Venkatesh Rao ☀️

Exploring protocols at Substack Notes is currently the best public place to chat with me.

[Venkatesh Rao ☀️ @vgr]

Excited for our third annual protocol symposium in September, and the first under the aegis of the Protocol Institute. Talk and workshop abstracts due June 14th. Fully online, and this is the first time we’re doing an open call too (previous editions had all the programming out of the summer of protocols cohorts; this time anyone can apply).

https://t.co/vR8PV9jolo

[Venkatesh Rao ☀️ @vgr]

Our just-launched Protocol Institute is launching this collaborative program with the Long Now foundation. 2 exciting protocol-themed grant opps — “book of time” and “epistemic cycles”. Apply by June 5.

[Long Now Foundation @longnow]

What does long-term thinking look like in practice? Introducing Long Now Labs, a collaborative space to test, prototype, and build long-term tools.

Lab Series 001 is a collaboration with the Protocol Institute to investigate three aspects of civilizational durability that are being radically reshaped by frontier technologies.

-> Lab 001.1: Book of Time - An open call to submit a concept for a new way of marking, experiencing, or making sense of time.
-> Lab 001.2: Epistemic Cycles - Seeking an individual or team to investigate historical patterns of technological disruption that broke down society's ability to discern truth.
-> Lab 001.3: Interspecies Protocols - Exploring the protocols needed to support interspecies ecologies.

If you are a designer, researcher, writer, or technologist interested in the deep future, we want to hear from you. Submissions are now open.

Learn more about Labs and how to apply: https://t.co/meZmRDc8t2

[Venkatesh Rao ☀️ @vgr]

Made an online book out of my Twitter archives from when I was active. Include a preface I wrote specifically for this. Took some heavy-duty bespoke vibecoding to get done. Epub and print soon.

https://t.co/YBsfOUAUoC

[TITLES @titlesxyz]

https://t.co/ck4NN1yFZC

[TITLES @titlesxyz]

We collaborated with @vgr to create a custom-trained AI model on his artwork.

Venkatesh shares his thoughts on creating with AI, artistic provenance, and working with TITLES here: https://t.co/Mdjoiz4eBr

TITLES is built around a simple premise: generative AI needs a way to account for creative origin. Our platform allows artists to train models on their own work while keeping authorship and attribution intact across every output. This lets artists participate in generative AI, rather than being replaced by it.

[dannyryan @dannyryan]

Wall Street demands the properties decentralization ==> Wall Street demands Ethereum

Check out my Devconnect ARG talk from last week to see my latest thinking on institutional adoption of Ethereum

https://t.co/mjI5iOdOBM

Thanks @EFDevcon for hosting me! I had a fantastic time🙏

[Venkatesh Rao ☀️ @vgr]

For the record, since a lot of people seem confused and are pinging me, the ‘tempo’ handle was never mine (mine is @tempobook and dormant). I don’t know why this account has RTed some of my old tweets.

[Tempo @tempo]

Introducing Tempo: a payments-first blockchain incubated by Stripe and Paradigm.

As stablecoins go mainstream, there’s a need for optimized infrastructure. Tempo is purpose-built for stablecoins and real-world payments, born from Stripe’s experience in global payments and Paradigm’s expertise in crypto.

To ensure Tempo serves a broad array of needs, we’re excited to be working with a group of initial design partners, including: Anthropic, Coupang, Deutsche Bank, DoorDash, Lead Bank, Mercury, Nubank, OpenAI, Revolut, Shopify, Standard Chartered, Visa, and more.

Tempo’s payment-first design includes:
• Predictable low fees
• Payments/gas in any stablecoin via enshrined AMM
• Payments-first UX (dedicated payments lane, memos, access lists, etc)
• Opt-in privacy
• Scale (100K+ TPS, sub-second finality)
• EVM-compatible, built on Reth

Tempo eases the path to bringing real-world flows onchain, such as:
• Global payouts, payins, and payroll
• Embedded financial accounts
• Fast and cheap remittances
• Tokenized deposits for 24/7 settlement
• Microtransactions
• Agentic payments

We’re building Tempo with core principles of decentralization and neutrality. Tempo will be a neutral platform with respect to stablecoins, allowing users to make transfers and pay gas fees in any stablecoin. The blockchain will be secured by an independent and diverse validator set, with a roadmap toward permissionless validators.

We’re partnering with builders across fintech, banking, ecommerce, agentic finance, and more — if you’d like to build with us, get in touch at [email protected]

[Venkatesh Rao ☀️ @vgr]

@va3bhavtoo No the school and workshop are separate

[Venkatesh Rao ☀️ @vgr]

I’m helping organize a week-long Protocol Symposium, Sep 12-19. The symposium is fully online and free, but limited capacity. Deadline to apply is tomorrow, August 22. Details in reply.

Probably your best chance to catch up on Summer of Protocols work this year. This is the third year of the program, and we’ve made a lot of progress getting this new field going.

[Venkatesh Rao ☀️ @vgr]

Summer of Protocols is back for 2025
https://t.co/gj7MatzNOl

[timbeiko.eth @TimBeiko]

And, last but not least, we’re planning some in-person workshops focused on deriving a “grand theory” of protocols. The first one will focus on the intersection of distributed AI and blockchains 🤖

[timbeiko.eth @TimBeiko]

At a smaller scale, we also have several paid writing opportunities for contributions to Protocolized ✍️

[timbeiko.eth @TimBeiko]

Our Curriculum Development Track has 500K$ in grants available to fund college-level courses around protocols, with GCC sponsoring a Chinese language track.

We’ll kick the summer off with a Curriculum Development workshop at @JoinEdgeCity 📚

[timbeiko.eth @TimBeiko]

Summer of Protocols is back for 2025 ☀️

In 2023, our guiding question was whether “protocols” should be studied as a first class topic. After validating that, 2024 focused on applied research, in fields ranging from cryptography to wildfire prevention.

In 2025, our focus is education both via our Curriculum Development Program, and revamped Protocolized publication!

More info on all of this below 👇

[Venkatesh Rao ☀️ @vgr]

Coming up in 15 minutes on Devcon main stage: @TimBeiko on Shape of Protocols to Come, which is also the Ethereum community debut/first look of summer of protocols work. Come by if you���re around or watch the livestream https://t.co/j0zea7IB56

[Josh Stark @0xstark]

Ethereum's distinctive property is hardness

(2 min read)

https://t.co/zLflkzkR7D

[Venkatesh Rao ☀️ @vgr]

@visakanv Aww :)

[Ribbonfarm @ribbonfarm]

Ribbonfarm is retiring (the blog, not the substack)

https://t.co/rYHVyxOyMT