Pleasure

Live and let others live.

[Route 2 FI @Route2FI]

Is it safe to invest in crypto?

No, nothing is 100% safe. But most people play life on defense mode all their life. They take few to no risks, and live a comfy but not very stimulating life.

Ask yourself what you dream about doing in life, and make a plan.

You should probably not quit your job today and go all-in on a shitcoin in the hope to get rich quickly. But if you make a long-term plan and work for it daily, there are good odds that you will eventually reach your goals.

Ask yourself why the people you look up to on CT made it, and why you haven't yet?

You can blame luck, but in the end, there's always a lot of hard work behind most people's success.

And if you fail, you can always go back to where you were, and you can tell people that you at least tried to follow your dreams.

Which is f*cking admirable IMO.

Take that risk.

[Pleasure @zanussicrypt]

@IterIntellectus The question is if you have to live your life again, would you have make the same decision that leads you to the current path you’re on ?

And is there any other what if questions you’re pondering upon ??

[vittorio @IterIntellectus]

i’ve been back home for a few days, in the tiny italian town where i grew up. maybe 6,000 people.

yesterday i saw some old school friends i hadn’t seen in years and it was genuinely fascinating how little their lives have changed.

most people here don’t go to university. they finish school and start working right away.
then that’s kind of their life.

wake up, work as an electrician or mechanic, come home, watch football, beer with friends on friday. work all year, save enough money for a week of vacation in august, come back and repeat.

most have basically no idea what AI is. all the things that feel world-changing to me and to the timeline barely enter their lives at all.

when i start talking about AI, self-driving cars, robots, rockets, all the things i’m insanely excited about, they mostly just scoff. completely uninterested.
and i don’t even mean any of this as an insult. a lot of them seem perfectly fine with their lives.

that’s what makes it so strange.
their lives now feel completely foreign to mine, while also being incredibly familiar.

we grew up in the same town, went to the same schools, knew the same people. our families and childhoods weren’t that different.

if i had made a couple different choices when i was 14 or 15, there’s a very real chance that would have been my life too.

sometimes you go home and realize just how many completely different versions of your life were only a few decisions away.

[Quandalf | Quantus @n13]

Grateful for all the traction from builders and operators of mining pools

Quantus just launched 2 weeks ago!

Yet there's several block explorers, network dashboards, multiple mining pools competing really hard, multiple binary miners super optimized for GPU, at least one web wallet, etc

This is the era of AI

People just build stuff

In 2 weeks!

If you have a project built on Quantus, drop it in the comments, trying to collect them all...

[Pleasure @zanussicrypt]

Join me on the Jumper waitlist. https://t.co/1QD53LX61p

Link to join above⬆️

[eden @edendotso]

Read the boring book.

Take the boring notes.

Write the boring summary.

That's where the interesting ideas live.

[Route 2 FI @Route2FI]

The other day, I randomly met what used to be the most popular guy at my high school. I remember back then, I wanted to be like him, because everyone liked him, and he pulled all the girls. He basically told me that he ended up drifting after school, partying a lot, and never took an education, just living paycheck by paycheck from random jobs that came his way.

It's interesting, almost as if people that had it easy early in life, end up having it worse later. Because easy mode makes you soft, you don't have to push for anything, because you already have it.

It was a strange feeling. Not because he was doing badly, but because the gap between our lives became so obvious.

But in general, when I think about it, many people I was sure would do well in life are stuck in dead-end jobs, has a GF they hate, or living a routine that makes them die inside. They peaked early, and have spent the rest of the time trying to recreate it.

Forever grateful for finding this corner of the internet. It takes time and failure to figure out where you belong in this world and what your purpose is. And if you feel stuck today, you can always reinvent yourself. Eventually, something clicks.

[Pleasure @zanussicrypt]

@nigelvanbro Cool, see you then brother 🤝

[Publius @ChrisBooksVines]

Respectfully, poor advice for most (or, at least, many) people. There are millions of opportunities and life affirming, joy inducing locations that 20 something’s can choose from. Who they are, what they dream of, and what is important to them should drive, if they have a choice, of where they live. London, Paris, NYC and SF may offer a ton for certain people, they are a complete drag and hell for many others.

Obvious example: Someone who loves nature and dreams of being a park ranger in Yellowstone, would be miserable in those cities. Are you saying they are not ambitious or successful? Maybe they don’t need to be surrounded by twenty other people validating their awesomeness. Are they just mere provincials to look down on? Or, perhaps, they are as smart and motivated as you. It may be that they just hate crime, whack job policies, constant over stimulation and an over-abundance of egoism about thinking one is cool or made it because they live in a 700 sq ft hovel in a certain zip code.

Perhaps they don’t need others to get clarity on what their life purpose is. Wayward at 24, no clue what you want to do… guess what, too late for 99% of you and being a non entity in a city of millions will not help you find yourself and wake up successful; the great mass of such people will be anonymous cogs in a wheel they don’t understand let alone control, and will find themselves at a DSA rally because clearly it is not their fault that they are not making it in the world. They should have listened to their parents (or some wise adults in their life), worked hard, studied hard, figured out earlier what life path they wanted so they hit their early twenties on a path they were consciously driving to and preparing for. Partying, getting through school as an AI cheat, or otherwise acting 16 until you are 24, will not have a good outcome for most, and being in such cities is not going to save their ass in most cases, rather the city will bury you. They likely would have been much better off in a smaller town where reality and accountability are more broadly accepted.

Outside of the top few percentile, cities are not made up of people who get ambition magically embedded within them simply by being there. And certainly they do not suddenly get intelligent simply due to moving there. Even for the few that get such ambition by the energy of being there, ambition without intelligence is no better than having intelligence but no ambition. People with ambition and intelligence have inherent ambition and intelligence as their prime mover and go where that ambition and intelligence leads them. Anyone who lacks those attributes and thinks that they will magically gain those attributes simply by moving to one of those cities demonstrates by such thinking why they are not and will not be successful. Ambitious, intelligent people succeed not because of where they live, they would succeed anywhere. They understand that happiness is the variable that they should prioritize and so they make choices, including where they choose to live, based on maximizing their chances of happiness based on what brings them joy and fulfillment. Thinking that if I only lived in NYC, I would, via osmosis, get perfect clarity on what I want to do, be successfully ambitious at such newly found purpose, and subsequently have a life of unmitigated city bliss happiness sounds like someone desperately trying to talk themself into believing their quiet life of anonymous desperation really isn’t all that bad.

Don’t get me wrong. What you suggest may be the right path for some. The history of such cities is a history of being a positive magnet for many. And certainly some, perhaps many, have a great, successful and happy lives in these cities. Just remember the GREAT mass of such do not end up thriving and never accomplish what they thought moving to such a city would bequest them; many end up stuck and miserable. Don’t confuse the cause and effect.

[Zun @Zun2025]

https://t.co/mXpsWcsLbW

[Aporia @aporia9n]

I think ambitious people should treat life in “seasons” rather than trying to balance everything every day.

A few years massively overallocated to work. A period getting seriously fit. A year or two nomading. Then family takes priority for a while. Then maybe at 35 you go completely insane again and spend four years building a new company, and so on.

The mistake is thinking every metric needs to stay green all the time. Most great outcomes (building a company, writing sth serious, training for an event) need uninterrupted runs, not daily moderation. Sometimes work should suffer cause you’re travelling, sometimes your social life should suffer cause you’re building, sometimes career progression should slow cause family matters more. That’s fine.

And tbh it probably makes life more fun too. You get actual chapters and completely different versions of yourself instead of spending 40 years maintaining the same perfectly optimised routine. A few intense years in one city, a weird nomad phase, an obsession that takes over your life, then something completely different. Probably much more memorable than one very long well-optimised Tuesday.

It's why I encourage everyone to think of balance in years, not days. A good life can look horribly unbalanced on some random Tuesday and still be very balanced over 10 years.

[Yash @yashhsm]

some bear market thoughts on crypto:

1) we're in the peak depth: almost everyone is done selling - we just lack marginal buyers yet

either we get capital rotation back from ai soon (q4 maybe?) or we remain flat for some time

2) fundraising is p bad rn, particularly early-stage

there's no infra trade left and most crypto vcs have either:
- no money
- or no idea on how to fund 'products'

most got burnt out due to overfunding bs infra in '23-24 which were all down only coins (so no exits)

all risky capital is funding ai now

as a founder: unless you've some significant traction or big pedigree, it's a waste of time to even think of fundraising

3) teams are shutting down left & right - mostly due to lack of funds or PMF

which directly impacts job markets - there's some hiring on institutional side (nyc-based) but apart from that, the hiring has decreased significantly

only companies with huge treasuries are able to hire and asian projects are hit the hardest from what i can see

capital is a huge moat for startups for 'right to win' - for otherwise capital-starved early-stage

4) there's a huge gap in early-stage funding:

best time to angel invest at a low val or even start micro-accelerators

due to lack of infra money, hackathon/grants have now reduced by ~95% now

earlier l1 grants/funding used to attract a significant number of early-stage teams - further driving away talent

if fundraising doesn't return by q1' 27 - innovation will significantly shrink and crypto will become a 'legacy industry'

5) crypto is now just 'financial markets' - there's broadly four markets with PMF:

- memecoins & spot (solana/rh)
- perps (hl)
- yields (eth)
- prediction markets (poly)

+ stablecoin payments

and then a long tail markets like pokémon cards etc

all non-financial protocols on governance, social, proof of xyz, identity, gaming etc are now dead - they're now just a feature on speculative apps

6) everyone's either:

- building an 'everything exchange'

coinbase, robinhood, solana, pump, axiom, fomo, polymarket, jupiter, phantom

- or packaging yield

usdt, usdc, usdg, morpho, aave, kamino

7) there're only 2 types of chains left:

- general community-led: eth & solana
- distribution-led: base, robinhood, tempo, bsc

rest all are dead or will be dead soon

8) the survived teams are incredibly product-focussed now:

- better trading execution
- ux/mobile focus

finally, building good products and nailing distribution is the only way to win

the whole game is now like building a fintech app with crypto rails

ofc, speculation will always be the holy grail of financial markets and even stocks & gold now trade like crypto - everything is now a narrative trade!

9) there are some teams which are building non-crypto infra (eg. robotics/data collection/depin types) funded by crypto VCs:

but we all know they're mostly a scam looking to launch high float, low fdv tokens (and will probably fail)

and will abandon the tokens whenever they get some PMF and call it 'credits' (iykyk)

10) there're some incredible liquid opportunities

but with teams giving up/shutting down/abondoning - it's incredibly hard to judge or filter out quality

but i'd still say holding good quality liquid tokens have the best r/r

a simple filter is just buy tokens which has:
- good treasury
- founder-led who understands distribution
- upcoming sector tailwinds

(happy to share my list)

11) there's only few traders left in trenches:

but they're incredibly smart and they can make money in any market now

many are now trading stocks and killing it - as they're the pro narrative traders

safe to say: all crème layer genz traders have traded/are trading crypto

this core audience is always on lookout to try out new experimentations

12) stablecoin payments:

they’re p huge in the shadow economy (eg. an Indian manufacturer buying from china in USDT to escape taxes & regulation hassle)

but organising a shadow market is a challenging and unsolved problem

agentic payments are a huge opportunity but no PMF yet (typical coldstart problem) - all numbers pushed by base/solana are just wash volumes

i'd bet on stripe/tempo (+ trad companies) to gain a lion share in regulated stablecoin payments just because of distribution

13) opportunities now lie on building:

- better trading interfaces & modality (via ai, mobile)

- more novel markets (eg. compute, emerging market coverage, metadao)

- anything around token or memecoins (speculative mechanics)

- cool fintech ideas which failed due to banking/regulations (eg. neobanks)

and ofc, picks & shovels around this

biggest bet: post ai, speculation and trading as a way to show conviction on anything socially will increasingly rise and crypto is the de-facto rails for any new markets

14) and yess, memecoins (internet culture coins) will come back extra-ordinarily as macro moves and capital rotates from ai

it'll bring interest back to crypto and once again, sidelined VCs will be salty

i still remain cautiously optimistic on broader crypto and p optimistic on crypto as 'anything market' rails 🫡

[Pleasure @zanussicrypt]

@Route2FI So sad that everyone was sold the idea of working till age 65 and then retire.

It’s understandable why most people still don’t believe making it fast in crypto is a possibility.

[Route 2 FI @Route2FI]

I still think that crypto is one of the best playing fields for young people that wants a shot at making it.

Even though it doesn't look like it right now, airdrop farming/perp points, etc. still works to some extent. Variational, Extended among some + trying new onchain stuff (FWA for example, even though it didn't work ++). There's always a new game to try, a new meta to jump onto. One day it clicks. You simply have to position yourself for luck. Try enough times, and you'll have a much higher chance for succeding.

There will be good days again. Take asymmetric bets, be among other risk-taking people (either on Twitter or IRL). No matter what you do, don’t waste your best years playing it safe. Nothing sadder than hearing people say they're looking forward to turning 67 because then they're finally allowed to retire.

[Pleasure @zanussicrypt]

@n13 @glxyresearch Preach it brother. Bless you ❤️

[Quandalf | Quantus @n13]

It's just so sad.

Previous exploits hit bridges and generally Defi degeneracy (gambling) - This one hits honest users

I had brief a flash of "hey I could write a quick implementation of this hack and scrape the bottom of the barrel - getting all those wallets not yet drained...

But consider this - imagine you do it, and make $40M ... now you are rich.

However, you got rich by stealing other people's money

And you'd have to live with that for the rest of your life

You'll become miserable like all the other miserable rich people - of which I know many

And you couldn't even atone or return the funds

Your karma would be wrecked and guilt would haunt you to the end of your days

Not worth it

Get rich by making amazing things

Not by stealing

[Pleasure @zanussicrypt]

➡️I got locked out by the 30min timer before my order was filled but i saw the trade executed and i ended up with a negative PNL. I couldn't get the final screenshot to post here.

Overall, I enjoyed the experience and I feel inspired.

[Pleasure @zanussicrypt]

Here's the documentation of my experience trading on @o2dotapp app, a thread 🧵

➡️ With my 10$ trading credit, I place a limit buy order for ETH at 1860$. While i wait for the trade to execute, i play around to check other features on the app.

[Pleasure @zanussicrypt]

➡️ Then i place a limit sell order to sell some portion of my ETH at the price 1870.10$, the idea is to test the feature and it does work perfectly.