Market thoughts Deeply troubling implications for the world aside, I haven’t been this intellectually engaged since DeFi summer. Feels like I know nothing and am drinking from a firehose again. Lots of talk about how BTC should play its role as a globally neutral/ uncensorable store of value by indexing perf vs. stocks, and equally loud voices arguing the contrary by indexing perf vs. gold. Both are noise - BTC legitimacy is not measured in days of relative performance but in the 17 years worth of blocks being produced and the many more decades to come. Rest of crypto? Bit of a purgatory. Besides the collective acknowledgement of stablecoins, seems difficult to get anyone to take crypto seriously. Despite the fun in dunking on VC bros getting rekt and celebration of HYPE fair launch, truth is if VC funding dries up, innovation will grind to a halt especially against over-capitalized AI plays. My base view is funding will dry up, or at least slow down. Secular brain drain is my primary concern, and one that I’ve highlighted since ChatGPT came out. Only way to resolve is the elusive product market fit… Portfolio wise up YTD in usd terms, purely by virtue of calling crypto-specific top with 0 view on tariffs / equities / bonds / commodities and being extremely disciplined with doing nothing except stabs with tight stops. Call it luck or deliberate table selection, truth is if I did any other asset class outside crypto probably would have been caught, which is a humbling thought. Angel investments with liquid marks obviously takes a beating, but I mark all at cost, simply zoom out and pretend I don’t see lol. Most recent unlock was @ethena_labs , haven’t sold any venture portion and staked entire position as of this tweet because 1) fuck the bears, 2) read 1 More pertinent thing for me is the prevailing sense of cynicism within crypto has gone from “financial nihilism” to full-blown “entire industry is cooked”, externally and even within my team. Writing a longer form piece on this that has been in the works for months but genuinely think pessimism is misplaced.