John BrΞnnan

Muse often, tweet rarely. 𝙉𝙤𝙬: Lead Data @Consensys. 𝙋𝙖𝙨𝙩: 3x Founder (Venture DAO & SaaS) ❤️ token mechanism design and thoughtful UX

[John BrΞnnan @worldlyjohn]

On a long enough time horizon nothing is scarce.

intelligence (AI)
labor (robots)
energy (the sun)
minerals (asteroids)

the future is constrained by imagination and coordination

[John BrΞnnan @worldlyjohn]

Very promising

[Dan Robinson @danrobinson]

Millions of BTC could be vulnerable to quantum computers

Bitcoin may someday need to sunset those addresses, but that could force a public migration

Today we published a design to let that migration be costless and silent: Public Address-Control Timestamps (PACTs)

Link in 🧵

[John BrΞnnan @worldlyjohn]

"Orgs chart will shift from hierarchies of supervision to networks of intent with AI becoming the translation layer"

-- Moonshots

https://t.co/VeDeTJnWjG

[John BrΞnnan @worldlyjohn]

https://t.co/CCOIx3SLnu

[Anthropic @AnthropicAI]

Introducing Project Glasswing: an urgent initiative to help secure the world’s most critical software.

It’s powered by our newest frontier model, Claude Mythos Preview, which can find software vulnerabilities better than all but the most skilled humans.
https://t.co/NQ7IfEtYk7

[John BrΞnnan @worldlyjohn]

Claude Mythos 🤯🤯

[John BrΞnnan @worldlyjohn]

I’m not sure how to feel yet about ephemeral software

[Erik Voorhees @ErikVoorhees]

Prior administration's SEC (both under Biden and under Trump before) destroyed tens (arguably hundreds) of billions of dollars in value, punishing consenting adults for making their own financial decisions, in what is allegedly a free country that allegedly permits and encourages entrepreneurship, risk taking, and individual responsibility.

The consequence of Gensler's SEC was, most obviously, a substantial reduction in entrepreneurs' willingness to attempt token designs of authentic utility. The flourishing of utility tokens post EVM (2016-2018) came to an end under fear of persecution. In its place, an era of memecoins and even greater scams that went entirely unprosecuted until post-collapse, like FTX.

"If you try to build something of utility, we will ruin your life. If you make dog meme, no prob. If you steal $10b in customer money outright, we'll ask you for input on upcoming bills in DC so long as you donate some of it to our campaigns."

The current SEC is materially better. Today's guidance is good, not because it is "clear" (ambiguous liberty is superior to clearly defined oppression), but because it recognizes limits on its own power; because the scope of tyranny over an allegedly free people is lessened.

Importantly, what's new here is correct exclusions from security-definition of both "Digital Collectibles" and "Digital Tools". The latter aka utility tokens, so often persecuted under Gensler's regime.

Digital Collectibles and Digital Tools are each massive categories. Huge, open territory for innovators to once again explore.

To the current SEC, thank you for improving toward the ideals of what makes America good.

I encourage anyone who was persecuted by the prior agency to post anything you feel comfortable sharing in the comments.

[John BrΞnnan @worldlyjohn]

Our elected officials don’t seem prepared
Society doesn’t seem prepared

Many dems believe we need to reorganize around socialism which is to say top-down. Heart is there but imo it won’t work

I actually think we need to reorganize society bottom-up. Decentralized & distributed

[John BrΞnnan @worldlyjohn]

Well except for an asset or two

[John BrΞnnan @worldlyjohn]

On a long enough time horizon nothing is scarce.

intelligence (AI)
labor (robots)
energy (the sun)
minerals (asteroids)

the future is constrained by imagination and coordination

[Matt Hougan @Matt_Hougan]

This is a specious and disingenuous argument. Stablecoin issuers don’t want to be fractional reserve banks that make risky loans and therefore need heavy regulation. They want to be fully reserved money market style products that exclusively hold ST Treasuries.

We shouldn’t let Jamie get away with fake logic and false comparisons. He knows better.

[John BrΞnnan @worldlyjohn]

IMO the distinction should be:

If YOU take in customer deposits and then YOU lend those same deposits to others then you should be regulated as a bank.

Regulation rationale is consumer protection. When customers have full control of their deposits fewer regs nec

[Frank Chaparro @fintechfrank]

Jamie Dimon AI & crypto:

AI is real:
Companies should deploy it. It could mean 3–4 day workweeks, but if adoption moves too fast, job losses could outpace retraining. Govt should step up with income assistance + training. But they're "not prepared.”

On crypto market structure:
Banks say rewards = interest. If you pay on balances, you should be regulated like a bank.

"We've been firm...if you want to be a bank become a bank then you can do whatever you want."

source: CNBC

[John BrΞnnan @worldlyjohn]

Canary in the coal mine

Block cuts 40% of staff. Looks like "intelligence tools" requires smaller, flatter teams. (Fewer employees as orchestrators -- for now -- managing teams of agents/subagents)

Market responds by adding $6B in market cap or $1.5m in EV per eliminated role

[jack @jack]

we're making @blocks smaller today. here's my note to the company.

####

today we're making one of the hardest decisions in the history of our company: we're reducing our organization by nearly half, from over 10,000 people to just under 6,000. that means over 4,000 of you are being asked to leave or entering into consultation. i'll be straight about what's happening, why, and what it means for everyone.

first off, if you're one of the people affected, you'll receive your salary for 20 weeks + 1 week per year of tenure, equity vested through the end of may, 6 months of health care, your corporate devices, and $5,000 to put toward whatever you need to help you in this transition (if you’re outside the U.S. you’ll receive similar support but exact details are going to vary based on local requirements). i want you to know that before anything else. everyone will be notified today, whether you're being asked to leave, entering consultation, or asked to stay.

we're not making this decision because we're in trouble. our business is strong. gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and profitability is improving. but something has changed. we're already seeing that the intelligence tools we’re creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company. and that's accelerating rapidly.

i had two options: cut gradually over months or years as this shift plays out, or be honest about where we are and act on it now. i chose the latter. repeated rounds of cuts are destructive to morale, to focus, and to the trust that customers and shareholders place in our ability to lead. i'd rather take a hard, clear action now and build from a position we believe in than manage a slow reduction of people toward the same outcome. a smaller company also gives us the space to grow our business the right way, on our own terms, instead of constantly reacting to market pressures.

a decision at this scale carries risk. but so does standing still. we've done a full review to determine the roles and people we require to reliably grow the business from here, and we've pressure-tested those decisions from multiple angles. i accept that we may have gotten some of them wrong, and we've built in flexibility to account for that, and do the right thing for our customers.

we're not going to just disappear people from slack and email and pretend they were never here. communication channels will stay open through thursday evening (pacific) so everyone can say goodbye properly, and share whatever you wish. i'll also be hosting a live video session to thank everyone at 3:35pm pacific. i know doing it this way might feel awkward. i'd rather it feel awkward and human than efficient and cold.

to those of you leaving…i’m grateful for you, and i’m sorry to put you through this. you built what this company is today. that's a fact that i'll honor forever. this decision is not a reflection of what you contributed. you will be a great contributor to any organization going forward.

to those staying…i made this decision, and i'll own it. what i'm asking of you is to build with me. we're going to build this company with intelligence at the core of everything we do. how we work, how we create, how we serve our customers. our customers will feel this shift too, and we're going to help them navigate it: towards a future where they can build their own features directly, composed of our capabilities and served through our interfaces. that's what i'm focused on now. expect a note from me tomorrow.

jack

[John BrΞnnan @worldlyjohn]

If your child is under 5 s/he may never need to learn to drive

[Stuart Blitz @StuartBlitz]

VC vs. founder

[John BrΞnnan @worldlyjohn]

"The world is still under appreciating what’s being built here"

[Ryan Watkins @RyanWatkins_]

https://t.co/UyCXRwhDfH

[John BrΞnnan @worldlyjohn]

Wages have been societies dominant allocation mechanism for the things we need, want, and desire.

It’s unclear what distribution mechanism will take its place when human labor is no longer a required input.

And I worry that society is not prepared.

[John BrΞnnan @worldlyjohn]

Quantum will force Bitcoin’s next block-war moment.

Two camps:
• Dont interfere, even with Satoshi-era coins
• Freeze legacy addresses at future block height

Bullish either way: coordination will happen ($MSTR & Blackrock have fiduciary duty) and lost supply becomes explicit

[Jamie Coutts CMT @Jamie1Coutts]

I used to wave away quantum computing (QC) risks to Bitcoin as far-fetched. I don’t anymore.

The usual pushback goes like this: QC isn’t a threat for years, and if it is, then the whole financial system is in trouble anyway. That line of nihilistic thinking may be comforting to some, but it misses the point.

Big banks aren’t sitting idle. They’re already investing in quantum research, building internal teams, partnering with QC developers, and thinking about how to harden their systems over time. They’re not “quantum-safe” today — but they’re not starting from scratch either.

Bitcoin is different. It can upgrade, technically. But doing so requires slow, messy coordination across a decentralised network. There’s no risk committee, no mandate, no one who can just say “we’re switching now.”

So this isn’t about panic or pretending I know the precise timelines. Maybe QC is five years away. Maybe it’s fifteen. The problem is that quantum risk is low-probability but massive-impact — and those are exactly the risks decentralised systems struggle to deal with early.

Add AI into the mix, and it’s at least plausible that timelines compress rather than extend.

What’s interesting is the growing gap between developer confidence and institutional behaviour. Even if developers think there’s a zero percent chance of a quantum threat in the next five years, some institutions are clearly pricing it higher.

The recent decision by CLSA strategist Chris Wood to remove BTC from his widely followed portfolio due to QC risk may look like “paper hands,” but it matters. It signals that quantum risk is entering institutional risk frameworks — even if views differ widely.

And those views do differ. There’s plenty of counter-evidence. Harvard’s reported decision to increase its exposure by roughly 280% shows institutional support for Bitcoin isn’t disappearing. What’s changing isn’t demand, but dispersion — my guess is that institutional alignment on how to price tail risks diverges further as the QC threat rises.

It’s also plausible that Harvard’s decision had nothing to do with quantum risk at all. Falling volatility alone, consistent with their asset-allocation framework, would justify a higher weighting.

There’s nuance and a lot of in-depth technical understanding, which I’m still working through. But asking these questions is reasonable. @caprioleio has been pushing on this for a while, and he’s right to challenge the shrug-it-off attitude.

What is unreasonable is pretending that JPMorgan and Bitcoin face the same problem. One can prepare in advance and mandate change. The other has to convince everyone, in advance, that a future threat is worth acting on.

Which brings me to the incentive problem.

As Bitcoin’s price rises, confidence rises — and the willingness to push through disruptive, precautionary upgrades falls. The system feels safest exactly when it is least incentivised to prepare.

Quantum risk doesn’t move with price, but the gap does.

[John BrΞnnan @worldlyjohn]

.@elonmusk suggests “just issue people free money” aka UHI (universal high income).

He doesn’t explain why, but I think he believes that the cost of labor AND energy will trend to zero which will keep inflation in check

M2 up, hard assets up, inflation steady

[John BrΞnnan @worldlyjohn]

We’re de-monetizing everything.

Labor will become the cost of capex and electricity

— @PeterDiamandis

[John BrΞnnan @worldlyjohn]

Companies that are entirely AI will demolish companies that are not

—Elon