Blog
Playground
Over the years, I've made countless attempts at optimizing my life. I've cut things that don't contribute to my goals. I haven't had a TV since I left home when I was 18. I deleted Facebook two or three years ago. I
Bitcoin: Is There a Looming Tragedy of the Commons?
Today, we recorded a podcast with Christian Decker [https://twitter.com/Snyke]. Before the episode, I asked him about the Lightning Network decreasing the demand for Bitcoin transaction and thus the revenues of miners. This has concerned me for a long time and a recent twitter conversation [https://twitter.com/
Driven By Fear
Today, I looked through the book trailer presentation for Blitzscaling [https://www.slideshare.net/reidhoffman/blitzscaling-book-trailer-118631898/] by Reid Hoffman. It's a wonderful (or horrifying) illustration of the prevalent mindset of the startup world. Some excerpts are: * "Sudden, all-out effort" * "It's do or die
Napoleon - The Propagandist
I've been reading the book Napoleon - A Life [https://www.amazon.com/Napoleon-Life-Andrew-Roberts/dp/0143127853/ref=pd_sim_14_2/142-2709328-2860033?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0143127853&pd_rd_r=2af33be1-27dd-11e9-b2b2-83751d0b2340&pd_rd_w=AaL3o&pd_rd_wg=5Ame8&pf_rd_p=
The Email Trap
I recently started using the email client Superhuman [http://superhuman.com/]. It's a desktop application that optimizes for speed, minimalism and having many keyboard shortcuts. I previously used Google mail in the browser and I much prefer Superhuman. But I also noticed a failure mode that crept in
Efficiency of Proof-of-Stake
One aspect of Proof-of-Stake (PoS) that is not often discussed is how it helps preserve the ownership of token holders. Let's look at a hypothetical PoS chain: * Market cap: $1bn * Annual inflation: $100m * Average validator commission rate: 15% In this example, while $100m of new tokens are created
The Scalability of DAOs
Last week we recorded an interesting episode with Martin Köppelmann and Matan Field [https://epicenter.tv/episode/271/] about dxDAO. The dxDAO will be a DAO on the Ethereum blockchain that will initially manage the decentralized exchange protocol DutchX. What I found most interesting about the conversation were their claims
Bitcoin in 2018
I really enjoyed Jameson Lopp's data-driven post about the Bitcoin network in 2018 [https://medium.com/@lopp/bitcoin-by-the-numbers-2018-recap-68a91789d804]. Here are some of the highlights: * Economic activity on Bitcoin dropped throughout the year, but much less than the price. * The network became more performant in various aspects like the
Bitcoin in 2018
I really enjoyed Jameson Lopp's data-driven post about the Bitcoin network in 2018 [https://medium.com/@lopp/bitcoin-by-the-numbers-2018-recap-68a91789d804]. Here are some of the highlights: * Economic activity on Bitcoin dropped throughout the year, but much less than the price. * The network became more performant in various aspects like the
Why Write
I'm going to start writing a blog post once a day. A warning upfront: Most of these posts will make for poor reading. I want to write them fast and without much concern about how they will be to read. They should take no more than 15-30 minutes