the big "existential" question i have for the future of work is

how will new/junior employees with minimal knowledge & skills will contribute in a workplace where senior people all ask an AI first to get what they need?

explicit and implicit apprenticeship models seem at risk these models have existed in some shape or form probably since the dawn of humanity

they were popularized through feudal models in the later middle ages

it may not be an overstatement to say that they were important for the eventual exit of the middle ages into the renaissance

very, very smart of Google to quickly jettison the now radioactive "Bard" name post haste

Magi seems like it will the real Google entrant on par with Microsoft's Bing Chat

could be even better if they are able to tap into app integrations which Google already has in many areas

https://twitter.com/DataChaz/status/1647938674326220802

honestly, even the name "Bard" was a terrible choice

though i'm now wondering if they picked it to just be the burner first entry

the word sounds...it sounds...not smart

or it sounds like it's making up songs at a bar

on digital NFT art in an AI era:

aesthetics are now commoditized (it’s just a formula)

human intention, process, (hi)story, and context, are now where more than 90% of the value lies

internalize this, and adapt a lot of people projecting onto this to infer that the curator(s) is/are who will be important

maybe, tbd. i know some interesting experiments are underway here

BUT for me, it is about reflecting on the soul of the *individual* artist in their works, and bringing light to it

the mental energy i need trade on @coinbase, avoiding the traps of the regular retail interface, getting orders consistently filled to a token count versus dollar amount, even quickly finding the token i want to buy

is quickly becoming overwhelming for my busy brain

send halp @coinbase i appreciate all of the work Coinbase does for the ecosystem, but the current suite of trading products and absolute, unmitigated, UI/UX trainwreck

and it really pains me to say it tbh

the Ringers look good 🔥 h/t to @dmitricherniak for creating one of the most compelling long-form gen art collections, and @irvinkwok for helping me with the impossible task of curating 3 Ringers from my collection for this display

there is always the “live for today because there might not be a tomorrow” crowd who disagrees with takes like “save & invest money”

ok, but my question is wtf you gonna do if tomorrow actually comes and you’re working at age 70, not because you want to but because you have to? you want the state to take care of you? gl with that

the only person that is gonna look out for you is you

you need to balance consumption and saving

i think i did ok and never felt like i lived a deprived or austere life before “making it” tbh

so much bunk financial philosophy out there

"invest in experiences, own nothing"

i say:

1) invest in high quality stuff you will (actually) use

2) invest in experiences you will remember (& going to a $300 meal 2x a week ain't memorable)

3) accumulate appreciating assets i do understand that some people can end up with a toxic philosophy around material assets

i.e., they buy them to fill some void and get only ephemeral satisfaction

but i think the reverse of "buy nothing and be happy" is equally destructive tbh

there are always tradeoffs:

- will NFTs on non-Ethereum chains be here in 5-10 years?
- will you be able to afford the fees to transfer a NFT on Ethereum L1 in 5 years?

since i mostly only buy grails, i simply prefer certainty of existence over hoping for perpetually low fees on Ethereum tx fees, we will eventually see L2s compete with L1 blockspace (which should bring fees down)

competing factor is that L2s will settle on L1 and will have inelastic demand for L1 blockspace (could bid it up significantly)

lots of people gonna get rekt because they did not buy this move

some won’t buy now, then it goes up more. others will FOMO, watch it crash then sell, or watch it go up and then crash and then sell for less

meanwhile, it’s likely price will be much higher than today in ~3 years we are seeing victory laps by bulls saying “see, you missed it!”

like bears past year saying “see, you’re F’ed”

do not allow either group to psyop you out of building a position per your preferences

you ain’t gonna care if you bought 50% or even 100% off of a bottom in 3 years

we are likely in a chop market for the next 1-2 years,

which means people here will vacillate between being euphoric bulls and doom bears every few months

don’t let it get to you

it’s hell for many traders who will be offsides continually

instead, just build your position if you sell some to take profit, probably don’t exit it all because the market will punish you

i think at this point is pretty likely the bottom is in

range for next 1-2 years still not clear to me

$1400s likely somewhere in the middle or low-middle

tbd

which NFTs do i think will become generational store of value assets?

Punks, Autoglyphs, XCOPY, and several top market cap sets in Art Blocks (including Squiggles, Ringers, Fidenza, et al)

for this use case, look at what's already attained value with low or no promised utility this is not an exhaustive list

but what they have in common is they are each:

- historically important
- have influenced the work of others
- have strong *communities* of collectors
- have minimal dependency which could fail & erode value
- already valuable

decentralization fucking matters right now, i'm trying to wrap my head around how funds and projects stored material amounts of their treasuries off-chain and on FTX

why???

you had access to a permissionless, censorship-resistant bank, and you instead gave your money to SBF

ffs

the L1 attention cycle works like this:

- VCs get in on early rounds
- VCs help pump "faster/cheaper/better" L1 narratives
- VCs invest in supporting app ecosystem
- retail shows interest and buys
- FTX lists perps
- unlocked holders short and dump "to zero"
- rinse & repeat as a result, many chains don't retain activity across cycles, BUT some could

the ones which could:
- developed substantial asset value (not just for native token, but other assets too)
- grew true organic community beyond core team & VCs
- have a differentiated value prop/ethos

i find the hypothesis that new people will come in & overrun old taste in NFT art to be so weird

it never works this way in any collectible market

they almost always look back in reverence at OG creations which already have value, assign value themselves, and aspire to own you really afraid in 5 years, newbs are gonna come in and assign value to their own new art,

and render Punks, Autoglyphs, Fidenza, Ringers, Archetype, etc. as worthless?

if so, respectfully, you just don't get it

look, if you're trying to "manage your brand" here, yes, i'm sure you can do things to boost engagement

OR you can spend more time thinking & sharing content others find interesting & informative

also, there's more to life than follower count

who cares?

live your best life ✨ having a lot of followers doesn't mean you'll be rich,

or that you're smart,

it mostly just means you're going to get harassed a lot more for almost anything you say

idk, not really worth it in a lot of ways

main value add for me is being able to engage with many smart people

isn’t it funny LarvaLabs created a random 10K jpeg collection of pixelated people,

which accidentally became a prototype for one of the most impactful community models in NFTs?

now the question is will the pfp model survive and continue to be replicated next cycle? important to note the CryptoPunk community model was emergent via its holders

LL did little to promote that side of things, and most of the characteristics we associate with “managed pfp’s” came from Yuga/BAYC

but will these models survive?

i tend to agree

as a community, steadfastly promoting censorship-resistance makes future slopes less slippery

the battle for these technologies (and how they will be regulated or not) will be mostly decided in the next 5 to 20 years

we can't afford to wait for things to break

https://twitter.com/sassal0x/status/1581139160135450624

public blockchains do not operate on an "efficient frontier," where security and usability are perfectly traded off

when in doubt, the prevailing norm for long-standing, high value networks is to prioritize security (and decentralization) to level which far exceeds current need

most pfp / community NFTs relying on on-going royalty revenue strike a weird balance among participants:

1) appeal strongly enough to a die hard holder base who never sells (raises floor price)
2) tacitly encourage active speculation (increases turnover & income)

seems tricky conversely, i think any artist (not pfp team) trying to play with #2 more directly would be viewed as gauche

sure, it happens when artists think about things like set size, but obviously engineering for high velocity would seem to make the asset less desirable among collectors

my general hypothesis is that as we go through the bottoming process in ETH & BTC, we'll see see something resembling a double bottom (low not in) or a triple bottom (low is already in) over a 1 year period

and that NFTs will pump harder off the bottoms than anything else

why? because for *some* desirable NFTs, there will be FOMO to get in while it's cheap in a way that simply does not exist for fungible tokens

and by the time we get to the third (or second) bottom, there will not be much liquid supply left as collectors have been accumulating

seeing bad takes that if you're not "building" you're worthless during bear

you realize most of the space is not builders at all but is mostly enthusiasts who are just really excited about the tech?

they also use the products, educate others about it, etc.

think a bit bigger "builders" make up probably much less than 1% of the people in the space

that's just how any product-oriented space is

the play is to build your community NOW around some of the most dedicated participants in the space- the ones who stayed during a brutal bear market

from a micro perspective, as a rational consumer, i've definitely moved up things like bigger purchases and home improvements due to inflation

why?

because i have the cash now, and they will basically be ~25% more expensive in 3 years at this rate unfortunately, in aggregate, this mindset makes inflation worse

it's one thing if it's a one time pull-forward in demand, but what if it isn't?

but to be clear, i do expect inflation rate will probably decline soon™

but it's all so politicized that i prefer not to bet on it