Recent content on Zefram's Blog
In 2023, OpenAI changed the world by releasing ChatGPT, the first AI that’s actually intelligent. Technology aside, ChatGPT shifted attention in the tech world away from crypto and NFTs to AI, resulting in capital and talent flight. The prices of cryptocurrencies going down and increased regulatory hostility from the SEC were the icing on the cake. In this historical context, it’s easy…
Foreword I am writing this essay for the same reason I do most of my writing: to jot down a self-consistent framework for thinking about a certain topic that I can later refer to and rely upon, so that I can avoid being hoodwinked by the often chaotic and contradictory discussions surrounding said topic. Censorship and freedom of speech are certainly one such topic. On one side of the planet,…
Genesis Using Ethereum is expensive. Us smart contract developers are eternally doomed to the fate of locking ourselves in dank dark basements every day to optimize gas usage, so that our fancy DeFi protocols won’t make our users bankrupt. Of all the operations done by smart contracts, storage writes & reads usually take up most of the gas usage. EVM storage is made intentionally expensive,…
The origin of value, what NFTs are, and what comes next I was baffled by the rise of NFTs for quite some time. Why would people spend such exorbitant amounts on jpegs? The art is not even that good most of the time. If people wanted beautiful art, isn’t it more sensible to spend far less on local artists who will most likely produce much better art? Physical art, that is, not jpegs that anyone…
Recently, I have realized that all the mistakes I’ve made in the past, and is still making, have been caused by a single type of error: mistaking expedience for desire, for a call to action. When I am looking to make a purchase, say a toaster, I look for a “good deal”. The toaster can’t have a significant number of bad reviews. The price can’t be too low, such that…
The privileged don’t need DAOs As someone who’s spent months thinking about DAOs and governance, I knew there was a problem when I asked myself “Do I, personally, have need for a DAO today?” and answered “No”. To me, DAOs, or Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, are tools for collaboratively producing work. For instance, a software development startup could…
Or: World Wide Web for a collaborative economy 1. Intro Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are organizations where members collaborate through a smart contract enabled blockchain. Compared to traditional organizations, DAOs are much cheaper to create, their immutability and transparency makes them more trustworthy, and their programmability enables a wide variety of features. It is…
When I first read this tweet thread about the Aragon governance proposals voting on a rainy afternoon walk a month ago, my first reaction was blurting out “I’m sorry, but what the actual fuck?” Were I not in public, I would’ve bursted out laughing. Aragon is one of the most promising governance projects in the space, with more than 20k token holders, 70k Twitter followers,…
I believe one of the most, if not the most, important applications of blockchain and smart contact technology will be the establishment of self-sufficient organizations that are completely virtual: They will use virtual currencies like Ether and ERC-20 tokens to handle all transfers & storage of value. Their collaboration & making of crucial decisions will be handled by smart contacts. Their…
Disclaimer: No one in the world wants what I said in this post to be false more than I do. One ConsenSys is not all rainbows, sunshine, and unicorns. (to the surprise of no one) The flat governance structure is something that definitely makes ConsenSys unique and enjoyable to work at: everyone treats you as equal, snobby dicks are rare, and no one tells you what to do at work everyday or when you…
Core projects Timeless Timeless is a perpetual yield token protocol. It introduces two brand new financial instruments that enable people to leverage, speculate on, or hedge yield. Launched on Ethereum Mainnet and several other networks. Visit Sudoswap Sudoswap is an Automated Market Maker (AMM) for NFTs. It is capital efficient, hyper gas-optimized, and mostly permissionless. I expect that…