Crypto Fencer

Ex Microsoft | RateCaster founder | ETHToronto 2024 Winner

[Crypto Fencer @crypto_fencer]

My project won @ETH_Toronto Hackathon! I created @farcaster_xyz frame to rate and display Farcaster apps using @eas_eth.
More info: https://t.co/n3lWyPpXQj… #Ethereum #programming @ethereum

[Startup Archive @StartupArchive_]

Marc Andreessen on the 5 personality traits of an innovator

“When you’re talking about real innovators—people who actually do really creative, breakthrough work—I think you’re talking about a couple things:”

1. Very high in trait openness. “Just flat-out open to new ideas… And the nature of trait openness means you’re not just open to new ideas in one category—you’re open to many different kinds of new ideas… But of course, just being open is not sufficient because if you’re just open, you could just be curious and explore and spend your entire life reading, talking to people, but never actually create something.”

2. High level of conscientiousness. “You need somebody who’s really willing to apply themselves—typically over a period of many years to accomplish something great… For most of these people, it’s years and years of applied effort. You need somebody with an extreme willingness to basically defer gratification… Of course, this is why there aren’t many of these people—there aren’t many people who are high in openness and high in conscientiousness because to a certain extent, they’re opposed traits.”

3. High in disagreeableness. “If they’re not ornery, they’ll be talked out of their ideas… Because the reaction most people have to new ideas is ‘Oh, that’s dumb.’ So, somebody who’s too agreeable will be easily dissuaded to not pull on the thread anymore.”

4. High IQ. “They just need to be really smart because it’s hard to innovate in any category if you can’t synthesize large amounts of information quickly.”

5. Relatively low neuroticism. “If they’re too neurotic, they probably can’t handle the stress.”

Video source: @hubermanlab (2023)

[Crypto Fencer @crypto_fencer]

my best purchases were a macbook pro to win a hack and build a startup

and 10 year old mercedes to travel from one coffee shop to another

[Crypto Fencer @crypto_fencer]

my next vibecode project 👆

[Crypto Fencer @crypto_fencer]

Accounting should be automated
I was budgeting my income/expenses manually for 7 years and just now realized how I waste my time on it

The process should be automated end to end
A banks send statements by email -> script picks them up, parses, categorizes->display diagrams on UI

[a16z @a16z]

"We look for people that are students of history, that have studied the markets and all prior attempts."

David Haber on what great founders do before building a company:

"If you're going to spend the next 10 years of your life building a company, why wouldn't you spend time studying every prior attempt?"

"It always gives me much more discomfort when somebody is saying, 'All those people are idiots. We're the smarter team.'"

"I think having respect for prior attempts, and in some cases even having spoken to the former entrepreneurs in that category."

"And then having a very clear articulation of what you're going to do differently or why now is different."

@dhaber on The High Flyers Podcast with @vidags10

[Crypto Fencer @crypto_fencer]

A sh*t test is a feedback loop. Don't avoid it - improve yourself instead.

A sh*t test is smth society gives you to see how strong your believes are. Failing the test, means you have smth to work on - you don't believe in yourself. The closest ppl give you harder sh*t tests.

[kache @yacineMTB]

I have come to the same conclusion. You can outsource your thinking but you cannot outsource your understanding

[@levelsio @levelsio]

@duborges It was fun because we were single and got shitfaced

If you're not single and not shitfaced there is absolutely 0 fun and 0 reason to be in a nigh club

It's terrible

[@levelsio @levelsio]

My strategy is and has been the same for the last 10+ years

Don't spend, but save up everything, invest it, and try live off the 4% returns

4% is the "safe withdrawal rate", this is the percentage of your investment portfolio you can withdraw each year without running out of money over a given time horizon, as in your balance stays the same even after inflation

I have many friends who spend most of their money on expensive purchases of things tha depreciate in value (and I too have a Tesla Y that does that 😂) but if you do that you'll never get to any state of FIRE (retire early) where you can live off of your investments

Many people in FIRE have relatively humble goals: $600K means $2,000/mo from your investments to live off forever, multiply that and $6M means $20,000/mo forever

There's obviously caveats: do investments like ETFs keep returning forever or not, nobody knows. Diversifying your investments into other things like commodities (gold), real estate, and some angel investing also can work!

The point is to spend less, invest more and then spend from what you take out of your investments

[@levelsio @levelsio]

💯

But it's more about having the perpetual income so you can make choices in life that you actually want

Like where to live or what to do

Instead of being forced to live in a place you don't like to be near an office for a job you don't like

[@levelsio @levelsio]

You should never ever expose a VPS to the entire internet

Always firewall it to subnets

If you host a website you should only allow port 443 (HTTPS) inbound from Cloudflare's IP range / subnets

Port 22 (SSH) only from your Tailscale subnet range

That means you create a "tunnel" from Cloudflare and Tailscale (your laptop) to your server's door

You still need your SSH key to open the door btw

If you don't, ANYONE in the entire world can connect to your VPS and if there's just one security vulnerability and you didn't upgrade your VPS you can get hacked

If you do have it firewalled with Tailscale subnet only, it means only if they hack your laptop they could get in via your Tailscale there

Another thing is ask OpenClaw or Claude Code to enable unattended upgrades with auto reboot

[kache @yacineMTB]

AI has automated software engineering. What you would expect is that there would be no more work left to do for software. But instead what has happened is that the leverage of doing software has increased so much, that doing anything else is a waste of time

[Corey Hoffstein 🏴‍☠️ @choffstein]

For millennia, jocks ran everything.

The nerds finally take over.

And what do they do?

Develop AI that wipes out their own coding/math/analysis moats.

Creating a social premium on interpersonal skills.

The irony.

[Paras Chopra @paraschopra]

Ever wondered why OpenClaw went viral but many other similar projects didn’t?

Well, just look at the number of projects by OpenClaw’s creator.

Virality is a function of number of attempts. It’s so rare and unpredictable that your best bet is to maximize taking shots at it.

Same is true with tweets/videos. You’d see that the fastest growing accounts are those that produce a ton, and not those that keep perfecting a single thing that they hope to go viral.

[RAW EGG NATIONALIST @Babygravy9]

Plato was actually a nickname with the meaning "broad" i.e. "broad-shouldered." He was a champion wrestler who competed in the Isthmian Games. Don't let anybody tell you athletic performance need come at the expense of mental development.

[Jon Yongfook @yongfook]

@levelsio And unless you are an extremely captivating speaker, in 2026 even the people attending will only be half-watching you.

It's just 1000x better in every way to put things online for people to consume in their own time.

The conference can be a means to that end, though.

[@levelsio @levelsio]

Airbnb is actually a great example where they hired the best designers in the world and spent millions of man hours to design it

Yet it's one of the most confusing websites in the world

Try edit your profile or get an invoice! See you in 30 minutes

[Henrik Karlsson @phokarlsson]

One of my more important learning experiences was when I was sixteen and my best friend and me biked from Sweden to Åland Islands in Finland. We didn’t have cell phone connection, so my parents didn’t know where we were (and were admirably chill about that; they had given me permission) and, since we were underage, we weren’t allowed to stay on campings and so had to convince strangers to let us put our tent our their land.
On the first night, efter biking for eight hours, I remember sitting on a square in a small town, a bit depressed because we couldn’t figure out where to sleep. A man with a white van stopped and asked us if we needed somewhere to stay. We said, “Yeah.” He said he knew a place further out into the woods. We were a little scared so we said we’d bike after him rather than get in the car. When we arrived, it turned out to be a Jazz dance festival with people from all over the world. We met the guy who choreographed the sword scenes in Pirates of the Caribbean. An investment banker from London kept us supplied with beer since we were underaged.
This was all very exciting for two boys who had grown up in a small village—it made the world feel welcoming and large. Things weren’t as scary as we thought, and it was a lot weirder and more interesting and friendly. It kept going like that, sleeping in gardens and in guest houses, meeting all sorts of people. It made me feel safe to just go out and do stuff and talk to people (I’m naturally very shy), and drilled home what Herzog likes to say, that “the world reveals itself to those who travel by foot.”