Crypto curious?
Yesterday was the 13th anniversary of the Bitcoin white paper. Maybe it's not too late.
2020 was probably crypto’s breakout year. But that’s just my highly biased and useless opinion. It’s really only the year I started paying close attention to this…phenomenon.
I’m trying to learn as much as I can about the space - after nearly 8 years of knowing about it but doing nothing about it. I first heard about Bitcoin in a social context from an acquaintance back in early 2013 - at about the same time a certain online marketplace called Silk Road was gaining notoriety.
Around this time, I’d even gone so far as to download the Tor browser to dive into the Dark Web, but for some reason, I got cold feet and demurred at the time. I wonder what my path may have been had I dipped my toes in then. Maybe I was too much of a goody two-shoes. But hindsight is always 20/20 and we rationalize our pasts.
Three important things this experience has taught me though:
1) Pay close attention to the periphery of your networks, because this is where new information - that shiny object in the corner of your eye - often appears. Our existing circles - family and friends - comprise people who broadly match our belief systems and preferences. But nearly all of my biggest growth and exposure to novel information has come from people I’ve barely known, and mostly met, or interacted with on the Internet. Over the past 5 or 6 years, the person who has become a friend and career confidant of sorts for me is someone I’ve almost wholly interacted with…online, and met in person a grand total of…3 times.
I was first introduced to the strength of weak ties as a concept in Meg Jay’s The Defining Decade (a great book, the main themes of which I’ll dedicate another post to), which I’ve read twice now - first in 2013, and the second time this year.
When I brought up the notion of weak ties to aforementioned friend, they had this to say about our relationship:
“…I’ve never felt it was weak; it’s simply different from the ones which optimise for social norms.”
Suffice to say my soon-ending twenties would have been a significantly poorer experience without my ‘weak’ ties. You know who you are, and a lot of you probably don’t. Thank you!
2) Seek out those people you see operating in completely novel or weird spaces, especially in areas you don’t understand. “Technology,” as Danny Hillis said, “is everything that doesn’t work yet.” Just because something is not understood, it doesn’t automatically mean it’s dangerous, useless, or won’t hold future promise. I think I saw someone on Twitter who recently said that a fairly decent heuristic for determining whether something is worth a closer look is how much the establishment, elites, or experts scoff at or deride it. If a lot of the latter is happening, there’s a high probability said thing is worth a closer inspection.
A friend who recently completed his Ph.D told me he wanted to get the Royal Society’s motto tattooed on himself (not sure where). The motto is 'Nullius in verba' in Latin, which means ‘Take nobody’s word for it’. Said friend went a step further with that literal translation, adding his own interpretation: “See for yourself.”
I thought that was cool.
“When experts are wrong, it's often because they're experts on an earlier version of the world. Experts are experts in an older version of the world.” - Paul Graham
3) Take an action bias. Take a plunge. Or at least dip your toes in by trying to do something you don’t understand. We learn quickest by doing. There is undoubtedly risk in trying something new. But you have to face the dragon in order to get the gold.
Or in the inimitable words of Joseph Campbell:
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”
It pays to experiment, explore and to be a first mover. You want to be on the far left side of the adoption curve. One of my biggest weaknesses has been trying to optimise for a perfect result by doing tons of research and reading, with little action in comparison. I’m quickly learning that doing stuff is the best way of learning about it (I may compare and contrast both approaches in a later post). That’s extremely important to remember in the times we live in.
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This was originally supposed to be a post in which I shared what I’m learning about crypto right now, but it ended up with me sharing some lessons I’ve learned from my defining decade. Here’s what I originally intended to share.
I’ve found a fantastic reading list curated by Dan Romero here. Incidentally, yesterday was the 13th anniversary of the publication of the Bitcoin white paper. (how many of you have actually READ it, read it?).
Romero’s compilation is a great list of reads on crypto for the uninitiated. Each post is unique and sheds light on a different aspect. So far the standout ones for me - at least in terms of thinking about crypto as an investment case, are the ones in 2016.
There is one on Ethereum by Coinbase founder Fred Ehrsam, in which he describes the advantage the Ethereum blockchain has over Bitcoin. Comes down to programming language, which enables an entire app ecosystem to flourish on top of it.
The post ‘Fat Protocols’ by Joel Monegro is also super interesting from a technical perspective and also helps lay out an investment case. Protocols for the Internet were ‘thin’, which allowed fat, monopolistic apps. But protocols for crypto are ‘fat’, and is already based on a significant chunk of data, which means the app layer will be competitive. Crypto itself is basically a protocol. Bitcoin is essentially a payments system and the limitations of the programming language mean that you can’t build anything to fancy on top of it - explains why so far you only have exchanges and wallets. (If I sound far out of my depth here, it’s because I am. These are just from my notes I took while reading. But I’m committed to this learn-in-public thing.)
I also watched this entertaining podcast with Jordan Peterson and the Bitcoiner Book Club. It maps (ha!) - rather humourously - on to his book, Maps of Meaning. I’ve not read the book, but I’m also making my way through his 2017 Maps of Meaning lectures on YouTube.
I found Richard James, a documentary filmmaker via Jordan Peterson’s podcast on Bitcoin.
In turn, I watched James’ film - Hard Money. I found the film, including its production quality and content rather average - not a very compelling critique of the fiat money system - though it made me want to study money a lot more. After 5 years of covering fiat currency markets as a journalist, it made me realise how little I understand money.
It was James’ resource section, however that I thought was useful. Here he linked to a well curated compilation of links on how to simply get started with Bitcoin. This link is probably dated, but I think it’s still worth going through. After all, who doesn’t like going through older parts of the Web? It also had this great page with a series of charts called WTF Happened in 1971? Make of it what you will.
This whole process of going down the crypto rabbit hole makes me feel like I’m tracing the path I was on the verge of taking in 2013. Funny how things pan out.
Thanks for reading!
-Ritvik