Crypto to Coffee and back In January 2023, just a few months after the FTX collapse, I felt disillusioned with crypto. I'd gotten into the space back in 2016 during an internship at Deloitte, diving deep into the value, principles, and tech behind blockchains. That passion carried me for years, but 2022 tested it. So I decided to try something new. I moved back to Ireland from New York for about four months to open a coffee shop. While there, I kept my New York hours. I woke up early to build...
13 days ago • 1 min read
Commoditized Intelligence I've been thinking about a world where intelligence is no longer rare. Today, intelligence is still seen as a valuable trait. It's something that sets people apart. But what happens when everyone has access to the same level of intelligence via AI? Does the smart person at work have an identity crisis? Or do they just become more effective at entirely new things? In the short term, hard skills still matter a lot. A programmer using AI tools today is more productive...
20 days ago • 1 min read
The West Coast Advantage Last week I flew out to San Francisco. It was my second time in the city, but this time I wasn’t on vacation. Interestingly, I’ve never really experienced jet lag flying west (NYC to SF), and I think it has something to do with the longer day building up sleep pressure. By the time evening rolls around, I’m more than ready to crash, and I end up syncing with the local time pretty quickly. It got me thinking. If you're working on a distributed team across multiple time...
27 days ago • 2 min read
Starting this week, I’m changing the newsletter format from 3 Thoughts Thursday to Thursday Thought.Instead of the usual 'High', 'Medium', and 'Low' sections, I’m switching things up. From now on, we won’t be locked into those categories. We’ll cover whatever’s interesting, at whatever depth. That said, I’m keeping the short, snappy, and digestible style you’re used to. My goal is still the same: something you can read on a coffee break and walk away with value. Native Rollups 📜 Native...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
High to Low Cypherpunk Values 📜 No More Bridging 🌉 Weekly Foundry Command 🔨 High 🌎 Cypherpunk Values 📜 Throughout my 9 years in crypto, I’ve consistently believed we could improve onboarding by effectively communicating cypherpunk values. My rationale is simple: if we articulate these values clearly, I believe most people would naturally align with them. If you're unfamiliar with the Cypherpunk Manifesto, I highly recommend reading the original version and the recent Ethereum adaptation by...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
High to Low Whats up down with $ETH? 💰 @ParaSwap Pay Up! 💸 Weekly Foundry Commands High 🌎 Whats up down with $ETH? 💰 I don’t usually focus on prices, but there’s been a lot of chatter lately about Ethereum’s recent dip. The total crypto market cap is still hovering around $2.7 trillion, roughly the same as 123 days ago. Yet, in that same window, $ETH has fallen by about 40%. So what’s behind the discrepancy? A lot of people act like they know exactly why prices move the way they do. I’m not...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
High to Low Dusting Off the Classic 2017 Altcoin Portfolio Bullish on Pectra Weekly Foundry commands High 🌎 Dusting Off the Classic 2017 Altcoin Portfolio Donald Trump’s announcement of a U.S. "Crypto Strategic Reserve" has been making waves this week. The former president, who I remember dismissed Bitcoin as a scam, is now positioning the United States as the “Crypto Capital of the World.” If 2017 me had heard this news, I would have been over the moon. Back then, the idea of the U.S....
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
High to Low SEC Cases Dropped Largest Theft In History Weekly Foundry commands High 🌎 SEC Cases Dropped The SEC has dropped its cases against Uniswap, Coinbase, and Robinhood’s crypto unit, marking a shift in its approach to crypto regulation. For years, the SEC has claimed that many crypto tokens are unregistered securities and that platforms offering them operate as illegal exchanges. These legal battles have drained companies of millions in legal fees and stifled innovation in the...
2 months ago • 3 min read
High to Low ¡Memecoins! What is EIP7702? Foundry v1.0. Released High 🌎 ¡Memecoins! Yes, Argentina’s LibraCoin fiasco is old news by now. Hayden is hellbent on incriminating himself, country coins are a terrible idea, and while we’re still holding out hope for Javier Milei, he made an undeniably dumb move this past week. But we need to talk about it because, like it or not, memecoins are still what most people think crypto is. Thing is, memecoins today aren’t the inside jokes they once were....
2 months ago • 2 min read