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2017 was a year were Silicon Valley received more criticism on more fronts than ever. But should tech giants be fought with regulations — or with code? For decades, Silicon Valley was chiefly recognized as a hub of innovation and great minds. But in 2018, it sounds about as charming to work in Silicon Valley as Even groups that previously seemed unconcerned by the dominance of Silicon Valley’s giants, joined the critics: US politicians, and even that not everything is as it be. on Wall Street. former employees the companies themselves admit should An endless list of controversies The list of controversies has become long, and just to mention a few. Fake news and Russia’s attempts to election campaigns. Social media’s impact on our The tendencies toward through acquisitions and continued growth. The sharing economy and automation contributing to fewer stable jobs and pushing people into the so-called . manipulate mental health. monopoly precariat However, even if you zoom in on Silicon Valley, it’s a gloomy picture. Developers receive excessive salaries which contribute to rising housing prices, while those who work in insecure jobs and are paid a pittance. The #MeToo movement has also the highly problematic work culture in Silicon Valley, with stories of and of virtually every groups except white, heterosexual men. serve them in the cafeteria sexual harassment underrepresentation Can you boycott big tech? Each of these stories alone would be enough to justify a critical look, but in sum, it has brought increasingly more people to the conclusion that the big tech companies are not wielding their power responsibly. Thanks to network effects though, it’s often difficult to them. The more people that use the service, the more useful it is. Diaspora tried competing with Facebook, but so what when all your friends are on Facebook? The search engine DuckDuckGo does an excellent job without collecting data about you, but will that change anything as long as Google is the default search engine in most browsers? boycott And when new companies are actually managing to challenge the big companies, it doesn’t take before the giants buy them or copy them. long Increased calls for regulation The northern European solution would be to call for but even are becoming receptive to this idea. (However, this is not apparent in ). The challenge is that the traditional understanding of monopolies has a strong focus on inflated prices. But the prices are not high — with the tech giants consists in the concentration of power. Companies like Google and Facebook have basic for everything we do online, but nationalization of the companies is not exactly realistic. stronger regulation, US Republicans the fight for net neutrality the problem become infrastructure In Europe, with Germany in the forefront, we have indeed seen examples of stronger regulation. Last summer, the EU Google 2.4 billion euros for abusing its market position. On May 25th, the EU directive is put into effect, giving users more control over how their data is used. In January, a which makes social media companies responsible when fake news and hate speech is being spread on their services, came into force. If they don’t comply, they risk substantial fines. fined GDPR German law The call for a new decentralization If you go back 30 years, it’s surprising that the Internet formed the basis for some of history’s most powerful companies. The Internet was developed by forces, to be a and system. The World Wide Web was also designed to be decentralized. Ironically, some of those seemingly innocuous websites grew to powers that were inconceivable at the web’s original inception. Gradually, around a very few and powerful nodes, like Facebook, Google and Amazon. non-commercial neutral decentralized the web became centralized The idea of the decentralized Internet got a little bit of mainstream attention when that they could use their technology to build a decentralized Internet. Photo: HBO Pied Piper realized in Season 4 of Silicon Valley There are some that argue you can’t recreate the decentralized web through regulation. Rather, the current design of the Internet and the web has fundamental flaws. It’s a problem we need to ourselves out of, rather than ourselves out of, to simplify the argument slightly. Globally, there are who champion the idea of an open, neutral and decentralized network. The exponents range from idealistic activists to VC funded entrepreneurs. code regulate a number of different groups The decentralized net — in plain(ish) English Although there is no , the different projects share some characteristics. A is to get files from other users, that is, peer-to-peer instead of a central server. Since there are additional copies of the file stored with different users, you will still be able file, even if there are connectivity issues in some places. No users are storing the entire file, only tiny encrypted of multiple files. Thus, it becomes virtually impossible to in to steal passwords or credit card details, or for states to and control the Internet traffic. When the addition is far cheaper, appears servers hopelessly old. agreed-upon definition of decentralization central idea to obtain the bits hack censor But why should you and I bother to store other people’s files? In several projects, this is incentivized using the same that underlies cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Projects like and have their which serves as tokens. The more storage you contribute, the more tokens you earn, and these, in turn, can be used within the network. Or you can choose to convert them to “regular” money. blockchain technology, technology MaidSafe IPFS own cryptocurrencies, What could be the most radical change is that these tokens could enable entirely new business models. In some projects, the system automatically and directly rewards those who — the users themselves, and those who develop the most popular apps on the network — which in theory means you could of the . There are already market places where there is no longer any intermediary who takes a cut. Instead, goes directly from buyer to seller. contribute value get rid ad model the whole sum Tokens also serve as an equity, blurring the boundaries between entrepreneurs, investors, and users. On a side note, this development has also spawned a new genre of you should be aware of before you jump on the cryptocurrency bandwagon. alternative to scams The decentralized net brings with it new dilemmas The decentralized network is full of challenges. The world’s librarians and archivers would probably rejoice if anything that had ever been online would be able to disappear again just because someone shut down an internet service or a server crashes. But most of us can also imagine content that we would to disappear from the web. never like Correspondingly, a network that is impossible to censor without shutting down the entire Internet, sounds attractive when we think of censorship in countries like China, Turkey or Iran. But this also means it becomes to detect and censor e.g. child exploitation material (I choose ). impossible not to use the term child pornography I can’t champion something I barely understand The concentration of power has not only happened because of how protocols and systems were designed. Giants like and Google helped make accessible and easy to use for most people. You can use the Internet today, without having any clue about how it fundamentally works. Facebook technology I have had a 24/7 Internet connection since I was 12, spending my time on IRC and building a couple of websites. I’m the person that everyone in my group of friends calls when they have computer trouble. The last ten years, my job has been to create digital services and websites. Still, even after having spent several days reading about the decentralized web, I found it almost incomprehensible. As long as most people won’t be able to understand what the decentralized Internet even is, I think we’ll have to make due with stronger regulation if we want to challenge the tech giants. An earlier version of this text was published in Norwegian Business Daily Dagens Næringsliv . Comments? Leave them below, or say hello on Twitter or e-mail me at ida@idaaalen.no.

Could the decentralized Internet save us from the giants of Silicon Valley?

I joined a panel with awesome fellow founders and builders of Mozilla to discuss the future of "citizen publishing" as a way to democratize the internet. Massive shoutout to "How to do nothing" by Jenny Odell which informs a lot of my thinking on what is wrong with the internet and how we can began to fix it. You can watch me from 30:28 and at 1:23:39. David Transcript of my part: Question: Also we have with us Linh of Hacker Noon whose team has worked tirelessly to decentralize citizen journalism. Linh - we hear a lot about misinformation.. and big media channels can be worrisome sometimes. How does citizen journalism promise to keep society differently? Answer: Here at Hacker Noon, I think a lot about the flow of information. If you think about how we traditionally receive information, it's typically via things like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, a group of very prestigious journalists that create the kind of information that people historically trust. Now with the rise of social media, you see an entirely different way "citizens" can receive information (whether or not it's journalism is questionable). But, social media is very accessible, easy to use, and information, trust-worthy or not, spread like wild fires. So here at Hacker Noon, we try to combine the good aspects of traditional journalism as well as the good of social media, making it accessible for everyone, anyone with a keyboard can publish on Hacker Noon as long as they have some kind of expertise on technology. But unlike social media where there's a big question mark about how verified information is  (for example, not until the 2016 election that Twitter started to realize the lack of fact-checking necessary for information circulating online), we go above and beyond. We don't think just put a tag on the fact is enough, there always needs to be another set of eyeballs to factcheck the information (what we call the at Hacker Noon). That human touch guarantees that an editor can always vet whether or not a submission is worth publishing. So to answer your initial question, to combat misinformation, we need accessibility as well as a good verification process. We try to do that at Hacker Noon instead of throwing a towel in traditional journalism or social media. Second Human Rule #fixtheinternet with Mozilla.

Linh Dao Smooke & David Smooke repping Hacker Noon at the Mozilla Fix the Internet Showcase

(Image credits: A Golden Bear Market by Anndy Lian) The value of a cryptocurrency can be influenced by various factors, including news about the cryptocurrency and its underlying technology, government regulations, and overall market conditions. The market can also be influenced by investor sentiment, which can be affected by a wide range of events. There are many different types of investments in the cryptocurrency space, and the popular specific investments can vary over time. In general, some of the most popular types of cryptocurrency investments include: Bitcoin is a decentralized cryptocurrency that was the first of its kind. It is often considered a store of value and is widely recognized and accepted as a form of payment. Bitcoin: Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts, which are applications that execute automatically when certain conditions are met. It is also used as a platform for building decentralized applications (dApps). Ethereum: DeFi refers to financial applications built on the blockchain and decentralized, meaning that they are not controlled by a single entity. DeFi tokens are often used to access or participate in these applications. Decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens: Security tokens are digital assets representing ownership in an asset, such as a company or real estate. They are subject to federal securities laws and are often issued through initial coin offerings (ICOs). Security tokens: Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies that are pegged to a stable asset, such as the US dollar, to reduce price volatility. Stablecoins: There are many different investment theses for cryptocurrencies. Some people believe that cryptocurrencies have the potential to replace traditional fiat currencies. In contrast, others think they will be used primarily as a store of value or a means of exchange. Still, others believe that the underlying blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize a wide range of industries, from supply chain management to identity verification. These Are Some Specific Investment Theses for Cryptocurrencies: Some people believe that cryptocurrencies will eventually be used as a primary means of exchange, replacing traditional fiat currencies. The use of cryptocurrency as a means of exchange: Some people believe that cryptocurrencies will eventually be used as a store of value, similar to gold. The store of value thesis: Some people believe that the underlying blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize a wide range of industries and that investing in cryptocurrencies is a way to get in on the ground floor of this technological revolution. The blockchain revolution thesis: Some people believe that the price of a cryptocurrency will continue to go up as long as someone is willing to buy it at a higher price, even if there is no intrinsic value to the cryptocurrency. This is sometimes referred to as the "greater fool" theory of investing. The "greater fool" theory: Venture capitalists (VCs) are investors who provide capital to early-stage companies in exchange for equity ownership. In the cryptocurrency space and especially after witnessing the fall of FTX, many VCs have started to be interested in investing in companies that are working on infrastructure and applications for the blockchain, rather than investing directly in cryptocurrencies themselves. Some Specific Areas of Interest for VCs in the Cryptocurrency Space. VCs have invested in companies working on building out the infrastructure for the blockchain, such as companies that are developing new consensus algorithms or building out decentralized storage solutions. Blockchain infrastructure: New blockchains get good support too. Shardeum is the world's first EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine)-based sharded blockchain mainnet. With dynamic state sharding technology, the blockchain can linearly scale and increase TPS (transaction per second) with every node added to the network. The network can maintain low gas fees indefinitely. It was co-founded by Nischal Shetty, a co-founder of WazirX, India's largest crypto exchange by trading volume. They have raised $18.2 million in a seed funding round from more than 50 investors, including Jane Street and The Spartan Group joined this seed round along with Wemade and others. Web3, also known as Web 3.0, is the next iteration of the World Wide Web, and it is built on blockchain technology. It is designed to be more decentralized, secure, and open than the current Web. Web3 solutions: VCs are looking for projects that align with the core principles of Web3 and have the potential to drive its adoption and growth. This is another rising trend. The Venom Foundation, a Layer-1 blockchain licensed and regulated by the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), and Iceberg Capital, an ADGM-regulated investment manager, have announced a partnership to launch the Venom Ventures Fund (VVF), a $1 billion venture fund. The fund aims to invest in innovative protocols and Web3 dApps, focusing on long-term trends such as payments, asset management, DeFi, banking services, and GameFi. The VVF will be blockchain-agnostic, meaning it will not be limited to any specific blockchain and will invest in projects based on their potential regardless of the underlying blockchain. The fund aims to become the leading supporter of next-generation digital technologies and entrepreneurs. I noted that the VCs in my network are also looking at blockchain applications. VCs have also invested in companies that are using the blockchain to build new applications, such as supply chain management platforms, decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms, and decentralized identity solutions. Interoperability and cross-chain solutions, for example, aim to enable different blockchain networks to communicate and interact with each other and are also one of the top investment choices. When I showed this article to some of my friends before publishing, they asked me why didn't VCs consider investing in crypto exchanges. The truth is that most of the VCs who understand how the crypto market works would know that exchanges are facing tremendous stress from the regulators. Having a license does not necessarily mean good, honestly. There are new travel rules that will tighten how crypto moves. The new rules may even force DEXs to new unknown territories where the realization of profits can be deemed a nuisance for many investors. The older existing exchanges usually have very high operating costs, overspending habits on marketing, sponsorships, and staffing. Moreover, the valuation is way too high for a good entry point, in my humble opinion. Therefore, I believe investing in blockchain infrastructure and applications will support the development and growth of the cryptocurrency ecosystem and potentially generate more sustainable returns for its investors in this bear run. It is also important to note that VC investment in the cryptocurrency space is just one aspect of the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem. There are many other types of investors, such as hedge funds, family offices, and individual investors, who may have different investment theses and strategies. Having said this, there are still many opportunities in this volatile market. I commented in the yesterday, “Gold may be a safe haven”, but there were many other [crypto] opportunities elsewhere for investors “to profit from price fluctuations.” South China Morning Post Take a recent market movement, for example. A fellow investor in Singapore reacted quickly to short bitcoin after the US report of 6.5% CPI inflation. He made money. During the same week, he noted that the resistance level had hit its low and would bounce upward soon. He injected another $10m to long it. Bitcoin went over $21,000. He made money again. And when he heard rumors that PBOC might start to print more money as a stimulus, he sold his crypto holdings into Chinese A-shares as he saw a higher upside in the longer run. As a licensed fund manager and a VC myself for over a decade, this is my humble note to all. "Believe in the underlying technology, aim for community growth and ride on the right waves for the best crypto returns."- Anndy Lian. Not financial advice, of course.

What Are Crypto Venture Capitalists (VCs) Investing in This Bearish Market?

When I first heard about Ray Dalio writing a book, I thought “Here we go again!” I had read the “Principles” document on the Bridgewater site in 2012 and wasn’t sure what the point of elaborating that into a 550-page book would be. People kept telling me to read the book and I kept being a hater. Eventually, I got the book as a gift one day. I opened it up. Here’s What I Learnt From Ray: What a paradigm shift. I realized that I often go through life being a passive recipient of what the world has to offer. A casual bystander or a simple worker in the machine that is the world. Ray’s advice is to not be person in the machine, instead be the designer of your machine. This applies to your job, your relationship, your life. Design the machine, design your life for the purpose you want it to have. If the machine isn’t producing the results you want, figure out how to fix it, to get the output (the life) you want. Or as Ray says in the book: Think for yourself to decide 1) what you want 2) what is true and 3) what you should do to achieve #1 in light of #2 This can be broken down into the following five ideas: Don’t confuse what you wish were true with what is really true. Don’t worry about looking good — worry instead about achieving your goals. Don’t overweight first-order consequences relative to second and third-order ones. Don’t let pain stand in the way of progress. Don’t blame bad outcomes on anyone but yourself. Dreams + Reality + Determination = A Successful Life Powerful Life Questions: What are the rules and principles by which you want to live your life ? What’s important to you and what you are solving for ? How do you ensure that you are seeking truth ? Who are you and how are you constructed ? He’s a big fan of Myers-Briggs and other such tests. I am too. (I am an ISTJ incidentally). How are you going to get what you want ? Decision Making: Principles is really a book about good decision making. Life is just a series of decisions, so making better decisions leads to a better life. — Can you simplify this seemingly complex problem in to just another one of those. Have you seen this before ? Sometimes you need to step back and see the machine from a higher level. Simplify — Don’t let the fears of what others think stand in your way. Seek truth and diagnose problems to their root causes. You are looking for the best answer, not the best idea you came up with. Be radically open minded — All decisions should focus on increasing expected value. Can you increase probability of being right ? What can you do to increase certainty ? Focus on expected value — Who’s done this before and is more likely to be right ? Who has success here ? Beware of people who have little experiences and lots of opinions. Seek people with experience who can help you triangulate to truth — It’s ok to be wrong. It’s not ok to not learn from them. What are the biggest mistakes you make. When do you make those mistakes? Are there particular types of mistakes you make often? Making mistakes is ok My Favorite Idea: If you aren’t thinking back to who you were a year ago and grimacing you aren’t growing fast enough. Bonus: If you haven’t watched his: How the Economic Machine Works, you are missing out in a big way !! Call To Action: We are a group of Wall Street veterans dedicated to helping the next generation be . . Smarter, Richer, Happier Don’t miss out on our free eBook and weekly VIP emails

What I Learnt from Ray Dalio’s Principles

“What can the critics do but stare” This was my thought as the news broke of GameStop rallying 110% during yesterday’s trading session."Is this happening again?" I whispered, a stunned laugh escaping my lips. With GameStop’s recent price action, investors around the world are embracing a new reality that a daring meme stock can also take Wall Street by storm. The story of GameStop’s miraculous comeback still continues to captivate the investing audience even though three years have passed since it experienced an unprecedented turn of events that saw it going from doom to boom. And that it took one man’s appetite for the shares of a struggling company to trigger the liquidation of billions of dollars in the stock market is no less amusing. When the demand for the shares of a struggling company on a popular stock exchange such as Wall Street is driven by a group of meme-loving investors banding together to give established investors a run for their money, you have a situation that resembles a rescue mission, and in the phraseology of being concise and self-explanatory, experts define such shares as a meme stock to show that they are of an interesting origin. Although critics acknowledge that investing in meme stocks carries the same level of risks as traditional stocks, for “dumb apes”, a pejorative phrase used to refer to the members of a meme stock community, to liquidate $1 billion on the stock market in one hour can not be less newsworthy. But what is all the more interesting is that these stocks have been holding the line since 2021. I guess this is just history repeating itself or another occasion to teach hedge fund investors a lesson. The first time this happened was in 2021 when a user on the Reddit forum WallStreetBets, Keith Gill, invested $50,000 of his money in GameStop, which was trading at an unattractive price of $4 at the time. Booed and bullied, Gill stayed put, built a silent army of investors, and lo and behold by January 2021, his $50,000 was now worth a staggering $48 million, with the GameStop’s value increasing by 1,915%  and trading at $347.51. This rally took Wall Street investors by surprise and caused a lot of rich investors to lose a lot of money through short selling. To the vast astonishment of WallStreet, it was discovered that a vast army of redditors led by Gill was behind the massive demand for GameStop stock, an event that would later bring him fame. Three Years Later Returning to the social media space three years after leading a resistance against Wall Street's Hedge Funds, Keith Gill is certain he would make headlines across the world as soon as he dropped a tweet. His absence after the event that cost Wall Street investors over $12.5 billion only meant that his return had been very much anticipated. While it is too early to conclude that the meme stock frenzy is back, Gill‘s return might offer a clue into how the market responded to it: short sellers have already lost $1 billion dollars and AMC, another meme stock, has recorded a $33 increase. This is not unexpected. After all, he is a symbol of that very historic sentiment that brought GameStop back from the dead. Sentiments Over Fundamentals A valuable lesson modern-day investors can learn from this experience is that sentiment is a powerful force in the investment landscape, especially in the digital age where information moves at a breakneck speed. It surmises that even in the absence of strong fundamentals, a conscious investing community like that of WallStreetBets can shape the financial landscape. This was true of the prevailing mood at the time engineered by Keith Gill(aka Roaring Kitty). It should be remembered that in 2021, Gill, while known by the moniker DeepF**kingValue, gave an utterance to his feelings about Wall Street firms heavily shorting GameStop stock in a bid to profit from its decline. This predatory short-selling might have enraged Gill greatly, prompting him to weaponize his feelings. In Gill’s first return post on X, we are treated to a diagram of a man sitting awkwardly on a chair. With over 27 million views, 11,000 comments, and 31,000 retweets so far recorded, the impact of this tweet is still a subject of discussion among financial pundits. But in a matter of hours, we have seen the reaction of the stock market in the ongoing short squeeze reminiscent of the 2021 massive financial loss sustained by prominent Wall Street investors. Conclusion The return of meme stocks and the resurgence of GameStop raise intriguing questions about the future of the stock market. While some see it as a fleeting phenomenon, others believe it represents a fundamental shift in power dynamics. Regardless, one thing is certain: the age of information and social media has given retail investors a powerful voice, and their influence on the market cannot be ignored. As the story unfolds, it will be fascinating to see how Wall Street adapts and how regulators respond to this evolving landscape. “What can the critics do but stare” This was my thought as the news broke of GameStop rallying 110% during yesterday’s trading session. "Is this happening again?" I whispered, a stunned laugh escaping my lips. With GameStop’s recent price action, investors around the world are embracing a new reality that a daring meme stock can also take Wall Street by storm. “What can the critics do but stare” "Is this happening again?" The story of GameStop’s miraculous comeback still continues to captivate the investing audience even though three years have passed since it experienced an unprecedented turn of events that saw it going from doom to boom. And that it took one man’s appetite for the shares of a struggling company to trigger the liquidation of billions of dollars in the stock market is no less amusing. When the demand for the shares of a struggling company on a popular stock exchange such as Wall Street is driven by a group of meme-loving investors banding together to give established investors a run for their money, you have a situation that resembles a rescue mission, and in the phraseology of being concise and self-explanatory, experts define such shares as a meme stock to show that they are of an interesting origin. Although critics acknowledge that investing in meme stocks carries the same level of risks as traditional stocks, for “dumb apes”, a pejorative phrase used to refer to the members of a meme stock community, to liquidate $1 billion on the stock market in one hour can not be less newsworthy. But what is all the more interesting is that these stocks have been holding the line since 2021. I guess this is just history repeating itself or another occasion to teach hedge fund investors a lesson. The first time this happened was in 2021 when a user on the Reddit forum WallStreetBets, Keith Gill, invested $50,000 of his money in GameStop, which was trading at an unattractive price of $4 at the time. Booed and bullied, Gill stayed put, built a silent army of investors, and lo and behold by January 2021, his $50,000 was now worth a staggering $48 million, with the GameStop’s value increasing by 1,915%  and trading at $347.51. This rally took Wall Street investors by surprise and caused a lot of rich investors to lose a lot of money through short selling. To the vast astonishment of WallStreet, it was discovered that a vast army of redditors led by Gill was behind the massive demand for GameStop stock, an event that would later bring him fame. Three Years Later Returning to the social media space three years after leading a resistance against Wall Street's Hedge Funds, Keith Gill is certain he would make headlines across the world as soon as he dropped a tweet. His absence after the event that cost Wall Street investors over $12.5 billion only meant that his return had been very much anticipated. While it is too early to conclude that the meme stock frenzy is back, Gill‘s return might offer a clue into how the market responded to it: short sellers have already lost $1 billion dollars and AMC, another meme stock, has recorded a $33 increase. This is not unexpected. After all, he is a symbol of that very historic sentiment that brought GameStop back from the dead. Sentiments Over Fundamentals A valuable lesson modern-day investors can learn from this experience is that sentiment is a powerful force in the investment landscape, especially in the digital age where information moves at a breakneck speed. It surmises that even in the absence of strong fundamentals, a conscious investing community like that of WallStreetBets can shape the financial landscape. This was true of the prevailing mood at the time engineered by Keith Gill(aka Roaring Kitty). It should be remembered that in 2021, Gill, while known by the moniker DeepF**kingValue, gave an utterance to his feelings about Wall Street firms heavily shorting GameStop stock in a bid to profit from its decline. This predatory short-selling might have enraged Gill greatly, prompting him to weaponize his feelings. In Gill’s first return post on X , we are treated to a diagram of a man sitting awkwardly on a chair. With over 27 million views, 11,000 comments, and 31,000 retweets so far recorded, the impact of this tweet is still a subject of discussion among financial pundits. But in a matter of hours, we have seen the reaction of the stock market in the ongoing short squeeze reminiscent of the 2021 massive financial loss sustained by prominent Wall Street investors. Gill’s first return post on X Gill’s first return post on X Conclusion The return of meme stocks and the resurgence of GameStop raise intriguing questions about the future of the stock market. While some see it as a fleeting phenomenon, others believe it represents a fundamental shift in power dynamics. Regardless, one thing is certain: the age of information and social media has given retail investors a powerful voice, and their influence on the market cannot be ignored. As the story unfolds, it will be fascinating to see how Wall Street adapts and how regulators respond to this evolving landscape.

GameStop Price Surge: Sentiments And The Return Of Roaring Kitty

A little Background on Ryan Selkis aka TwoBitIdiot Ryan Selkis, also known as TwoBitIdiot, is a founder of Messari, an open data service bringing transparency to cryptoassets industry through analysis, projects’ disclosure registry and an abundance of no-BS metrics. Before founding Messari, he was a managing director at CoinDesk and a director of growth at Digital Currency Group. Ryan earned his street cred by being one of the first to run the story of the bankrupting Mt Gox in . early 2014 The Interview : You’ve been involved professionally in the industry for more than 5 years now. What has been you main driver - business opportunities or political philosophy? KryptoJoseph (KJ) : I definitely come from a more libertarian camp. Upon seeing the actions of governments and banks worldwide trying to devalue the currencies and prop up asset prices, Bitcoin’s thesis as a digital gold resonated strongly with me and initially I got involved as a speculator. As I learned more I got even more fascinated by the potential, not just for payments but also as a new way of organizing people and information. The interest and potential applications have expanded for me over the years, but the core ethos of protecting wealth and being sovereign as an individual was the main motivation for me. : What’s your take on Bitcoin maximalism? Ryan Selkis (RS) KJ I consider myself a rational economic actor. I try not to fall in love with any of the protocols, but I also think that right now, from the investor’s point of view, Bitcoin is the least risky asset and has the fewest headwinds in terms of selling pressure. For example if you consider the competition Ethereum has in terms of smart contract platforms or think about the lack of liquidity and general interest in any ICO projects, Bitcoin is a much less risky choice. This seems to be a trend that won’t change any time soon. I look at the fact that Bitcoin has so much attention globally and at the macro scale and is becoming to be taken seriously as a digital gold and it seems that Bitcoin will be the first crypto asset to cross the chasm to mainstream adoption. Having said that, I think in five to ten years many other applications are going to be equally interesting. But it’s going to take much longer for the non-store of value applications to take root. RS: Bitcoin will be the first crypto asset to cross the chasm to mainstream adoption. : What kind of use cases can Bitcoin satisfy over the long term? KJ : For Bitcoin, it’s quite simple: the ability to store your wealth and secure your assets in a provably scarce currency, has low inflation and has already proven its resilience in large scale wealth transfers. The ability to move tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars or even more via the Bitcoin blockchain in a way that is very difficult or impossible to block is a sufficient killer app. We don’t need lending, derivatives or smart contracts on the base layer to prove the value of Bitcoin. : Do you currently see any project beside Bitcoin that would satisfy a real use case? For example, do you see any value in the DeFi stuff that’s getting build on Ethereum? RS KJ : Although I believe in DeFi, onchain lending, decentralized exchanges and so on, I think it’s going to take much longer to become as pervasive and interesting as something like Bitcoin. Bitcoin is much simpler and has a much wider potential audience in the near to medium term. : In your and in other places you talk about your belief in an eventual hard fork to a steady, low inflation monetary policy of Bitcoin. Could you elaborate on why this could happen? RS KJ 96 Theses for Crypto : I think it might end up being the best option to preserve Bitcoin’s security model. But I’ve also said it’s not even worth talking about for another few years. When I mention it it’s more as an eventuality rather than something that I would personally propose and advocate for. As to the question of why the switch to steady inflation is on the table, I just think that low level of steady inflation is much more predictable and reliable than the reliance on steady transaction fees. It remains to be seen if this view gets adopted more broadly without causing another big split in the community. But again, I think it’s a conversation for a few years from now. : In your 96 Theses you also say that Bitcoin is a highly correlated risk asset. Recently I saw an analysis showing that Bitcoin is gradually . Do you believe this is happenning? RS KJ becoming a risk-off asset : We will have to see how it behaves in the next financial crisis to be sure. If something big like a collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 happens and the market is spooked, I think everything will go down and bitcoin will have a pretty tough period then. But if we’ll have a gradual, inflationary recession where asset prices continue to increase and interest rates continue to be near zero or negative in some countries, that’s when we’ll see much more interest in Bitcoin. Overall I think the stagnant or gradually declining economy is better for Bitcoin’s performance than a severe crisis. : One of your thesis is that Lightning Network could see massive growth in capacity, reaching $100mm. But with a good part of the year already behind us, we see the is actually declining in bitcoin terms, from 1000 bitcoins at the beginning of the year to around 800 bitcoins now. RS KJ capacity : I think Lightning Network along with other layer 2 protocols are still extremely early, so I don’t worry about the lack of capacity growth too much. It’s more about finding the right applications for streaming payments or micropayments that people will really use. As the actual applications get usage, Lightning will get much more widely used and the liquidity will grow accordingly. : I’ve recently seen a lot of promotion of custodial services like BitGo and BlockFi among prominent bitcoiners (mostly podcasters). I’m personally afraid such custodians make something like a crypto version of more tempting. Do you think these services are beneficial or harmful overall? RS KJ Executive order 6102 : If crypto becomes large, the credit markets built on top will become equally large. Healthy credit markets are the basis of the monetary system, but the initial lending applications are naturally for short selling and hedging, to accommodate needs of speculators, miners, and exchanges. So I think these centralized services are a necessary tool for building liquidity and building up the health of the ecosystem. : What approach toward building up of the crypto credit markets is better - centralized services like BlockFi or decentralized open finance like Ethereum DeFi? RS KJ : There’s still so much that needs to be built in terms of decentralized infrastructure that it probably doesn’t make sense to focus on decentralizing everything at this stage. Different components need to be decentralized over time, there’s no point in being militant about having every single component in the stack decentralized. For example, the oft-mentioned “threat of Infura” isn’t too concerning now, but it should be when Ethereum grows to a larger scale. It becomes a problem once a sufficient number of developers build financial applications that see a lot of usage on top of it. : Last question: do you see any obvious obstacles to Bitcoin adoption? RS KJ : I see no obvious obstacles to bitcoin adoption right now, other than user education and marketing. RS I view Bitcoin's success as inevitable at this point. :) Follow Ryan at https://twitter.com/twobitidiot . Check out Messari at https://messari.io/ . . Follow me at https://twitter.com/KryptoJoseph

Interview with Ryan Selkis, founder of Messari

Billions of dollars in venture capital have poured into direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands over the past ten years, funding hundreds of upstart brands challenging the incumbents in product category. These brands, once by investors, are now raising multi-million dollar rounds pre-launch and recruiting top talent. nearly every ignored There’s no question that there’s hype around the D2C space, but we’ve seen far less interest in the infrastructure that allows these brands to scale. D2C brands uniquely own every step of their production and distribution process — from product design to packaging to marketing to fulfillment. New brands can struggle to put all these pieces together, while established brands face challenges like figuring out how to serve an international audience and maintaining growth in a capital-efficient way. We see a huge opportunity for the rise of tools that better serve these brands, and we’re excited to share our research on companies in this space and areas where we hope to see further development. If you’re working on something in the D2C infrastructure space, please email us at twins@crv.com — we’d love to talk to you! Playbook for New Brands We’ve compiled a list of the tools we see D2C brands using today, based on our conversations with dozens of brands and data from Siftery . Product Design & Development Most brands handle design and development of products in-house, sometimes with heavy input from customers, which Glossier (and more brands are exploring via Instagram Stories and surveys). The development process typically involves finding a factory or manufacturing partner with expertise in the space, and working closely with them. famously does However, we’ve found a few startups that are aiming to use tech in the product development process. and offer this for 3D-printed products, while and do the same for hardware. and all focus on fashion, doing smaller production runs with quick turnaround times. (customers include , and ), and ( ) both work across industries. Voodoo Manufacturing Shapeways Shape Prototype , Kickr Design , Seeed Studios CALA , IndieSource , Nineteenth Amendment Parcel Supply Birchbox, S’well Blue Apron PCH International Walker and Company, Fitbit, Blaze Manufacturing Many brands find manufacturers through their personal networks or referrals, but there are also established marketplaces that connect companies with domestic and international factories — , , , , and are a few examples. Some of the newer players cater to younger brands who are concerned about eco-friendliness, quality control, and social responsibility — ( , ), , , and (fashion-specific) are a few examples. MFG.com Kompass Alibaba IndiaMart ThomasNet Anvyl LOLA, Hims, S’well Native Sourcify Maker’s Row Sewport Financing There’s a number of firms that focus on consumer brands, many of which combine an investment with incubation or branding, advertising, or other support. is a major player in this space — the company offers as well as financing options, as is is a newer firm that focuses on brands doing $1M+ in annual revenue. CircleUp credit equity Indie.vc . Assembled Brands Other funds include , , , , and invest exclusively in food and beverage. , , and (beauty-focused) all serve as accelerators that combine funding with agency-like support. Outroll Ventures Unilever Ventures Touchdown Ventures Beechwood Capital Simon Capital , Elizabeth Street , VTF Capital *. AccelFoods , First Beverage Group , Distill Ventures Bullish The Brandery SKU , XRC Labs , Sephora Accelerate and remain a popular way to fund an initial production run, as well as equity crowdfunding platforms like , , , and . Along with traditional credit options like small business loans (also offered via startups like , , and ), there are also a few new credit options catered directly to D2C brands. These include , (working capital), and (marketing funding). does the same via merchant cash advances and loans. Kickstarter Indiegogo SeedInvest Crowdfunder Republic Wefunder Fundbox SnapCap Kickfurther CircleUp Credit Advisors Dwight Funding Clearbanc Shopify Capital Inventory Management Inventory management and forecasting are crucial for young brands that are short on cash and storage space. Forecasting is complicated by the fact that these brands can have “viral” moments that are difficult to predict and lead to long waitlists. Like most other software categories, there are existing inventory management solutions (Netsuite, Workday, SAP, etc.). However, the pricing, features, and implementation often don’t work for early-stage, high growth companies. A few startup platforms that cater to D2C brands — ( , ) and ( ). Other options that are popular amongst e-commerce more broadly are , , , , , , and . Fuse Inventory Glossier, LOLA, MeUndies Snowe Stitch Labs Brooklinen, Thinx TradeGecko Finale Lightspeed Retail Ops Unleashed Veeqo Brightpearl Branding Many brands do this in-house, especially if they have a designer on the team or can easily consult with an expert. , and are a few of the more popular tools for managing brand assets, and some also include tools or design space for generating these assets. It’s also common to hire a freelancer on a platform like , , , , , and . Canva , Brandfolder , Bynder , Outfit , OpenBrand Frontify 99Designs , DesignCrowd Dribbble Behance Upwork Toptal Fiverr A number of design agencies have risen to fame for their work with top D2C brands — ( )and ( ) are two of the most popular. Others include ( ) ( ) ( ), ( ), ( ), ( ), and ( . Red Antler Casper, Allbirds, Keeps, Brandless Gin Lane Hims, Sweetgreen, Harry’s, Stadium Goods Pentagram Buffy, Tender Greens, The Wing , Condensed Pair Eyewear, Num Num, Keepers , Partners & Spade Allbirds, Flamingo, Warby Parker , M. Gemi Collins Heyday, Nourish, Archer Farms Motto Even, Keetsa, Crown & Buckle Circus Maximus Roman, Bombfell High Tide Warby Parker, Casper, LOLA) Marketing Like traditional e-commerce companies, many D2C brands devote most of their marketing dollars to Facebook, Instagram, and Google. There is a sea of marketing software tools for new brands to manage this spend. To get a sense of what both early and late-stage brands are using, we used to check out the marketing stack for the top 15 most well-funded D2C brands, as well as the 29 brands who raised a VC seed round last year. We’ve included below platforms that were used by five or more brands out of this group. Siftery Most of the brands we surveyed used at least one option in each of the sub-categories above, making it by far the most complex area of the stack we examined. Seed-stage brands were more likely to experiment with similarly early-stage marketing platforms (perhaps because they are the most hungry to acquire customers!)—particularly in categories that go beyond the basics like referrals, re-targeting, and conversion. We know many brands are also using tools to schedule and post content to social media, which wouldn’t show up in a Siftery stack. Examples include (Instagram scheduler), (Twitter scheduler) as well as cross-platform schedulers and — which we’ve included in the “Customer Success” map below as they also support customer service. Later Tweetdeck Sprout Social Buffer Customer Success Similar to marketing, many of the customer success platforms built for traditional e-commerce seem to be working for D2C brands. Unlike marketing, however, we found most D2C brands used a fairly tight set of customer success solutions — most commonly a live chat tool ( and were the top two), an email/ticketing system ( and —which all also offer social support) and a social-focused service platform ( and ) Olark Zendesk Zendesk , Kustomer , Gorgias , Conversocial Sprout . We’ve also included customer review systems in the “Customer Success” category — though they could arguably be considered “Marketing” tools as well. and were by far the most-used platforms in this category. Yotpo Okendo Commerce & Payments Almost all of the seed-stage D2C brands we surveyed used either or as their commerce platform, while later-stage brands commonly used to process payments. About half of the 43 brands we looked at also used one or more of the following: and is another newer option that handles checkout, analytics, and fraud protection. Shopify Magento Stripe Google Wallet , Paypal , Apple Pay , Amazon Payments . Bolt Payments Outside of the core payment processing functionality, almost all of the subscription-based D2C brands we looked at used for their billing, and several of the later-stage brands used a fraud protection solution like and Brands with higher-priced items also often implements solutions to allow customers to pay over time — with platforms like , , and . ReCharge Payments Riskified Signifiyd . Affirm Klarna Quadpay Fulfillment, Shipping, & Returns We’ve discussed Inventory Management above, so in this category we‘ve focused on packaging, shipping and fulfillment, and returns. In packaging, arguably the most well-known brand is ( ) but many earlier-stage brands that struggle with Lumi’s prices and minimums turn to and also have quite a bit of traction in this space. Lumi Parachute, MeUndies, Rockets of Awesome Packlane . Arka Pakible On the shipping side, ( ), , and are three of the most popular options, though some brands ship directly via USPS or FedEx. helps companies offer same-day delivery. , , , , , and are other popular 3PL and fulfillment options for D2C brands and e-commerce more broadly. Shippo MeUndies, Ipsy, Hims ShipStation ShipBob Darkstore Flexe ShipHero RubyHas Quiet Logistics ID Logistics Dotcom Distribution , Fosdick and are focused on international shipping, which remains a huge problem for brands of all sizes. Brands use platforms like and to help customers track orders. On the returns side, and (sometimes used together!) are the two most popular options we found, with and as other common options. Passport Shipping , Flow , FlavorCloud Arrive , Newgistics , AfterShip , Narvar Returnly Happy Returns ReturnMagic Narvar Brick & Mortar Space As we’ve , D2C brands are increasingly experimenting with physical retail space — usually via pop-ups or by renting shelf space in their early days, and then setting up permanent stores further down the line. The last few years has seen the birth of many startups that aim to help brands tackle this without having to hire a broker or realtor. written about before In the shelf or display space category, some of the biggest contenders are (with an online marketplace and three stores in NYC), (focused on consumer hardware) (in Edmonton and Minneapolis), (Plano, TX), (NoHo in NYC), and (SF). On the short-term or pop-up side, and all offer solutions. assists with longer-term retail placements alongside (formerly thisopenspace), a CRV portfolio company that also helps smaller brands find short-term and shelf space. Bulletin b8ta Fourpost Neighborhood Goods Showfields Re:Store Storefront , AppearHere , Go-PopUp Leap Uppercase (customers include and ), also helps D2C brands with retail — but with a focus on connecting companies to vendors and service providers who can manage store operations. This includes maintenance, events, dry cleaning, and other custom services that brands may not have the time or expertise to set up themselves. Worksmith Outdoor Voices, Casper, Bonobos, Stance What’s Left To Build? There are several areas where we see considerable room for improvement on existing solutions, as well as other categories that have yet to be tackled. Here are just a few areas of opportunity we are particularly excited about: CACs continue to rise on Instagram and Facebook — though consumers remain excited to try new brands, it’s hard to cut through the noise on social feeds. Many brands are turning to cross-promotions with other brands to lower acquisition costs, and sites like have popped up to aggregate brands. We’ve also seen new entrants focus on dominating specific product categories (e.g. in beauty) or distribution via friend referrals (e.g. ). We’re excited to see more scalable, software-based solutions for brands to reach the right customer. Discovery. Newfound Supergreat MASSE It’s surprising how hard it is for brands large and small to ship internationally — just take a look at the variety of products on ! Because D2C brands advertise heavily on social media, where content can be shared globally (even if ads target a domestic audience), it’s especially important to be able to serve these potential customers. We’re very excited about starting to tackle this problem, and are looking forward to seeing these solutions expand to more brands. International Shipping. Grabr Passport , FlavorCloud , Flow We continue to see D2C brands struggle to finance their inventory, particularly given that they often can’t negotiate favorable payment terms with manufacturers early on. This results in many companies raising more venture funding (and taking more dilution) than they need to scale. , , , and have been making progress in providing working capital to brands, and we’re interested in watching how this space evolves. Financing. Clearbanc Assembled Brands Dwight Funding CircleUp As shown by the many categories above, brands have to piece together and manage a huge amount of different resources just to get a first product out the door. This can be especially overwhelming for small teams running on limited capital, who don’t have partnerships or contracts with larger retailers. It will likely take more time and capital in the space, but we’d be excited to see something closer to an end-to-end solution (even just for one category!) that simplifies brand operations. is one example — as well as serving as a subscription platform for brands like , , and , they also offer fulfillment, customer service, and business intelligence. Resource Aggregation. OceanX Ladder Cora Seed Thanks for reading! If you’re working on something in this space, please email us at twins@crv.com — we’d love to hear from you! Like this post? to help more people see our story, and share it with your friends! Clap for it Interested in reading more content from us? You can subscribe to our weekly newsletter, , for more insights on millennial and Gen Z trends: Accelerated https://accelerated.carrd.co/ Thank you to Saar Gur for his help with this post.

D2C 2.0: The Rise of Infrastructure

I left the freezing cold of the Northeast excpecting the warm respite of Texas heat only to touch down in a gray and rainy Austin. My flight here was full of people heading to SXSW including a guy who was sitting on the plane with a very large proffesional film camera that was not in a case of any kind and did not appear to be in use for actually filming anything. I wonder if it’s just a ridiculus affectation or he just outright purchased a Canon Eos as an accesory. The atmospehere on the plane was similar to the first day of college. Strangers kept handing each other invites to parties and no less than six bearded gentleman in flannel advised each other “just don’t plan on sleeping.” Someone commented on my article yesterday that I seem like a pussy who can’t proofread. This hurt but also seems somewhat accurate, I mean I did complain about people drinking too much and wanting to wear a tie. My two takeaways from Day 1 are: SXSW is much more subdued than I imagined I think I understand the point of SXSW All my pre research made me feel like SXSW would be a giant mass of people taking over downtown Austin and every corner would contain new wonders. Frankly the streets seemed about as crowded as a mid size flea market and the parties seems sparse and kind of dead. The only mildly intereting street scene I saw was this group of half naked peopled running around chanting but even that seemed boring because it was clearly some form of corporate marketing dressed up as a bacchanal. I did attend a party in an empty lot sponsored by the city of Hamburg. They had free St. Pauli Girl and predictably, hamburgers. It was reasonably fun and I talked to a woman who worked for a company called Horse Analytics which I assumed was just a name but is actually a firm that runs analytics on horses. I have to imagine the networking opportunitites are light for them unless they find a stable who has just been kicking it old school and was recently taken over by a hotshot GM who wangted to embrace innovative sports science. Later I attended an event with a bunch of millenials working on start ups, a major city Mayor and a notable former NFL player. The food was not good but the scotch selection was fine and the conversation was incredible. I think like most people who are just too old to be a millenial I spend a lot of time joking about how annoying and unrealistic they are. But my biggest takeaway from today was pride. I was taught to pay my dues and stay quiet and do my work and slowly move up. But tonight I watched 25 year olds (not even wearing ties!) walk up to VC guys and politicans and celebrtities and just start asking them for things, and the for the most part they all walked away with something useful. I would have been aghast at this when I was 24 but frankly, I was wrong and they were right, I should have been more bold too. Even more so they all see seemed so genuinely interested in helping eaching other and collaborating. My early business days were filled with lessons about looking out for yourself and trusting no one and being told to read . These kids seem to bypass all that and want to see each other succeed. Like a bunch of crabs realizing they can get out of the pot if they just stop and build a ladder together. The Art of War Some final thoughts: I should not have paid for lunch, free food is literally everywhere. The RSVP lists don't matter, you can just walk in anywhere. Apparantly Jake Tapper gave a fantastic adress today Joe Biden is coming tomorrow and The Pod Save America crew is coming Tuesday. I still have not met Chris Ryan. Are you out there Reducer?

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