The discourse around "shielded Bitcoin" will only drive Zcash higher. First, there's the bootstrapping of association -- now, Bitcoin normies are coming closer to Zcash, some even considering it as an alternative on par with the biggest boy. Solana benefitted from the incessant comparison to Ethereum in '21-25. Hell, Celestia brilliantly tried moving the Overton window from "settlement" to "base" layer and saw its market cap sky rocket in its early days as it continuously elbowed itself into the convo alongside Ethereum. This goes on and on -- 1/2 the Bankless Twins now runs this playbook on the daily (Near is the next Ethereum! Venice is the next OpenAI! Robinhood memecoins are the next Doge!). Second, there's the absolute theater that is about to ensue. Meaning: Bitcoiners are notoriously stubborn. The protocol is ossified -- that's the entire bargain. If any scab breaks away from the religion and invites discourse on this topic, s/he will likely be held out as a blaspheming pariah. To boot, the odds that shielded Bitcoin will ever squeak through governance is extremely low. This will cause all eyes to boomerang back toward Zcash. This is all incredibly bullish for Zcash.

Lawyers love ZK.

If the Know Nothing Party of the 19th century wasn't so xenophobic, I'd recommend we revive the institution and launch a political party for privacy maxxing. @HesterPeirce is an absolute G.

Agents were prophesied in the ancient texts. theonion.com/high-unemployme…

Crypto natives have argued for 10+ years on standards only for institutions to rush into the space with their own risk parameters and awkward architectural requirements. Blockchain and asset issuance is not one size fits all -- what works for one compliance officer doesn't necessarily work for another. Best practices will emerge, legal counsel will give advice re: industry standard and what's favored by "the street." But it's likely going to prove impossible that a single architecture will just win out.

The best part about living and working in the LES is that every so often a hooptie rolls to the redlight on my corner blasting Supreme Clientele and my day is made.

The through line that connects Johnny Carson to Howard Stern to Oprah to Joe Rogan to -- dare I say -- the @tbpn twins is that the hosts are genuinely interesting and expert (and unique)communicators. Young content creators really fail to understand this.

People on this app would be shocked to know that the deepest cultural observations happen off of it. Man, Hidden would love zk. hiddenrsrch.com/p/the-opport…

Missed opportunity to call it "Amazing Intelligence" and keep the "AI" acronym 🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠

Out: Best Burger in NYC? In: Best BLT though...?

Fixed it for you @WSJ

🎙️This week, @AnnaRRose & @kobigurk chat with @ronrothblum, fr @SuccinctLabs. They cover his Fiat-Shamir attack on GKR, his PCS work, an update on Flock and snark.fast — an open competition challenging AI agents to build a faster prover. zeroknowledge.fm/podcast/410…

Vibes

Crypto markets giving a huge middle finger to Congress -- no Clarity is clarity in and of itself. Never underestimate a tribe of people who have wandered a dark forest against adversaries with asymmetric advantages for nearly a decade. Onwards.

Faster slots benefit Ethereum and flow straight through to SP1: → Faster settlement for @Base, @Optimism, and soon @Arbitrum → Faster SP1 Helios light client updates for @AcrossProtocol, @Agglayer, and soon ███ RTP becomes harder. But that's okay, we like a challenge 😉

Clarity is on the way via rulemaking. The CFTC and SEC have 2 years to write the rules of the road for crypto and are committed to doing. They will deliver the clarity we need for the America to lead and be the crypto capital of the world. 🇺🇸 The future is bright.

Ironically, moving in a luxury direction is what got Nike in this mess. From 2016-2018, they commissioned report after report on how much more they could charge on their premium lines, lamented missing out on the resale boom (could have invested in any secondary platform for a decade and controlled all sides of the market) and pulled their core products from third party retailers, surrendering shelf space that ended up going to Hola, Brooks, On, Salomon, Asics and New Balance. Now they bring another luxury voice to the board, seemingly doubling down on the direction... Oh boy 🍿

Tether says it doesn't see a lot of North Pole's demand to import ice.

We're getting lower-case "clarity," one way or another. Onwards.

Traders are not the new athletes, celebrities etc. They are the new gamers, streamers etc. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's actually impressive. But let's stop overselling it, please.