mythological dog that never failed to catch what it was hunting.

One day a heady dude called Cephalus decided to unleash the hound on a quest to hunt the Teumessian fox. The thing is Teumessian, a giant-ass fox that was going around eating children, had a destiny to never get caught.

On and on the chase went. An ancient example of the 'Irresistible force paradox'-

"What happens with an irresistible force meets an unmovable object?"

Well..

"Oh no!!", the influencas cried out. "CZ was counter-trading us! 💔💔"

Chillax fat man.

So Binance had some affiliated entities trading on the exchange. Do you wanna see how deep the Rabbit Hole really goes?

Let's talk about CEX.

1..2..3..4 things to keep in mind. No cap. #1:

The most important realization:

Every exchange in the world, whether Tradfi or Crypto is part Financial Institution // part Casino.

Investors and speculators coexist in the same arena.

Even the NYSE and CME.

The question is not 'whether' Casino, but 'how much' Casino.

We survived yet another FOMC (last hike of this cycle IMO)!

Collective attention flips to the biggest token launch in a long-time: $ARB is live!

One I keep getting:

Q: "Is it $1bn stimulus for the market overall- OR is it draining liquidity from other tokens?"

A: Yes.

🧵.. Say price = $1.30, so @ $13BN FDV and with the 10% airdropped:

🔥'Bob' thinks $ARB launch is like a $1.3 bn stimmy check. All the degens get $2-20k in sugar to go gamble with..

❄️'Alice' sees it differently. Someone will have to buy these tokens by rotating out of other coins!

Defi Summer was the discovery of 🔥 by Crypto Cavemen!

Then winter hit❄️.

🚚-loads of food tokens were dumped.

Ever since, ppl have been trying to reignite the 🔥 w/ "sustainable yield".. but been mostly Smoke & Mirrors.

Does Radiant v2 change the game?

I was skeptical.. 🧵 Flashback 2020-

The fuse was lit when @compoundfinance offered users tokens to incentivize them to use their borrow/lending Ethereum app.

Viral success!

Protocols realized that gifting even newly created tokens was a sure-fire way to get activity!

But it soon all collapsed..

Don't know who out there needs to read this 🧵today.

Being under immense stress for too long can literally kill you from within, wrecking the body.

My personal story of how chronic stress almost cost me my life-

Plus 3 effective tips on how to become more antifragile to it.. Stress is not good or bad-

It was designed by natural selection.

In small, sharp doses, it can sharpen focus and help us decisively respond to threats to our survival.

A low interest-rate regime leads to inflation bc it encourages borrowing and people leverage up.

Lots of cash in the system, chasing scarce goods-- and inflation causes even more leverage as people FOMO seeing prices go up.

So to fix inflation simply raise rates right?

Well.. Increasing rates *CAN* cause a period of disinflation- as people who had levered up too dangerously get liquidated, cause a bad debt spiral.

There is a reverse wealth effect; FOMO and speculative activity drop.

We saw this clearly in 2022. Lotta corpses, mainly in Crypto.

Will be focusing on creating evergreen longer-form content, to both educate and entertain.

W/ an extra serving of memes.

Starting with my memoir of OlympusDao- Ponzi or
Legit, it is a seminal part of Defi's history!

I present to you:

𝗧𝗵𝗲 (𝟯,𝟯) 𝗚𝗼𝗱𝘀'𝗙𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿.. First off-

I suggest allocating 15-minutes and reading the actual article, the feedback on it has been overwhelmingly positive!

A twitter thread won't do the content justice--

But if only have a couple minutes right now keep scrolling down..

medium.com/@game_theorizi…

End of 2022 🧵!

And what a tough year its been. I took plenty of body blows despite entering the year w/ eyes open on the changing macro backdrop.

Tldr : Cobie and I are indeed now flipping falafels at the Trafalgar Sq. Pret.

2022 Lookback, 2023 Expectations-

And off we go!! Crypto Predictions Grade: B-

B- might seem a bit harsh given how willing I was to go out on a limb at the peak of crypto mania and insist on a coming tsunami unwinding-

But I was too 'balanced' in my views, and didn't put a high enough %probability on crypto getting *so* rekt.

Back To The Future, IV Crypto Edition.

Plot:

You travel back in time to 2018 and find Do Kwon sitting in a cafe, sipping a matcha and scribbling in a notepad.

He's reading an article he printed out- "A Note on Cryptocurrency Stabilisation: Seigniorage Shares" by Robert Sams.. He's half way through, and you take a glance at his notepad.

"Names: Terra Luna? Or Basis Cash? Damn USDT symbol already taken, maybe UST??"

next page..

"Design Parameters:

Try 2 token model instead of 3? Do we need the Basis Bonds?

What if Luna absorbs the volatility?"

1/
Xmas eve story time!

Twas the nadir of the apocalyptic March 2020 markets ☄️.

The lack of market liquidity, and sheer size of the moves, made the UST yield curve bend into unthinkable shapes 🪱.

Even the mighty Citadel was *this* close to being taken out on a stretcher. 🚑 2/
Spreads were normally safely to leverage on, where getting margin-called aggressively..

Leading to the kind of cascading liquidations usually only seen on Bybit books ⏬!

The Treasury cash-futures basis was doing 6σ stuff, Ken Griffin was most assuredly sweating bullets 🥵🥵

Summary of Economic Projects. aka the Fed Dot Plot

Always turn out very wrong. The Fed voters are the worst predictors of their own future votes.

Same virus that plagues society- can't be honest and transparent lest the sheep population can't handle the inconvenient truths.. First rule of Summary of Economic Projections (SEP):

"Its not about making an actual projection. Its about using the release with the Mainstream Media in order to try and push markets and businesses in the direction they want to push them in."

First blog post I ever shared- 15 years ago.

I was 23, into psychology, philosophy and personal growth.

On the path to achieve my life goals, I was at near 0.

Now I'm at ~85% of the way there.

I re-read it today.

Was self-control my 'steel brick' in the end? Reflecting.. No doubt in my mind that it was a needed ingredient.

There were times in my life I needed to be disciplined to fight through and complete something, and those 'somethings' added up to a lot- getting into a top MBA school, grinding to get that key job etc.

SBF's plan was to spend billions of our $$ to grease wheels and buy social credibility to keep his insane game going.

Do every dumb VC deal, commit to the biggest funds, pay off politicians, athletes.. the cherry was going to be $100m to Ms Swift!

Lyrical thread 4U today..🎶🧵 Magic, madness, heaven, sin
Saw you there, and I thought
"Oh my God, look at that face
You look like my next mistake..

Migration towards Defi Exchanges- Like WFH, it was always going to happen, but this is the Covid accelerant moment.

At Selini Capital we have many HFT veterans amongst us, with an intricate understanding of market microstructure.

Lessons that are guiding us on evaluating DEXes: AMMs:

A cool but naive primitive.

Price discovery kills LPs with poorly named "impermanent" losses

Uni v2 very capital inefficient. Uni v3 killer for non-experts to MM, and worse than order book style

Not bad for stableswaps and long-tail Daos wanting to own their liquidity.

Today's post will be controversial- both the Bitcoin and Ethereum Orthodoxies will have an inclination to immediately reject it.

I do not seek the controversy.

But I believe that broadening understanding of this truth is needed before the space can take its next leap forward: While shared memes are a core ingredient of what builds and ties a community together, the 'Virality' of a meme is not always tied to either

accuracy/truth (e.g. PlanB s2f)

or

creating net beneficial incentives (e.g. HFSP)

Fiat currency is fast approaching a full-on crisis.

Post 2021, inflation got so acute that it finally broke mainstream consciousness- but the fiat game has been rigged for decades.

Like c̶o̶b̶i̶e̶ Sauron, it was laying low, building its power before launching its onslaught.. Those who were nearest to Government power centers have been accumulating endless paper and distributing to their circle.

This is called the 'Cantillon effect'

It predicts that those closest to the place of new money issuance could keep the most (those closest to the King').

Shorting is a dark art- suitable only for the most elite of trading wizards.

You pay ongoing borrow costs in a war of attrition, for limited upside, all whilst taking on risk of liquidation- no matter how big your bankroll is!

The game theory lens is particularly interesting 🧵 When you want to buy and bet on a price going up, it is relatively simple:

Predict others will buy after you and profit. You can advertise the position you took, and get a network effect.

You risk only what you put in.

You are creating paper wealth so noone hates on you..