⭕RenderPockets⭕

⭕Render Accelerationist⭕
Film, TV + Game Artist

I dabble in thinking occasionally

[⭕RenderPockets⭕ @renderPockets]

I believe $RENDER has the opportunity to be the hub for AI and human creation, for agentic visual creativity and collaboration, and the future of DePIN. To make this a reality however, we need to collectively see this future and bring it into existence

[⭕RenderPockets⭕ @renderPockets]

@Merstradamous Absolutely. Binance is either in trouble or doing a last cash grab before they have to abandon the plundering of the US market if it passes

[⭕RenderPockets⭕ @renderPockets]

There has been so much misunderstanding coming from those outside the ethereum ecosystem about what this post means. This should be a moment to listen to veterans of the L2 debate. Not fukin @toly or @amirhaleem
Thank you for your attention on this matter

[vitalik.eth @VitalikButerin]

There have recently been some discussions on the ongoing role of L2s in the Ethereum ecosystem, especially in the face of two facts:

* L2s' progress to stage 2 (and, secondarily, on interop) has been far slower and more difficult than originally expected
* L1 itself is scaling, fees are very low, and gaslimits are projected to increase greatly in 2026

Both of these facts, for their own separate reasons, mean that the original vision of L2s and their role in Ethereum no longer makes sense, and we need a new path.

First, let us recap the original vision. Ethereum needs to scale. The definition of "Ethereum scaling" is the existence of large quantities of block space that is backed by the full faith and credit of Ethereum - that is, block space where, if you do things (including with ETH) inside that block space, your activities are guaranteed to be valid, uncensored, unreverted, untouched, as long as Ethereum itself functions. If you create a 10000 TPS EVM where its connection to L1 is mediated by a multisig bridge, then you are not scaling Ethereum.

This vision no longer makes sense. L1 does not need L2s to be "branded shards", because L1 is itself scaling. And L2s are not able or willing to satisfy the properties that a true "branded shard" would require. I've even seen at least one explicitly saying that they may never want to go beyond stage 1, not just for technical reasons around ZK-EVM safety, but also because their customers' regulatory needs require them to have ultimate control. This may be doing the right thing for your customers. But it should be obvious that if you are doing this, then you are not "scaling Ethereum" in the sense meant by the rollup-centric roadmap. But that's fine! it's fine because Ethereum itself is now scaling directly on L1, with large planned increases to its gas limit this year and the years ahead.

We should stop thinking about L2s as literally being "branded shards" of Ethereum, with the social status and responsibilities that this entails. Instead, we can think of L2s as being a full spectrum, which includes both chains backed by the full faith and credit of Ethereum with various unique properties (eg. not just EVM), as well as a whole array of options at different levels of connection to Ethereum, that each person (or bot) is free to care about or not care about depending on their needs.

What would I do today if I were an L2?

* Identify a value add other than "scaling". Examples: (i) non-EVM specialized features/VMs around privacy, (ii) efficiency specialized around a particular application, (iii) truly extreme levels of scaling that even a greatly expanded L1 will not do, (iv) a totally different design for non-financial applications, eg. social, identity, AI, (v) ultra-low-latency and other sequencing properties, (vi) maybe built-in oracles or decentralized dispute resolution or other "non-computationally-verifiable" features
* Be stage 1 at the minimum (otherwise you really are just a separate L1 with a bridge, and you should just call yourself that) if you're doing things with ETH or other ethereum-issued assets
* Support maximum interoperability with Ethereum, though this will differ for each one (eg. what if you're not EVM, or even not financial?)

From Ethereum's side, over the past few months I've become more convinced of the value of the native rollup precompile, particuarly once we have enshrined ZK-EVM proofs that we need anyway to scale L1. This is a precompile that verifies a ZK-EVM proof, and it's "part of Ethereum", so (i) it auto-upgrades along with Ethereum, and (ii) if the precompile has a bug, Ethereum will hard-fork to fix the bug.

The native rollup precompile would make full, security-council-free, EVM verification accessible. We should spend much more time working out how to design it in such a way that if your L2 is "EVM plus other stuff", then the native rollup precompile would verify the EVM, and you only have to bring your own prover for the "other stuff" (eg. Stylus). This might involve a canonical way of exposing a lookup table between contract call inputs and outputs, and letting you provide your own values to the lookup table (that you would prove separately).

This would make it easy to have safe, strong, trustless interoperability with Ethereum. It also enables synchronous composability (see: https://t.co/9jy6v1X6Fw and https://t.co/gZmu3YjebM ). And from there, it's each L2's choice exactly what they want to build. Don't just "extend L1", figure out something new to add.

This of course means that some will add things that are trust-dependent, or backdoored, or otherwise insecure; this is unavoidable in a permissionless ecosystem where developers have freedom. Our job should make to make it clear to users what guarantees they have, and to build up the strongest Ethereum that we can.

[⭕RenderPockets⭕ @renderPockets]

Interesting mechanic. Wondering now if this is ultimately a more complex formation of a work token, or something new entirely 🤔

[Erik Voorhees @ErikVoorhees]

Nerdy tokenomics post...

Venice released an experimental token design for accessing AI compute back in Sept, called DIEM

Staking DIEM grants access to any AI model on Venice for free (1 DIEM = $1 of renewing daily credits): it makes the marginal cost of compute free.

At first, it was API access only (no web), and only a few open-source models.

In Oct-Nov we allowed its use on the Venice web app (no longer API only), and then started adding all the leading external AI models to Venice.

Today, users can access Claude Open 4.5, Gemini 3, Nano Banana Pro, GPT 5, etc from Venice. This is both convenient (all the models in one interface), but also provides additional privacy (pseudonymity vis-a-vis Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, etc). These models are unequivocally the best in their respective categories.

Meanwhile Venice's userbase (both app and API) has continued growing.

And now we're seeing the tokenomics of DIEM start to play out... seven consecutive weeks of green candles amid a sideways or down broader market.

Why is it happening?

Imaging paying $100 to get $1 every day of AI credit. No brainer... especially because you can sell the DIEM back when done.

So people bought at $100 to use it and price of DIEM rose

At $200 it's still a no brainer, so price kept rising. Today it hit $300. What's $1/day worth as an asset?

Here's the mechanical part... as DIEM is bought and staked for AI compute, the rising price incentivizes VVV holders to mint more of it.

DIEM can only be created ("minted") from VVV, but as DIEM supply rises, the "mint rate" also rises, meaning it takes more VVV to mint 1 DIEM. This occurs along an algorithmic exponential curve.

Minting DIEM locks the VVV in an amount according to the mint rate. It can only be unlocked by repaying same qty of DIEM at any later date. This destroys the DIEM and releases the VVV.

DIEM's utility is flowing it toward usage and price is rising. This means increasing amounts of VVV are getting locked away (today over 6.3m VVV is locked, nearly 10% of total supply).

The more useful AI consumers find DIEM, the higher they'll bid for its scarce supply, which raises price, and locks further VVV on an exponential curve.

Equilibrium is eventually found when opportunity cost of capital paid for DIEM is no longer lower than marginal utility of the AI compute it can obtain. Someone should happily pay $100 for $1/day but prob shouldn't pay $10k for the same... as the NPV of the yield of $10k should be higher than just paying $1/day of cash for credits. Once that DIEM price is found, the amount of VVV locked also finds equilibrium.

As VVV is locked for this purpose, a portion of emissions flows to Venice, compensating for the costs of the AI compute its providing for free. Venice can control something called the "Target Supply" of DIEM, raising it up or down, which changes the mint rate which affects (but doesn't control) supply. If costs become too onerous to Venice, it reduces Target Supply, and it disincentives further minting, bringing equilibrium of supply back down at any given DIEM price.

We have no idea where these equilibria will or should be, but we know they exist.

Perhaps you'll find this set of mechanisms interesting, and I hope they'll inspire other experiments.

I wonder how long until sophisticated AI agents truly dive into the exploration of tokenomics as a vast design space... perhaps they already are? Perhaps they were involved in DIEM's design?

https://t.co/4c1U79KoWM
$DIEM $VVV @AskVenice

[⭕RenderPockets⭕ @renderPockets]

@dankrad Doesn't "as much valuable economic activity on L1" come after scale naturally? Or are you saying you don't believe L2s settling to L1, posting DA, and accessing liquidity on L1 through intent brokers will ever fulfill that end goal?

[⭕RenderPockets⭕ @renderPockets]

Pershing Square famously doesn't touch commodities... And it shows.

[Bill Ackman @BillAckman]

The removal of Maduro will lower oil prices, which is good for America and very bad for Russia.

A weaker Russian economy will increase the probability that the war in Ukraine ends sooner and on more favorable terms for Ukraine.

And Putin will be sleeping in his safe room from this point going forward.

[⭕RenderPockets⭕ @renderPockets]

I see alot of dumb oil takes on the timeline today. Lets say most extreme case, all of Venezuelas sanctions are lifted and their backlog starts moving. We could see a brief one to two week doubling of their exports. After that, it would take a decade of rebuild to reach again

[Kyle Samani @KyleSamani]

The 4D chess interpretation here is that US is about to crash oil prices

This will put a lot of pressure on Russia and Iran

And possibly on China too, as they were buying discounted oil from these 3 since all 3 were sanctioned by USA

Bonus. Cheaper energy for AI for America

[⭕RenderPockets⭕ @renderPockets]

Kinda silly take, more like a 0 D chess move if that is the play. Venezuela is about 4% of China's oil imports. The ONLY way this pressures an oil crash is if we flood China with Venezuela's reserves. Which also hurts our local oil industry as well. Even then, wouldn't move the price all that much even if you doubled the flow. You are missing key geopolitical context as well as oil market context.

[⭕RenderPockets⭕ @renderPockets]

@0xLouisT Yep, funding treasury operations and salaries through recycled capital does not a buyback make. Only outside capital flowing into the ecosystem can have any effect whatsoever on price

[⭕RenderPockets⭕ @renderPockets]

This take only makes sense if a protocol is not comprised of workers providing a service in exchange for the token. In systems like $HNT or $RENDER buybacks are literally part of the economic contract workers signed. Take the buy out of BME burn and it is just a meme coin with extra accounting steps 🤷

[rinko @mrinko]

no crypto startup should feel pressured to do buybacks. in normal tech this would be insane. high growth startups should be reinvesting capital and preserving runway, not blowing it in the open market to placate a couple loud reply guys

the popularity of buybacks - and in some sense, the expectation by the market that every revenue positive protocol will do them - is unequivocally bad for the crypto startup ecosystem. founders should be focused on their users, product, and team - not managing a perpetual twap

buybacks are a symptom of a more fundamental malaise we find ourselves in as an industry. most tokens are worthless. the average app token is just a memecoin wearing a suit. it has “utility” but no ownership of anything meaningful

token holders have finally grown wise to these schemes and now as a result demand buybacks. why be forced to trust the team to steward a protocol’s capital when they can just immediately return it to investors via buybacks? the shorter the lag between revenue in and buybacks out, the better

this approach is fine for later stage teams. buybacks make sense for protocols like pump & hyperliquid that print money and may have no other productive place to park all that cash. but for your run of the mill crypto startup, buybacks are at best a distraction and at worse a waste of precious resources

the pendulum is finally starting to swing away from buybacks, as evidenced by helium’s decision to pause part of their buyback programme. metadao will only accelerate this shift

teams that launch ownership coins on metadao feel no pressure to do buybacks bc investors have actual ownership. this means ownership coin founders don’t need to virtue signal to their holders; instead they can focus on the important stuff - product, users, team

buybacks are a pre futarchy phenomenon

[⭕RenderPockets⭕ @renderPockets]

@GosparDaniel @Kneteknilch @rendernetwork @grok I'll only ask you to consider one thing: "If our network has organic demand then why do we need to offer the services for free after 5+ years?"
This is a rhetorical q. Just ponder

[⭕RenderPockets⭕ @renderPockets]

For 2025 150% of our demand technically was grant funded according to their medium articles. Now not all grants were direct job subsidies but that is staggering. We dont need THAT much subsidy. But on top of that, burning does nothing to price. Only an outside capital buy does. When all you do is remove supply, and you still have more emissions ur just slowing inflation. BME does not make sense without buy and burn. All it is then is a meme coin with extra steps

[⭕RenderPockets⭕ @renderPockets]

@GosparDaniel @Kneteknilch @rendernetwork @grok Unfortunately, everything is not clear no. The thing that is clear is that grants are direct burns from treasury. The thing that is still unverifiable and unexplained in the article is the flow from artist payment to onchain swap. Also absent is language requiring a buy

[⭕RenderPockets⭕ @renderPockets]

@GosparDaniel @Kneteknilch @rendernetwork Just to help you out. Flo flo doesn't have the proof. Cus it doesnt exist

[⭕RenderPockets⭕ @renderPockets]

@KyleSamani The slippery slope argument is not usually my favorite. But, even tho I agree we shouldn't be advocating for government itemizing personal property to tax wealth. Some wealth, especially centi millionaire + billionaire wealth is so public that that isnt necessary

[⭕RenderPockets⭕ @renderPockets]

I do believe personally, without sufficient proof mind you, that this is more of a mask-off moment for BME systems broadly.
That this is not a pivot, but rather a realization that buys + burns have actually never been happening with outside capital and that the entire process is more of an accounting trick masked by market makers and treasury operations.
Someone like @zachxbt spending a few hours might be able to map and expose this type of economic system as one that is too easily exploited and masked. Allegedly, of course

[amir 🇺🇸🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇪🇬 @amirhaleem]

an update on HNT buybacks: the market doesn’t seem to care about projects buying their tokens back off the market, so we are going to stop wasting our money under the current conditions

Helium + Mobile generated $3.4M in October alone and I’d rather we use that money to grow the business than pour it into a hole. we’re fully focused on growing @helium_mobile subscribers, the @helium network installed base, and growing carrier offload usage and will be directing all our $ in to those endeavors until morale improves

data credits will continue to be burned for all carrier offload as always. thank you for your attention to this matter!

[⭕RenderPockets⭕ @renderPockets]

There are two ways to look at this:
1. From a traditional company's POV.
2. From the POV of a nation state.
Every ecosystem IMO should be analogized as a nation state. I believe anyone attempting to analogize one to a traditional company are being disingenuous. I also believe any founder pointing to buybacks as inefficient capital wise are simply pointing at their own mismanagement of a treasury. I am more familiar with the Render Ecosystem and have no history on the history of HNT. But, I can't help but notice some similarities...

[⭕RenderPockets⭕ @renderPockets]

@GosparDaniel @brownonthe63669 There is no transaction that exists which would confirm outside capital has entered to buy the token. Fact. What you are seeing are transactions swapping USDC for RENDER. The question you should ask is "Where did the USDC come from?"

[⭕RenderPockets⭕ @renderPockets]

Is it tho? 🤔

[The Render Network @rendernetwork]

4/6
When the artist/studio approves a job as complete, the currency they paid is used to purchase RENDER tokens.
Those RENDER tokens are then burned - removed from circulation forever, for ever ever.

[⭕RenderPockets⭕ @renderPockets]

@GosparDaniel @brownonthe63669 Is it? Dig deep. I know it isnt. But I want you to arrive there by yourself

[⭕RenderPockets⭕ @renderPockets]

@brownonthe63669 Yea? Source? There is no way to prove they have ever purchased a single token with artist money

[⭕RenderPockets⭕ @renderPockets]

One of the most interesting public discussions on this app this year was watching billionaires react like white blood cells in the presence of a virus toward being taxed literally at all.

On one hand, the libertarian side of me understands why we should reject any government level accounting of personal property. That same side acknowledges that most billionaire wealth can be publicly measured.

On the other hand, I recognize that taxes in their purest purpose are not meant to fund government but rather only serve to put a cap on the runaway wealth effect our current system ensures would occur without them.

[Chamath Palihapitiya @chamath]

“Politicians raise taxes not because it’s needed, but because it gives them a bigger slush fund to enrich groups who will vote for them

They fund luxury hotels for illegal immigrants, while working families can barely afford healthcare “