im 3 cycles deep now

here’s 10 things i wished i knew during my first cycle: 1. keep the majority of holdings in spot

leverage is highly risky and many times the mental health impact isn’t worth it

My crypto-related 2024 predictions: 1. A L2 will fail spectacularly, and people will "question the rollup thesis"

"ZK Rollup" has become a fairly broad category over time.

Here's how I categorize them: Bytecode-equivalent zkEVM:

EVM opcodes are mapped to circuits. This results in harder development for rollup teams, but it ends up much easier for devs. No changes are required to Solidity contracts, and everything works out of the box.

Leading teams:
@Scroll_ZKP
@0xPolygonZK

Decentralizing a rollup (especially a ZK rollup) is both the most important priority and also the most likely part that teams will get wrong: Cryptoeconomics have doomed many technically impressive protocols in the past, and each team only has one shot at getting it right.

To date, "blockchain games" have mostly been hyperfinancialized shovelware, but not for much longer.

Zero-knowledge proofs are the first step to making blockchain games a unique experience: The general-purpose blockchains most popular today have a double-edged sword known as transparency, which limits applications.

I frequently get asked how to start writing research content or break into the space.

Here's what I've learned over the past year researching + writing publicly: 1) Find what interests you, and take notes as you learn it yourself.

When you feel like you've got a good grasp on the topic, write about it. It's the best way to fill the knowledge gaps.

Ethereum's EVM has won the war of the smart-contract platforms, and it's not even close. So how do we scale the EVM for the next billion users?

Here's all you need to know about the zkEVM thesis: Modular blockchains are becoming the norm. As blockspace demand continues to increase, rollups are the most scalable way forward.

Ethereum's endgame is a settlement layer for rollups, and newer projects like @CelestiaOrg are disregarding the monolithic standard entirely.

Recent events reinforce the need for self-custody. However, there's a simple way to make self-custody even easier.

Let's explore Account Abstraction (AA): AA is not exclusive to Ethereum, but most research and development has been in the Ethereum ecosystem.

During bear markets, the best thing to do is learn. Want to dive in?

Here are some of my favorite resources: The Hitchhiker's Guide to Ethereum by @jon_charb

By far the best crash course on Ethereum and its roadmap.

members.delphidigital.io/reports/the-hi…

In the depths of the 2018 bear market, a titan emerged: @Uniswap. To say that it is an essential cornerstone of DeFi is an understatement.

Here's an abridged @Uniswap history lesson and appreciation thread:

👇 In mid-2017, @haydenzadams was laid off from his job at Siemens, where he was a mechanical engineer. So he reached out to his friend, @karl_dot_tech (who later founded @optimismPBC).

Blockspace and data availability (blobspace) will be some of the essential commodities of the 2020s.

Let's dive in: As blockspace quantity increases through new L2s, L3s, and additional L1s, blockspace valuation will shift to blockspace quality.

Application-specific rollups will be built on L3, not L2. Here's why:

🧵 👇 As more users arrive on-chain, scalability has been a significant concern. The ideal way to retain the maximum decentralization, security, and user experience is to build a rollup, which effectively bundles user transactions and settles them onto L1.

What will the blockchain landscape look like five years from now? Here's my take on how it will play out. 🧵 👇 The blockchain infrastructure landscape is developing at warp speed, and it can be hard to keep up. After a lot of research, here are my thoughts.

Layer 3 is a paradigm shift in blockchain scaling. Here's what you need to know:

🧵 👇 Layer 3 is built on top of Layer 2 by settling the proof recursively onto the L2. It's a rollup inside of a rollup!

So you want to use Crypto Twitter to hunt for alpha...

Here's a handy guide in the form of a 🧵 👇 CT is great, but there's a lot of noise! The most important thing is minimizing distraction points and focusing on high signal-to-noise follows. Use Lists for lower priority accounts you still want to keep track of.

Underfollowed and underappreciated accounts by category:

🧵 Rollups/Layer 2s/Data Availability:

@toghrulmaharram
@domothy
@nickwh8te
@norswap
@protolambda
@Swagtimus

Zero-knowledge proofs have a lot of applications beyond blockchains.

🧵👇 Passwordless Authentication:

Never get passwords leaked again by sending a "proof of password" to a site instead of the password directly.

Not all rollups or scaling solutions are the same. Here's a cheat sheet.

🧵 👇 Rollup: settles transactions on an L1 (usually Ethereum). Runs parallel to the L1 but inherits security and consensus.

Cross-chain bridges have been around for less than two years but have already been exploited for over $1.57B.

Applying ZK tech to bridges can fix a lot of the issues. 🧵 👇

https://twitter.com/boredGenius/status/1509442117629710340

Cross-chain is a technological dead-end. Either the future is mostly secured on Ethereum with rollups, or multi-chain.

A (long, but worthwhile) 🧵👇 Cross-chain bridge contracts securing immense amounts of wealth in a single location (the source side of a bridge) is a bad idea. Not only is it a single point of failure, but it also introduces a massive contagion risk vector for the destination chain.

The zkEVM is a massive breakthrough in Ethereum scaling.

🧵 👇 The EVM has won. It has become the de facto smart contract platform, being adopted in multiple alt-L1s as well as Ethereum. Solidity has become the default smart contract language, with years of development and tooling being built on top of it.