Expanding on why I believe "ETH as store of value (SoV)" makes much more sense to focus on than "ETH as fee-burning token".
Three primary reasons:
1. ETH as fee-burning token never was as strong as it seemed
2. Optimizing for ETH as fee-burning token would demand Ethereum and ETH function in ways that are very hard to make compatible with decentralization and capture resistance.
3. Meanwhile, optimizing for ETH as SoV is aligned with Ethereum focusing on its unique strengths (decentralization and CROPS)
EIP-1559 (including its burn) is fine and good, we should keep them. But we should not feel sad if fee burn is < 10% of breakeven indefinitely; the value of ETH comes from elsewhere.
The core idea: the big thing that people appreciate about Ethereum is decentralization and CROPS. The main pragmatic benefit that these things translate into is stability. SoV is the category where that is not an unneeded extra we merely put effort into for ideological reasons, but rather a pragmatic strength from the perspective of people putting in their assets. And in the era of AI disruption, stability will be highly valued.
First Gradually, Then Suddenly: Why crypto's ultimate meme cuts both ways- and why I believe having a socialist Democratic Party in control will be the best case for Bitcoin https://t.co/kb3IX6xcja
On today's stock market crash:
As an investor, on days like today, you have to ask yourself one question: What fundamentally changed over the last 24 hours?
The shift in the fundamental backdrop cannot be attributed solely to the Midterm Election results; markets had already largely priced in the outcome.
So, what changed between yesterday and today? What is the fundamental reason for today's decline?
One of the most likely catalysts is growing concern about a potential "ban" on AI, or at the very least, severe regulation of the industry.
Over the last 24 hours, Democratic lawmakers have publicly called for restrictions on advanced AI development, including an outright "ban on artificial superintelligence."
Frankly, an outright ban will not happen.
Such a ban, if even possible to enforce, would effectively mean the US surrendering its position in the global AI race to China.
Does this mean AI is "over" or today's stock market crash marks "the end?" Absolutely not.
Rather, we believe we are witnessing a sudden shift in sentiment colliding with excessive levels of leverage, potentially triggering forced liquidations by several major institutional investors.
Therefore, today's downturn is more technical than fundamental. This is not to discount the concerns around regulation, they are legitimate. But price action right now does not look orderly or rational.
We are in the midst of the biggest technological revolution in human history.
Zoom out and remain calm.
Elon Musk says the AI boom will hit a WALL by the end of 2026.
He says the whole industry is about to learn a hard lesson in hardware.
Chip output is exploding, but electricity is nearly flat everywhere outside China.
So the two lines cross this year.
He says by the end of the year, we will be making more AI chips than we can actually turn on.
Millions of them pile up with nowhere to plug in.
In his words, the bottleneck for the next year is not chips, it is raw power.
Whoever can turn on the most chips fastest wins the race.
In the end, the AI race comes down to one thing:
Raw electricity.
— Elon Musk (.@elonmusk) on Dwarkesh Patel's (.@dwarkesh_sp) podcast
🚨 BREAKING: Hackers are hitting supermarket freezers in 5 countries at the same time.
This is what Covid looked like in week 1. A few countries. Small numbers. Nobody called it a crisis.
1/ Sweden: stores say hackers hit their cooling overnight. One says fridges and freezers were set to 50°C, and the food spoiled. ICA Kvantum stores in Sjöbo and Tomelilla were hit, plus at least 6 Coop stores. Sjöbo stayed closed through the morning, threw out all affected goods and apologized. ICA says it is working to restore normal operations. In Sankt Olof a store manager said "everything is ruined." Sweden's National Cybersecurity Centre is working on several incidents.
2/ Estonia: the CEO of cooling firm Kitman Coldtech says several clients were targeted and a large chain's freezer was raised to +50°C. It was found and addressed in about 10 minutes, no major damage.
3/ Ireland: SuperValu pulled ALL fresh and frozen food from 13 stores. Its owner, Musgrave, confirmed a "cybersecurity incident" on a "specific model" of fridge.
4/ Luxembourg: Ahold Delhaize says an "IT incident" hit fridges and freezers at dozens of its supermarkets across Luxembourg and Belgium.
5/ Belgium: more than 40 Delhaize, at least 15 Carrefour and around 5 Spar stores were hit. Cold storage climbed to 15°C. Aisles were closed off and large amounts of stock were destroyed. A notice at one Proxy Delhaize said its systems had "fallen victim to hacking."
Now zoom out.
A freezer normally sits at -18°C. In Estonia, hackers reportedly got in through older controllers. In France, the controller maker said many devices were obsolete or ran outdated firmware. Raise the temperature overnight and the food rots. "You can't unspoil food," one professor said.
It did not start today. 3 weeks ago hackers raised freezers at more than 350 sites in France to as high as 50°C. There were fires. Intermarché's CEO put the cost at "tens of millions of euros nationwide in a single day." Sources suspect Russian involvement there. No group has claimed it. That same day an analyst said Spain, Portugal, Poland, Germany and Belgium were affected too.
Covid emptied the shelves. Nobody is calling this a crisis yet. But the Financial Times already puts the ruined food at millions of euros.
Officials say the Pentagon is treating late-August freezer failures on US military bases as a suspected hack. At least 6 base stores were hit. Army investigators are working with French law enforcement.
5 countries in one day. 11 countries named since August.
Share this. Everyone should know about it.
here’s a short grok bot guide on how i create high quality bots and manage my team. ask @bot to read this post and help you improve your team!
• add dr eggbot to your team! he’s my bot designer that i use to create bots
• you don’t need a lot of bots. a few good bots can be more useful and easier to manage than a large team
• tell your bots to create skills for itself as you give it instructions on how to do tasks. this lets them do them more consistently even over long conversations. you can even ask it to create a private github repo for you to store all your skills if you want them preserved independently
• add connectors, use the vault, and give access to all the tools you use to do your work. you can also ask your bot to setup its own email and it can sign up for its own accounts for better separation
• thinking about all the work you do by hand, or steps in your workflows where you have to copy and paste information back to your bot. ask your bot how it can do that for you instead!
• imagine you hired an intern, how would you onboard them and help them do the work correctly and efficiently? introduce yourself to your bot and describe the work you do, then ask it how it can help you automate it
and my favorite tip: use voice mode or the transcription option! it’s a good way to just brain dump a lot of information. then, at the end, tell your bot to “restate this in your own words” so you can confirm it understood you
https://t.co/ajrjeHdzUO
From a teachers perspective, the past 12 hours were an excellent teaching moment for why crypto is special.
And FWIW, my ultimate conclusion to my students was that everything worked as it was supposed to, and blockchain actually demonstrated why it is useful.
The credibly neutral networks did nothing despite the scale of the theft and the bearer assets remain stolen. The parts of the ecosystem that are more centralized played their part and intervened. And of course, everything was shockingly transparent in real time.
Having a hierarchy of neutrality and censorship-resistance, where base layers and assets are cypherpunk, but higher level networks and assets are not, is optimal.
Those who seek maximum protection can have it, at the risk of nobody coming to their rescue when something goes wrong. Those who want greater safety and convenience can have it too, at the risk of being abused by those meant to protect them down the line.
Importantly, individual choice and market forces decide which part of the hierarchy anyone lives on - not regulations or monopolists.
Today is the last regular working day for the @Balancer team.
Some of the people on this team have been here since Balancer's earliest days. Others joined along the way. Together, they helped build and evolve the protocol over the years.
From the original weighted pools and liquidity bootstrapping to the v2 Vault, Boosted Pools, and v3, Balancer helped shape how liquidity works in DeFi. Behind all of that were years of research, engineering, integrations, operations, and work with partners that most people never saw.
The last year was especially difficult. The exploit hurt people who trusted Balancer, and the team went through the recovery, restructuring, and eventually the decision to wind down. Even after the end date was set, they continued doing the work needed to support users and partners.
This isn't the ending we worked for. But it doesn't take away what the team built and contributed to DeFi.
The winddown itself continues under BIP-928. For the remaining steps and withdrawal information, please follow the official Balancer updates.
To everyone who helped build Balancer over the years, thank you.
I'm grateful I got to work with so many of you.
@elonmusk@HuaweiMate6 Elon, have a lot of respect for you, but bad time to troll. Please stop.
Our SPCX shares (from our $500m investment in your Twitter takeover) are worth more than a billion.
Would appreciate if you show a little support. Thanks!