.@baby_fisherman recently gave a keynote at @EthCC, where he shared Babylon’s goals and what is still holding BTC back from being used productively in DeFi.
One pattern he highlighted is that some BTC holders use BTC as collateral, borrow stablecoins against it, and deploy those stablecoins for yield.
I'm going to make some obvious points.
(1) Blowing up all the oil infrastructure in the Middle East is an insane idea, and may well result in a global economic crash and humanitarian crisis unrivaled in the lives of those now living. We're talking about the price of everything everywhere rising, from food to gas, at a moment when inflation was already high. All of that will be laid at the feet of the authors of this war.
(2) The antebellum status quo of Feb 27, 2026 was just not that bad, but we're unlikely to return to it. Expect indefinite, long-term, ongoing disruptions to everything out of the Middle East.
(3) Also assume tech financing crashes for the indefinite future. The genius plan to get the Gulf states caught in the crossfire has incinerated much of the funding for LPs, for datacenters, and for IPOs. Anyone in tech who supported this war may soon learn the meaning of "force majeure" as funding gets yanked.
(4) Many capital allocators will instead be allocating much further down Maslow's hierarchy of needs, towards useful basic things like food and energy.
(5) It's fortunate that all those progressives yelled about the "climate crisis." Yes, their reasoning about timelines was wrong, and much of the money was wasted in graft, but the result was right: we all need energy independence from the Middle East, pronto. It's also fortunate that Elon and China autistically took climate seriously. Now they're going to need to ship a billion solar panels, electric vehicles, batteries, nuclear power plants, and the like to get everyone off oil, immediately.
(6) It's not just an oil and gas problem, of course. It's also a fertilizer problem, and a chemical precursor problem. Maybe some new sources will come online at the new prices, but it takes time to dial stuff up, particularly at this scale, so shortages are almost a certainty.
That said, China has actually scaled up coal-to-chemicals[a,c] (C2C), and there's also something more sci-fi called Power-to-X[b] which turns arbitrary power + water + air into hydrocarbons. But all of that will need to get accelerated. I have a background in chemical engineering so may start funding things in this area.
(7) Ultimately, this war is going to result in tremendous blame for anyone associated with it. It's a no-win scenario to blow up this much infrastructure for so many people. Simply not worth it for whatever objective they thought they were going to attain. But unless you're actually in a position to stop the madness, the pragmatic thing to do is: scramble to mitigate the fallout to yourself, your business, and your people.
[a]: https://t.co/ITat4tmAFd
[b]: https://t.co/bWwiSQcgyt
[c]: https://t.co/FQCqMhy5d3
Tailwind lays of 75% of their team. the reason is so ironic:
> their css framework became extremely popular w AI coding agents, 75m downloads/mo
> that meant nobody would visit their docs where they promoted paid offerings
> resulting in 40% drop in traffic & 80% revenue loss
AI at the edge is slowly becoming a reality. we now have GMKtec EVO-X2 AMD Ryzen AI @ $1.5K and Nvidia DGX Spark @ $4K. Apps/Agents now can run 24/7 against personal and private data.
@MohnishPabrai Pleasant surprise bumping into you at Chandigarh airport @MohnishPabrai - been a fan from dhandho2dakshana. The success of dakshana inspired me to recruit straight out of @CGCPunjab and the barber vignette in dhandho inspired me to go outside the big cities to Mohali. Thanks!
@elonmusk Curated Streams for twitter - Creators attach software algorithms with source code on github that filter tweets per their perspective I can follow or fork code and customize
#OriginBX PGB member Srinivasan Sriram of @skuchain will be featured on a panel during the Blockchain in Oil & Gas Conference, "Measuring, reporting, verifying, and tracking using #Blockchain" on 14 Sept at 11:45 AM.
https://t.co/kqycaomVFg
#BlockchainHouston22#opensource
Whee, it works! @Tailscale now runs in the browser! 🤪
The 15.7 MB WebAssembly includes:
* Tailscale
* Wireguard-go
* gVisor's netstack (TCP, UDP, ICMP etc impls)
Now I can ping my browser. Or even run a net/http.Server in my browser. (Including LetsEncrypt I guess?)
🎉
Global trade using Digital Assets on a Currency Agnostic Blockchain have started! We announced the transactions we are doing with Mitsubishi and Mizuho today at https://t.co/Sl8d3ChnwG #dlpc#globaltrade
We are thrilled to announce the launch of ECO, Mitsubishi Corporation RtM Japan's #preciousmetals trade settlement system, which is powered by Skuchain's #blockchain-based EC3 Platform for #finance and #SupplyChain management. Learn more here:
https://t.co/lLpWZD32Ve
Founder & CEO @ssr1ram will be speaking at Consensus on May 12 w/ Yuichiro Yoshinari (Mitsubishi Corporation), Matt Frohling (@HSBC), Michael Lonie (@MizuhoAmericas) and Sunil Mascarenhas (@ADB_HQ). If you haven’t registered yet, you can still do so here: https://t.co/bQ0WZS80ig
Our Co-Founder and EVP @beccaliao and @W_Lehmacher will do a SupplyTech Insights masterclass next Tuesday, May 12. We will discuss the current state of global #supplychains as well as how to make supply chains more resilient in the future. Register below! https://t.co/AqRYVCm4qN