kian.hl

Editor in Chief @BeaconLayer, tips: [email protected]

[kian.hl @kian_hl]

"It's to protect the children"

"It's to stop the AI slop bots"

"It's to help law enforcement catch criminals"

Authoritarians will never run out of reasons why we should give up our privacy. Don't cede an inch of ground.

[BeaconLayer Podcast @BeaconLayer]

Dozens of teams are fusing social networking and onchain trading.

Farcaster with its in-app wallet, Zora with its tokenized posts and profiles, while pioneers like @interfacedapp and @checkrsocial offer copytrading and influence analytics, respectively.

But there's a surge of newcomers ramping up. The two main arrivals I've seen this week are Clicker and Share.

~~ Analysis by @punk1831 ~~

@clicker, which just launched and is now available on Android and iOS, is a new "social network for traders." Starting with support for Base and Solana, the app links trading activity and commentary via trade comments, letting you post your reasonings behind swaps and analyze others' trades.

@sharexyz, which also just launched to iOS users, is a new crosschain social trading app that supports Base, Ethereum, and Solana transactions. You can trade through any wallet, including new ones spun up via Privy, and every wallet automatically gets a dedicated Share profile so you can easily follow others and get instant trade notifications. 0.5% earnings on every copytrade is a nice touch.

More social trading releases are incoming. Thesis, being built on the new Base token launchpad @feyprotocol, is gearing up, while in Solana land the @moolah team is working on a new primitive and product combo.

There are peripheral opportunities too. Consider @MemoryProtocol, a data layer that lets you sync your various social accounts (X, Farcaster, ENS, Github, etc.) and get paid when external apps build on this data with the Memory API.

The bottom line is that trading is becoming a social medium in itself. This trend is undoubtedly here to stay, so now's a good time to explore the early apps shaping this culture shift!

[BeaconLayer Podcast @BeaconLayer]

“What if AI gives us a once-in-a-generation chance to rebuild the internet from the ground up?”

@kenzimori sits down with Karan Sirdesai @karansirdesai, Founder of @miranetwork, to unpack the founder journey behind Mira and the early conviction that AI would become far more than another tech cycle.

They trace Karan’s path from teaching himself to build, sending cold DMs, experimenting with crypto arbitrage, and working alongside figures like Balaji Srinivasan and Sandeep Nailwal, to spotting the AI shift before it became obvious to the broader market.

The conversation also explores why Karan has consistently chosen the unconventional route, how his time at Accel exposed him to frontier AI companies early, and why the pace of AI progress made one thing clear: this wouldn’t just change startups or software, it would reshape how humans work, think, create, and interact with the internet itself.

[BeaconLayer Podcast @BeaconLayer]

“What if the most important AI infrastructure isn’t the biggest model — but the one you can actually trust?”

@sachimiyasaki sits down with Karan Sirdesai @karansirdesai, Founder of @miranetwork, to explore how Mira is approaching decentralized AI from a more focused angle: making machine intelligence reliable enough for real-world use.

They discuss why Mira is not trying to become a full-stack AI protocol, how its approach differs from networks like Bittensor, Ritual, and Sahara, and why focusing on trust and verification could make Mira a stronger fit inside the wider AI infrastructure stack.

The episode also breaks down Mira’s reliability architecture, from its core verification layer to node-level consensus, and why the next evolution of AI APIs may not be about simply accessing more models, but about knowing whether the answers you receive can actually be trusted.

[BeaconLayer Podcast @BeaconLayer]

“What happens when AI stops being a tool and becomes the operating layer of the internet?”

@dikshawells sits down with Karan Sirdesai @karansirdesai, Founder of @miranetwork, to explore a future where AI is no longer just answering questions, but taking action, making decisions, and handling large parts of our cognitive workload.

They discuss the upside of this shift: the rise of “infinite hires,” a world where most knowledge work can be automated or amplified, and a productivity wave that could completely reshape how companies, teams, and individuals operate.

But the conversation also gets into the darker side of that future. As AI becomes more capable, the risks grow with it: blind dependence, high-stakes failures, malicious autonomous agents, and the possibility of humans sharing the world with a new kind of intelligence we are not fully prepared to control.

[BeaconLayer Podcast @BeaconLayer]

This week on the podcast, we’re joined by Karan Sirdesai @karansirdesai, Co-Founder and CEO of Mira Network @miranetwork.

We cover Karan’s path from his university days and early crypto experiments to building Mira, an infrastructure layer focused on making AI more reliable, verifiable, and safe to use at scale.

The episode goes deep into one of AI’s biggest unsolved problems: hallucinations. Karan breaks down why unreliable outputs are such a major blocker for real-world adoption, especially in high-stakes areas like finance, healthcare, and other trust-sensitive industries.

We also discuss the early “aha” moment behind Mira, shaped by experiments with GPU rentals, AI workflows, and the insight that multiple models could work together to verify outputs through consensus.

Karan also shares how working with Balaji Srinivasan, his unconventional founder journey, and Mira’s AI + crypto-native team influenced the company’s mission: building decentralized infrastructure that helps make artificial intelligence more trustworthy, dependable, and useful in the real world.

[BeaconLayer Podcast @BeaconLayer]

After 7 years, Aztec’s Ignition mainnet is live.

Yet zero transactions or apps work yet. The chain is deliberately empty – because true protocol-level privacy can’t be rushed.

Here’s how this phased, decentralization-first launch positions Aztec as the leading private L2 on ETH👇

~~ Analysis by @punk1831 ~~

What's Actually Running

Think of Ignition like Ethereum's beacon chain from 2020. The governance and consensus infrastructure is operational, but the execution layer remains offline. The team is running what amounts to a live stress test with real money on the line.

Each sequencer staked at least 200K $AZTEC tokens to participate. They're producing blocks, provers are generating validity proofs, and the whole system is settling on Ethereum, just without any transactions.
The goal of running Ignition with real economics for 2-3 months will (hopefully) surface any remaining issues before transactions go live in early 2026, while setting the network up to be decentralized from day one.

The Decentralization Push

In Aztec's eyes, launching an L2 with a centralized sequencer from the get go rarely translates to decentralization down the road.

Centralized sequencers generate $40-150M annually in fees. Once you're locked into those cash flows, decentralization means making transactions slower and more expensive. The tension never resolves.

Instead, @aztecnetwork will launch fully decentralized from day one across three dimensions:

➢ Ownership is decentralized through $AZTEC token holders who control network parameters, fee schedules, and protocol upgrades.

➢ Block Production runs through 617 decentralized sequencer nodes using proof-of-stake. These nodes order transactions and produce blocks. To prevent any single party from gaining control, a small committee of sequencers is randomly selected to validate blocks before they are submitted to Ethereum.

➢ Proving is permissionless from the get-go. Provers generate the zero-knowledge proofs that cryptographically confirm all transactions in a batch are valid. They aggregate blocks and submit a single, final proof to Ethereum for verification, guaranteeing the integrity of the entire rollup.

When transactions go live, Aztec will qualify as a Stage 2 rollup, the highest decentralization tier for L2s. Most chains have pushed boundaries in one direction. Hitting all three pillars simultaneously is rare.

In Aztec's eyes, decentralization isn't optional for privacy. Centralized sequencers would face pressure from governments to install backdoors. Privacy requires cryptography plus decentralization, not one or the other.

What Happens Next

There are two major upcoming events, one technical and one token-related.

On the technical side, Ignition will remain live for 2-3 more months with sequencers producing empty blocks while the team monitors for issues. Early 2026 is when transactions flip on. Users will be able to send payments, deploy smart contracts, and interact with applications. By the end of 2026, block times should drop from the current 36-72 seconds down to 4 seconds, faster than Ethereum's 12-second blocks.

On the token side, the pre-allocation for the $AZTEC token sale is currently live, with the sale beginning December 2nd and running for 4 days. The sale uses @Uniswap's continuous clearing auction mechanism, meaning if you bid early, part of your bid clears at early prices and part clears later. This levels the playing field between early and late participants while letting price discovery happen naturally. When the auction ends, it automatically creates a Uniswap V4 liquidity pool at the final clearing price.

To participate in the sale, you must register prior to December 2nd.

For compliance, Aztec is using @ZKPassport, enabling people to prove cryptographically that they're from allowed jurisdictions and not on sanctions lists without traditional KYC. The sale is open to US retail and nearly every country worldwide, with the exception of sanctioned countries on the standard OFAC list.

The current 500 sequencers already staked $AZTEC tokens they purchased in a whitelisted genesis sale. They're earning rewards in $AZTEC right now. However, all tokens, whether from the genesis sale, the current public auction, or insider allocations, are non-transferable until Token Generation Event (TGE).

There is no set date for when TGE occurs, rather the community votes on it. However, the earliest date it can go live is February 11th, 2026. Once TGE happens, tokens purchased in the public auction unlock 100%.

7 Years in the Making

Overall, Ignition and the $AZTEC token sale demonstrate both the complexity of successfully executing privacy, as well as the extent to which Aztec is going to get this right.

First you have the need for decentralization from the get-go to ensure privacy endures, a feat unaccomplished by countless L2s launched so far. Then you have the tension between privacy and compliance, which the token sale's integration with ZK Passport helps solve.

Regardless of how mainnet goes, and I'm hopeful all goes well, this launch process shines as a testament to diligent design, demonstrating that forces like decentralization, privacy, and compliance can all coexist

[BeaconLayer Podcast @BeaconLayer]

For Bitcoin holders, this year’s been a bitter draft — gold blasting to $4.4K/oz with endless all-time highs, while "digital gold" barely scrapes by.

Marketed as a superior store of value, $BTC’s 3x underperformance in a safe-haven surge stings hard.

Is gold’s rally a 70-100 day lead-in to Bitcoin’s boom, or the cycle’s final curtain? Here’s how to decode it.👇

~~ Analysis by @kenzimori ~~

What's Going on with Gold?

Gold's relentless 2025 performance can be attributed to unprecedented central bank buying, driven by inflation concerns, geopolitical tension, and a fundamental shift in how central banks think about reserves.

Central banks had their second largest Q1 gold purchases on record this year. Poland added 67 tonnes amid the Ukraine conflict. Turkey picked up 19.5 tonnes as its currency weakens. China continues to quietly accumulate amid tensions with the U.S., swapping out U.S. Treasuries, while in Shanghai, gold futures volumes have tripled since early 2024.

Gold is increasingly replacing U.S. Treasuries as the "riskless" asset in global portfolios. With mounting U.S. debt and political dysfunction, central banks are diversifying. Some reports suggest gold has even flipped Treasuries to become the number one central bank reserve asset globally.

Why? Gold doesn't carry counterparty risk and can't be printed or devalued by central bank decisions. In an era where trust in institutions is eroding, that matters.

Still, gold is showing signs of being clearly overbought. Parabolic moves like this rarely end smoothly, which raises the question: what does a gold rally of this magnitude actually signal?

What Have Gold Rallies Meant in the Past?

Similar rallies have signaled different outcomes. Sometimes gold's parabolic moves have preceded major crises. Other times, they've set the stage for broader risk-on rallies, with Bitcoin following months later.

The Bear Case: Late-Cycle Behavior

Gold surges often coincide with late-cycle uncertainty. From 2007 to 2008, gold spiked as the subprime crisis unraveled. In 1999 and 2000, gold shot up ~34% as the dot-com bubble burst and recession followed.

While today is different, there's a parallel level of unease against the backdrop of geopolitical tension and economic uncertainty. Steep climbs tend to end in sharp corrections. Gold experienced this in 2010 and 2011 when it surged 70% before collapsing 45%.

But is this really a late-cycle warning? Gold similarly rallied during 2020's COVID crisis, but that surge led to recovery, not prolonged downturn. Central banks are now accumulating over 1K tonnes per year amid a structural shift away from dollar reserves.

The Bull Case: Gold as a Leading Indicator for Bitcoin

Evidence suggests that when gold breaks out, Bitcoin has followed, usually with a lag of 70-100 days.

The clearest example is 2020. Gold surged to $2,075 amid pandemic uncertainty. About 85 days later, Bitcoin began its climb from $5K to $10K, then exploded 590% to hit $64K by early 2021. A similar situation happened last August, with gold ripping to new all time highs while Bitcoin lagged for about two months before surging come November.

If the historical pattern holds, gold's rally could be setting up Bitcoin's next leg higher. Once gold peaks, capital could flow into Bitcoin as investors shift from defensive positioning to offensive plays.

The key is recognizing that gold moves first in debasement trades, and Bitcoin follows once the narrative crystallizes. While past performance doesn't dictate future results, gold's run is not a death sentence for Bitcoin.

Things to Consider

Whether you believe gold's rally signals late-cycle risk or sets up Bitcoin's next move, it's worth understanding what these assets do in a portfolio.

Gold is a preservation tool that maintains purchasing power. It can't be printed or manipulated by central banks, providing an anchor when other assets fail.

➢ A portfolio with 5% gold and 95% S&P 500 returned 152% since 2018
➢ A portfolio with 5% Bitcoin and 95% S&P 500 returned 199%
➢ At 10% allocations, gold delivered 155% while Bitcoin hit 253%

Gold provides stability during uncertainty. Bitcoin, still growing into this role, behaves with more volatility but significantly outperforms. If your goal is wealth preservation, gold makes sense. If you're willing to stomach volatility for outsized returns, Bitcoin remains the better bet.

So, while Bitcoin holders might feel frustrated watching gold gains, if history repeats itself, that frustration could be short-lived.

[BeaconLayer Podcast @BeaconLayer]

There's a war brewing in Bitcoin world over whether "arbitrary data" — non-financial data like images and text — should be allowed on the blockchain 👇

~~ Opinion by @punk3626 ~~

This is the same debate that's been going on since @ercwl and @udiWertheimer trolled a large part of the Bitcoin community with their Taproot Wizards project, which productized the extra space in blocks and allowed anyone to have their "magic internet JPEGs" inscribed forever on the Bitcoin blockchain.

The opposition is fighting back, and we now have a name for this camp: Bitcoin Knots.

This is the camp of @LukeDashjr, perhaps the most hardcore Bitcoin monetary maximalist and anti-shitcoiner. The "knots" name is an explicit Biblical reference to the "whip of knots" that was used by Jesus to expel the money changers from the Temple...

The Knots camp's argument:

Arbitrary data in the Bitcoin blockchain is an irresponsibly risky use of Bitcoin resources. Bitcoin code should exclusively serve the use of BTC as money. If arbitrary data is allowed, an attacker could flood Bitcoin with transactions that include illegal data (namely, child pornography) that would cause anyone running a Bitcoin node to be prosecuted.

In theory, an attacker could load CP into Bitcoin transactions, meaning Bitcoin nodes would all download this "arbitrary data," and anyone running a node would find themselves transmitting and in possession of CP. This would make running Bitcoin illegal and would be a censorship attack on the network.

It might sound farcical, but this is actually how the argument goes.

The tradeoff Bitcoin Knots want is to censor the types of transactions that Bitcoin users can make so that node-operators are protected from censorship due to processing arbitrary non-BTC-spend data.

Bitcoin Core, on the other hand, is saying that morality and policy should not be conflated, and that Bitcoin Core ought to be neutral software and be unopinionated about the data that the market decides to place in its UTXOs. Core is also the 'default mode' of what Bitcoin is today.

I do find elements of the Knots side compelling.

Not because the state-level censorship and CP transmission worries are valid, but simply because Bitcoin is ultimately just an app-chain for BTC, and taking a monetary maximalist approach seems right.

Bitcoin is for bitcoins, always has been, always will.

But the point of this article is to highlight that Ethereum has taken a radically different approach to essentially the same issue.

Ethereum's Fork-Choice Enforced Inclusion Lists (FOCIL)

FOCIL is the mechanism that @ethereum core devs want to implement to solve Ethereum's censorship problem.

With the OFAC sanctioning of Tornado Cash, parts of the Ethereum tech stack started censoring Tornado Cash transactions.

FOCIL makes sure "important but ignored" transactions still get into blocks, even if a builder or proposer would prefer to censor them.

1. In each Ethereum slot, a small committee of validators scans the mempool and publishes "Inclusion Lists" (ILs) of transactions they think should be included.

2. The next slot's proposer builds the block and can order transactions as they see fit, but must include the IL transactions.

3. Attesters can only vote for blocks that satisfy the ILs. If they don't see the IL transactions, the block won't be voted on, won't be built on, and the block builder doesn't get the reward.

This removes the exclusive power of transaction inclusion from just block builders to a wider variety of staking participants.

So, in stark contrast to Bitcoin Knots, Ethereum's strategy is to force everyone to download all the data.

Rather than attempting to censor data, Ethereum is forcing the entire network to download all fee-paying transactions, regardless of the data contained in them.

It's worth pausing and reflecting on how hardcore this is.

There are different ways to be a cypherpunk, and some are more radical than others. Ethereum's strategy of forcing transaction inclusion is pretty hardcore.

Ethereum doesn't give you an option. You include the transactions, or you don't get the reward. And if you don't get the reward, why are you bothering to stake at all?

Include or die.

To what degree all of this matters, or is deep-crypto-tech nerd shit... idk it remains to be seen. Maybe this attack vector never comes to fruition and the choice to include arbitrary data is more innocuous than Luke Dashjr makes it out to be. After all, we've had arbitrary data in Bitcoin and Ethereum since their respective genesis blocks, so why would this all start now?

I'll leave this all for the reader to ponder. Meanwhile, please appreciate one of my favorite bits of arbitrary data in Bitcoin, which is the first ever Bitcoin inscription, inscribed in block 767753:

Dickbutt.

[DefiLlama.com @DefiLlama]

Q2 2026 is already the most-hacked quarter on record: ~70 hacks, 2X the record

But the total amount hacked ($746M) is a fraction of the previous peaks.

Rather than a few giga exploits, it's been a constant stream of smaller attacks.

[Official Azuki TCG @AzukiTCG]

https://t.co/Ky5h0l9mNR

[24 Hours of Art @24_Hours_Art]

🖼️ 24 HOURS OF ART 📊 May 15, 2026

🎨 Pictured: 24 Hour Highlights

- 'Please Respond 01.09' by @alexis_o_O with @shape

- 'inferior image' by @SHL0MS, collected by @Jediwolf

- 'Forecast #3' by @ManuelLarino

- 'Talk is Expensive' by @1SLES, collected by @Punk8868

- 'Taxmen' by @XCOPYART, facilitated by @eli_schein via @gondixyz

- 'Fidenza #356' by @tylerxhobbs

- 'A Safe Place' by @infiniteyay, collected by @pekf73

- 'The Weeping Prophet' by @SamSpratt, collected by @LaurentNft64534 via @gondixyz

- 'curiouser and crueler' by @m0dest___ with @Gavinmeeler

[AP @WAPSHOP_ETH]

That’s one of my MOTU behind @justinaversano!

September 30th Oslo, Norway

My Mom’s birthday, and she is from Oslo, Norway. 🫶

Funny how that worked out. Justin’s project is magical and can’t wait to see this in person! ✨

[Riku Takamura @RikuTakamura]

Really enjoyed my conversation today with @michaelh_0g from @0G_labs.

We spoke about his background, what first pulled him deeper into technology, how that developed into a broader Web3 thesis, and the story behind building 0G. It was a meaningful conversation with a lot of depth, clarity, and real perspective.

Grateful to Michael for the time and openness.

And special thanks to the @BlockLayerPod team, as well as to @SachiTakahara and @DikshaArden, for making it all possible.

[Sachi Takamura / 0699.eth @SachiTakamura]

Really enjoyed this part with @nickemmons.

We talked about why @AlloraNetwork’s latest round was less about capital and more about strategic alignment - bringing in AI-forward partners who understand where decentralized collective intelligence is heading.

[. @BlockLayerCast]

@sachitakahara sits down with @david_enim, core contributor to OLAS, to break down what it really means to co-own AI.

Instead of just using AI, OLAS lets users participate — through tokens, running agents, or even operating them as businesses. From DeFi to prediction markets, agents generate yield, and operators share in the upside.

It’s a shift from passive users to active participants in an AI economy.

But ownership is only half the story — alignment matters.

Through staking contracts, OLAS defines clear KPIs for agents, similar to roles in a workplace. Agents act autonomously, but incentives keep them aligned with the system’s goals.

And at the infrastructure level, reliability is handled through decentralized agent architecture — combining multiple models and consensus mechanisms to reduce errors and improve decision-making.

The result: AI that isn’t just decentralized — but coordinated, incentivized, and owned by the community.

[. @BlockLayerCast]

@kenzixbt connects with @david_enim, co-founder of Valory, on building autonomous agents across crypto.

After years at https://t.co/HTVs2P7RU1, the realization was clear — chains create focus, but also friction. Instead of scaling agents, you end up selling blockspace and ecosystems.

Valory was born from that shift: agents as chain-agnostic power users — operating across networks, complementing humans, and unlocking new ways to interact with blockchains.

The early bet on DAOs didn’t land — slow decisions, unclear ownership, and broken feedback loops made them tough customers.

But the core idea stuck: agents + crypto is the right primitive — and timing might finally be catching up.

[Riku Takamura @RikuTakamura]

Had a great conversation today with @averyching from @Aptos.

We talked about his path from high-performance computing and supercomputers to large-scale infrastructure work at Meta, and how discovering Bitcoin changed the way he thought about distributed systems, incentives, and what crypto could become.

A very thoughtful conversation with strong technical depth and a lot of perspective on how Aptos came together.

Big thanks to Avery for joining and sharing the story.

And thank you to the @BlockLayerPod team, @SachiTakahara, and @DikshaArden for helping make it happen.

[⟠Palis⟠🐍 @palis]

Some of the most successful CT participants never got NFTs and still don’t in spite of the fact they’ll trade memecoins. Cobie himself spent most of the first NFT cycle as the biggest NFT hater before partially capitulating

I just want to remind people this isn’t new, and the entire NFT cycle a significant portion of crypto natives refused to touch them, absolutely HATED them and seethed the entire cycle. The hate that memecoin trenchers received the past 3 years is nothing compared to the hate NFT twitter received from the older incumbent perp trader-centric CT

When NFTs come back, a large percent of these people still will never get it. They won’t get it in spite of the fact that the art market has outperformed the “up only” American stock by 165% between 1995 and 2022. This outperformance has existed the entire time the stock market has existed, and is even more dramatic when only looking at the top artists/fine art

Digital art was never capable of supporting true ownership due to the frictionless nature of digital files with no digital trail, until NFTs came along and solved that. Now digital files can reflect true ownership on the blockchain even as digital copies spread frictionless. Digital art does not decay, digital art verified onchain cannot be faked period, digital art can be viewed by the entire online world, not just people who enter your home and see your personal art collection

Digital art will never replace physical art, and that’s not at all what I’m implying. But art on the blockchain being the first art ever truly capable of being “owned” digitally means, of that art, which is either culturally relevant or simply loved, will be considered “art” just like various physical mediums for art. It’ll be its own category and have its own art history, and we’re still at the genesis of that category’s history. Intuitively, that category will be important and large, since the digital world itself is important and a large part of the modern human experience

Have said this since 2020 and it never stopped being true for me: of all the theses for use cases of crypto, NFTs being a new technological primitive for true ownership of digital art, digital collectibles and digital items that human value, is so glaringly obvious that it’s right up there with the BTC whitepaper and stablecoins, and I have never once second guessed its inevitability as a ubiquitous technology

NFTs “coming back” has been a running joke to 90% of CT who never expect them to actually come back. But for the few of us who understand it’s importance as a technological primitive, and the cultural importance of the early relevant art onchain, we always knew it was not a joke and was inevitable

[David.6529 @punk8164]

NFTs aren’t a trade. They’re a property system.

Before NFTs, digital culture had infinite distribution but zero ownership. Everything spread, nothing could be truly owned. Value went to platforms.

NFTs changed that.

Now culture can spread infinitely and be owned finitely.

That’s a big deal. Especially for art, where value has always come from provenance, story, and cultural relevance. NFTs don’t change those, they upgrade them:

- perfect, global provenance
- infinite distribution without breaking ownership
- borderless, liquid markets

People keep waiting for NFTs to “come back.”

But what’s actually happening is quieter: a parallel system for owning digital culture is compounding in the background.

And most people will miss it.

Because this isn’t about speed or hype like the first NFT cycle. It’s about owning pieces of the internet that matter.

The real question isn’t if NFTs return.

It’s how much of culture moves onchain and who owns it when it does.

[Riku Takamura @RikuTakamura]

Really enjoyed my conversation today with @michaelh_0g from @0G_labs.

We spoke about his background, what first pulled him deeper into technology, how that developed into a broader Web3 thesis, and the story behind building 0G. It was a meaningful conversation with a lot of depth, clarity, and real perspective.

Grateful to Michael for the time and openness.

And special thanks to the @BlockLayerPod team, as well as to @SachiTakahara and @DikshaArden, for making it all possible.