Crypto.
Cryptonetworks, tokens, decentralization, identity
- Superpowers
It’s going to get interesting, fast
- From Crypto-Native to Crypto-Enabled
After a decade of crypto-native exploration — DeFi, DAOs, NFTs — we're entering the era of crypto-enabled apps that look like normal web apps but have superpowers under the hood.
- AI + Crypto: Best and Worst Cases
I think of AI and crypto as two very different, but very much related, elements of society moving from the industrial age to the digital age. At USV, we (along with lots of others over the years) have used the Carlota Perez framework, which studies how techno-economic paradigms unfold over eras. Ben...
- Verified Personal Content
For the last 15 or so years, I’ve been blogging occasionally on this website. Unfortunately, towards the end of last year, I lost control of my long-term domain name, nickgrossman-dot-is (intentionally not linking to it here). This was a dumb mistake; I just missed the renewal notice and someone els...
- Bitcoin as Battery
One of my favorite things about crypto is that, every so often, your conception of what it is changes. Bitcoin at first was “weird internet money” and then it was “a protocol” and then it was “digital gold”. Ethereum is “ICOs”, or maybe “DeFi”, or maybe “Web3”, or maybe all three, or maybe something...
- Hardware-based Identity
I’ve written before about how re-structuring identity is one of the most interesting opportunities on the web today. Today’s identity ecosystem is account-based (accounts with Google, Facebook, Apple, etc), which perpetuates data silos and prevents interoperability & innovation. As web3 and crypto b...
- Cryptographic Identity
Last week I wrote about the inherent tension between data portability and privacy, and suggested that one solution would be an exportable “privacy context” that could travel with ported data. Such an approach, however, would require a notion of identity that is broader than a single account at a sin...
- Proof of Transfer (PoX)
Last week, the Blockstack team formally rolled out their proposal for a new mining mechanism for the Stacks blockchain called Proof of Transfer (PoX). In addition to the blog post, you can read the full PoX white paper and the Stacks Improvement Proposal (SIP-007) that details the idea. PoX is a way...
- Digital Bearer Assets
I spent time over the past few days with several entrepreneurs who are building crypto or “web 3” applications well outside of the financial space. One of the takeaways for me was of the important role that digital “bearer” assets will play in creating new experiences in web 3. By bearer assets, I m...
- Slides: Crypto @ Harvard Kennedy School
Last week, as I have done for the last several years, I gave a guest lecture at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. The class is DPI-662: Digital Government: Technology, Policy, and Public Service Innovation taught by my old friend David Eaves and the topic in recent years has been on Crypton...
- CoinAlts Chicago: Fireside Chat w Sam McIngvale of Coinbase Custody
A few weeks ago at the CoinAlts conference in Chicago, I did a fireside chat with Sam McIngvale, CEO of Coinbase Custody. CoinAlts is a conference focused mostly on the institutional infrastructure around crypto assets — legal, accounting, custody, etc. So we started out talking about the evolving...
- What decentralization is good for (part 3): growth
Picking back up the series on what decentralization is good for (part 1, part 2), today I want to focus on one of the most exciting aspects of decentralization: growth. In this case, when I say “decentralized”, what I really mean is “open and non-proprietary”. The two often go hand-in-hand. Ok, s...
- What decentralization is good for (part 2): Platform Risk
Continuing on the theme of what decentralization is good for, this week I would like to focus on one of the most powerful drivers in the near-term: Platform Risk. Platform Risk is is the risk that the tech platform that you build your product/app/business/life on will become a critical dependency, w...
- Blockstack Hong Kong: From Agile to Immutable
I gave this talk at the Blockstack Decentralizing the World Tour in Hong Kong earlier this month: Continue reading
- What decentralization is good for (part 1): Resilience
Recently, Simon Morris, a long-time BitTorrent exec, wrote a provocative series of posts on the nature of decentralization, in the wake of BitTorrent Inc’s acquisition by TRON. They are relatively short and a good read: Why BitTorrent Mattered — Bittorrent Lessons for Crypto If you’re not Breaking ...
- A Visual Guide to the Howey Test
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and I am not your lawyer. I have been in an uncountable number of conversations over the past few years discussing the question of what defines a “security” in the context of cryptocurrencies, cryptonetworks, and token offerings. Here is my current understanding, in...
- Crypto fundamentals
Our good friend Chris Burniske was on Squawk Box this morning. I got up and watched it. You can see the video here. Of course there is interest in the crypto market right now, as it is falling hard. I suspect there are many out there who are enjoying the drop, waiting for the bubble… Continue readi...
- The dangers of unstoppable code
With real-time, interconnected, self-executing systems, sometimes when things wrong, they go really wrong. I wrote about this general idea previously here. Yesterday, while I was writing my post on Trusted Brands, I was doing a little searching through my blog archives, so as to link back to all th...
- The Myth of The Infrastructure Phase
Dani and I wrote this post together. Continue reading
- Layers
A central concept on the internet is Layering. Each of the protocols in the internet stack talks to the layer directly above and below it — new protocols can be added as long as they speak the language of their layer. Protocols at one layer can be upgraded so long as they don’t break compatibility...