Prediction markets like @Polymarket and @Kalshi are hot, but they have a dirty secret: the smartest money isn’t playing. By letting people bet on any event -- who wins an election, when the next Fed rate cut lands, how a company’s quarter comes in -- prediction markets promise to give us humanity’s best estimate of how likely something is to happen. The mechanism that’s supposed to deliver that is research getting rewarded. If you spend weeks digging into a race and conclude the market’s 60% should really be 85%, you bet -- and you make money for being right. You get paid for your work, and the public gets your information baked into the price. The promise gets fulfilled. Except it mostly never plays out like this. Your bet is public and tied to your identity. The moment you act on your research, you reveal it. Copiers pile in behind you, and the price moves to your target before you’ve even finished buying. You did the work, but everyone else reprices for free off your wallet. The math isn’t mathing. So the people who actually know things stop showing up, and what’s left is sentiment dressed up as a forecast. Just gamblers at the casino, so to speak. And it only gets worse as these markets grow: more volume means more wallet-watching & more copying. Success punishes the people doing real work and rewards the freeloaders. Prediction markets fail to keep their promise. The public deserves high-quality, real-time estimates on elections, geopolitical conflicts, corporate financials, and the rest. Right now we’re not getting them -- we’re getting the crowd, minus the people who actually know anything. The solution is privacy. Private trades, private portfolios, private identities. No more wallet-watching or copytrading. If you can profit from your research without people knowing it's you, then research will actually get done and PM pricing will actually reflect information rather than sentiment. The promise would finally be fulfilled. This is what we're working on at @FoglightPrivacy. Foglight brings privacy to all onchain applications, including prediction markets. And yes, it will work for @Polymarket. Join the waitlist at foglight.xyz and follow @FoglightPrivacy to stay updated.

I've been wanting to build this project for a year, and I finally did it. Its called Caracal7, an experimental SNARK prover designed for GPUs, by using the prime field 127. And it is top 5 on all of the @eth_proofs client side benchmarks 1/9

🚨SOLIDITY-AUDITOR V4 IS NOW OPEN SOURCE (MIT LICENSE) A single command now gets up to 85% recall on High severity findings from multi-week contests from last year. This used to cost protocols tens of thousands - we made it FREE, so any dev can build more safely. by PAG team🫡

Write the specs Let AI code Zero bugs It’s that easy

Doubling down on @FoglightPrivacy 🫡 Ethereum users deserve privacy and Foglight will be the first *actually good* solution and the only institutional grade privacy provider Our alpha testers already know🤫

super slop but let's see where we are tomorrow github.com/gakonst/evm-bend

Formal verification is critical to writing code that actually works at the speed of AI inference So far the productivity gain from AI is minimal because while code generation is much faster there’s also more issues that humans have to comb through manually FV prevents those issues from ever occurring. I expect to see Bend users outperforming non-Bend users by >10x in terms of working code production Wonder if it’s possible to plug it into Ethereum à la Verity

Bend 2 is here! It is a new programming language that blocks AI mistakes via *proof checking* - the same technique big AI labs used to solve open math problems, like Navier-Stokes. It is also very fast, and runs on GPUs. Watch the video. Link in the comments.

>be me >discover effective altruism >apparently normal charity is inefficient >why donate to random sad thing when spreadsheet can tell you optimal sad thing >fair enough >buy mosquito nets >save lives >numbers look good >feel powerful >couple years later >someone asks an innocent question >why only count people alive today >huh >future people matter too >obviously >my grandchildren shouldn't matter less just because they haven't spawned yet >reasonable.jpg >keep following logic >what about their grandchildren >also yes >what about people in 500 years >sure >5000 years >why not >500 million years >starting to get weird but morality is morality >open calculator >humanity could survive for an astronomically long time >could colonize galaxy >could have trillions upon trillions of descendants >maybe digital people too >maybe simulated civilizations >maybe dyson spheres full of happy uploaded minds >calculator starts smoking >realize currently living humans are rounding error >8 billion people suddenly looking extremely beta >future contains potentially 10^something people >can't even fit beneficiaries in google sheets >new moral priority unlocked >protect the long-term future >stop thinking in units of "people helped" >start thinking in "fraction of cosmic endowment preserved" >malaria? >terrible >but only kills existing humans >AI extinction could delete the entire light cone >nuclear war could permanently derail civilization >bad institutions could lock in terrible values for ten million years >someone invents wrong constitution in 2140 >quadrillions suffer >better fund governance workshop now >friend says maybe we should improve hospitals >explain opportunity cost >friend says hospitals are full of actual sick people >explain scope sensitivity >friend stops inviting me to dinner >need to decide what to fund >easy >expected value >suppose project has one in a million chance of preventing extinction >sounds tiny >but extinction destroys 10^50 future lives >multiply >mother of god >$10 million project has expected value of several galaxies >charity evaluation complete >someone asks where the one-in-a-million number came from >expert judgement >which expert >us >how calibrated >extremely thoughtfully >reduce estimate to one in ten million to be conservative >still beats curing cancer by 38 orders of magnitude >epistemic robustness achieved >someone says maybe project doesn't work >assign 20% chance >still astronomical >maybe project makes problem worse >assign 5% chance >still astronomical >why 5 >because 30 felt pessimistic >publish 46-page report >contains seventeen sensitivity analyses >every sensitivity analysis begins after assuming intervention has positive sign >critic says you're multiplying enormous hypothetical stakes by extremely uncertain probabilities >yes >that's literally why it's important >critic says the uncertainty might be structural rather than numerical >make probability smaller >critic says no, I mean maybe your model is wrong >make probability smaller again >critic begins rubbing temples >discover AI safety >perfect longtermist cause >AI might kill everyone >or create utopia >or seize galaxy >or tile universe with paperclips >or create billions of conscious software minds >finally a problem with numbers big enough for me >start AI safety nonprofit >mission: prevent dangerous AI >hire smartest people available >smartest people immediately start building better AI to understand dangerous AI >interesting >we must understand capabilities to understand safety >we must scale models to study alignment >we must race ahead so less responsible actors don't get there first >we must deploy systems to learn how deployment can go wrong >we must build the thing quickly because building the thing quickly is dangerous >outsider asks why the people most worried about AI apocalypse all work at AI companies >complicated field >company releases stronger model >very concerned >company begins training even stronger model >extremely concerned >company raises $14 billion >concern reaches unprecedented levels >need to influence government >future is at stake >normal democratic process too slow >politicians don't understand exponential curves >public doesn't understand x-risk >experts must guide them >who counts as expert >people who understand x-risk >who understands x-risk >our friends >someone objects that this seems politically convenient >explain we're representing future generations >future generations unavailable for comment >develop concept of value lock-in >terrifying possibility that one ideology controls civilization forever >therefore extremely important that civilization adopts correct values before lock-in >whose values >let's circle back >begin with impartial morality >end with small group of people deciding what quadrillions of hypothetical beings would want >beautiful arc >meanwhile actual humans keep doing annoying things >voting wrong >having parochial attachments >loving family more than strangers >caring about local community >getting upset when told their suffering is cosmically negligible >evolutionary biases everywhere >explain that moral intuition cannot be trusted >except intuition that future digital people count >and intuition that extinction is uniquely bad >and intuition that our probability estimates are sane >and intuition that our institutional choices improve the future >those intuitions survived peer review >someone donates $5k to local homeless shelter >inefficient >could have funded 0.0000000000003% of an AI governance researcher >think of all the simulated people you just killed >okay maybe don't phrase it that way publicly >PR team says "future generations deserve a voice" >much better >journalist asks what longtermism means >say "future people matter" >everyone agrees >great >journalist asks what follows from that >well technically we should redirect enormous resources toward low-probability interventions affecting astronomical futures >journalist raises eyebrow >return to "future people matter" >motte has entered the chat >critic: of course future people matter >me: glad we agree >critic: I don't agree that your institute knows how to help them >me: why do you hate our grandchildren >eventually notice uncomfortable implication >if future value dominates everything >then helping people today mostly matters through effects on future >education matters because future institutions >health matters because future productivity >democracy matters because future trajectory >human beings slowly become instrumental variables in their own moral philosophy >see starving child >feel compassion >check spreadsheet >child's direct welfare contribution negligible >but perhaps childhood nutrition improves national institutional quality >compassion restored >tell myself this is impartial altruism >one day assistant asks obvious question >"how do you know your intervention actually improves the far future?" >silence >open spreadsheet >increase column width >add confidence interval >assistant asks again >"no, I mean how do you know the sign is positive?" >stare into cosmic light cone >10^50 people staring back >none of them exist >none of them can tell me >none of them can falsify my assumptions >realize I have invented the perfect constituency >infinitely important >completely silent >and always represented by me

we will finally kill "stack too deep" the next @ethereum update brings both: 1) the ability to deploy larger contracts 2) lets compilers fix "stack too deep" eth dev is going to rip in Q4

1/ gm. gm. Name is Hsin-Ju. I have a dark, kinda tragic personal announcement. I've decided I'd rather take $0 than accept a settlement that requires me to stay silent about what happened to me. I have since fired my lawyers at @sanfordheisler & will be releasing all the evidence from my time @hack_vc on Wed 8/26. INTRO: I've been in crypto for 9 years. Most recently I was a partner & head of platform @hack_vc which is a $600-700M crypto VC firm. Many of you may know me from my time as Head of Growth at @StellarOrg in 2017 (worked w/ the Mt. Gox founder), @Solana in 2018 (joined under ~10 ppl, but quit before my cliff), & @Fhenix in 2024. Or have attended one of my @DystopiaLabs ETH events (2019-now). Last year, I was forced to work through a serious medical emergency while at @Hack_VC due to threats by @alpackaP @dbulaevsky, saying that they would blacklist me from the space if I quit before finishing the hacksummit conference & side events that I was helping with during @kbwofficial. I was working 13-14hr days, 6 days a week, sleeping 0-4 hrs a night, and had documented Graves' disease, hyperthyroidism, and severe insomnia. I repeatedly asked to quit. Hack VC refused. This + other threats and intimidation went on for almost a month. The conditions got so bad I attempted suicide. The fucked up part is that, even after the suicide attempt, I told everyone at Hack VC (in writing) that I had no plans to sue. I was scared & extremely sick. I just wanted to leave. I told them that as long as there was no retaliation or badmouthing - I had no plans to sue. @Hack_VC chose to retaliate. After just 1 month after my near suicide, Hack VC mishandled my COBRA health insurance, refused to fix things, kept shooing me to customer support (when it's legally Hack VC's responsibility to fix this), and my insurance had issues and was not fixed for almost 4 MONTHS. Hack VC did not fix everything until I hired lawyers and had them force Hack VC to adhere to the law & fix my COBRA insurance issues. The sheer cruelty of an employer harming someone's health insurance almost immediately after they nearly committed suicide is extremely fucked up. And, even during the legal engagement, Hack VC continued to lie & attempt to harm me through their lawyers and other employees/partners (multi-million dollar carry & clawbacks can make even the nicest ppl willing to turn the other way or lie). @0xRodney @IsTheBaron @roshunpatel @Alex__Botte. Now. Almost an entire year of engagement & my near suicide anniversary coming up, our lawyers (mine & Hack VC's) have reached the point of preparing for private mediation and settlement. And...I realized that I just can't do it. I don't want money in exchange for silence. I'd rather speak. I fired my lawyers yesterday. In case it needs to be said, I did a good job at Hack VC. I was only there full time for 7 months; been part-time since 2021. I got a $50k raise to $300k, $30k bonus, and promises of additional carry that would have been implemented about a week or so after my last day. I was also offered admission into the GP entity (but not sure if admission was actually completed bc it was during my medical emergency). This + my resume, should show that me suing is not a money grab; I was genuinely harmed. I'm aware that I'm just one person (who is not rich) facing a $600-700M VC institution. I've been told by @alpackaP that he's known most of the managing partners at most VC firms for almost a decade and he could absolutely blacklist me. I'm also painful aware that the conclusion of this will probably be extremely poor for me or death - but I've accepted it. Sharing with other web2 & web3 VCs: @paulg @ycombinator @500STARTUPS @a16zcrypto @PanteraCapital @dragonflyvc @RaceCapital @hosseeb @haunventures @hiFramework @ElectricCapital @blockchaincap @Delphi_Digital @variantfund @1kxnetwork @archetypevc @shimacapital @robotventures, etc. TLDR; I’m done with continued threats, pressure, and intimidation. I'm not going to take a payout and allow Alex or Hack VC to walk away from harming me. As mentioned, I'll be dropping the evidence from my case on Wed 8/26 (or before) -- privacy be damned. Support here (or DM) please: ETH: 0x68c10776C5c05Cbf5B4C2318bE02D61B9f06B875 SOL: B7S8TPcWWJXTsmgG8ShoTmy8sNPuJ3Dbmt7z5gLFAveq

today I am releasing the ultimate, and final DEX: zSwap. The first decentralized exchange that runs 100% on the blockchain. As a complete DeFi stack that runs forever.

"we tried avoiding the economy but ended up accidentally creating an economy in the process" is one of my favorite genres

Oldie but a goodie

really love what prime intellect has been pushing out. banger after banger.

Free tip of the day, if you have any kind of self improvement loop, show this paper arxiv.org/pdf/2301.12987v4 to the model and ask it to incorporate it. Then when we meet in person one day, you can buy me a beer as a thank you.

Capitalism is a powerful force for good. It benefits everyone, especially those who lean in and help build the future. But it’s under attack (again). Wealth taxes, price controls, government-run grocery stores, asset seizures. Fear is being used as a political lever and an excuse for control. I’ve seen this play out before, it leads nowhere good. I lived in Buenos Aires in 2008 when the Argentine government seized $30B in private pensions to ‘protect’ citizens from the financial crisis. Then they froze access to the dollar and nationalized companies. Within a decade, inflation was over 50%. The elites had miraculously moved their money, leaving regular people to take the financial hit. Politicians are selling collectivism out of the same playbook used by Argentina, Venezuela, and the former Soviet Union: promise protection, concentrate power, tighten the fist. And the costs fall on the poorest people in society who are unable to protect themselves. Capitalism isn't perfect. But it’s far better than every alternative that’s been tried. Millions of people making independent decisions, with the free market rewarding the best ideas, will out-build any central planner.

(1/2): I have met this person at nearly every crypto conference I have ever attended, and by now I can usually identify him before he even reaches the registration desk, because he arrives wearing the unmistakable expression of a man who has crossed three time zones, answered forty-seven Telegram messages from people he does not like, and paid twelve euros for airport water in order to be physically present at a gathering devoted to the future, only to discover, almost immediately, that the future appears to consist largely of men standing beneath purple lighting and discussing distribution. He checks into the hotel, opens the conference app, scrolls through a schedule containing panels called things like “Reimagining Coordination at Scale” and “The New Institutional Frontier,” and feels, for one brief and embarrassing moment, the stirring of hope, because perhaps this will be the one, perhaps this will be the conference where somebody says something real, where a conversation escapes the gravitational pull of fundraising announcements, ecosystem grants, and whatever the phrase “go-to-market motion” is currently being asked to conceal. By ten in the morning he has received a tote bag made from allegedly regenerative fabric, a metal water bottle that leaks from the lid, a lanyard large enough to function as a municipal permit, and three invitations to side events taking place simultaneously in different parts of the city, each one described as “intimate,” despite having eight hundred RSVPs and a DJ flown in from Berlin. He goes to the first panel. A founder says we are still early and venture capitalist says the next billion users are coming. Eventually a moderator, with the glazed composure of somebody who has already moderated this exact conversation in Singapore, Dubai, Paris, Denver, and a yacht off Mykonos, asks what needs to happen for mass adoption. Everyone agrees that UX must improve and the audience nods with the solemnity of a parliamentary vote. Nothing has technically been said, but the applause is loud. By lunch he has participated in six conversations, all of which begin with “What are you working on?” and end with “We should definitely find a way to collaborate,” which in conference language means that both parties will add one another on Telegram, exchange a fire emoji beneath a future announcement post, and never again occupy the same emotional universe. He meets a man building infrastructure for autonomous agents, although the infrastructure is not yet built and the agents are not yet autonomous. He meets another man launching a protocol for decentralized reputation, who spends most of the conversation explaining which well-known investors already trust him. He meets a founder who says he is obsessed with user sovereignty, then glances every twenty seconds toward the entrance in case someone more important has arrived. By the evening he is standing in a cavernous venue once used to manufacture turbines, now filled with dry ice, ornamental lasers, and several thousand people discussing credible neutrality while trying to get past a velvet rope. There is free food, technically, although it consists of two miniature tacos placed on a slate tile by a person wearing black gloves, and there is free alcohol, abundantly, which may explain why the revolution against extractive intermediaries has temporarily organized itself around a sponsored bar requiring three wristbands and a QR code.

"crypto" has largely forgotten its purpose, which is to empower individuals at the expense of intermediaries...that's because the intermediaries are the last remaining exit liquidity, so we can't disrupt them or they will not buy our bags. . . . massive catch-22 as an industry. the highest-$-value use case--tokenized stocks, etc.--hangs in the balance, and so far the "industry" is massively supporting cosplay intermediary tokenization instead of trying to disrupt and destroy the incumbents using this technology

happy 4th of july and happy 250th everyone. take a moment to notice that the social and material conditions that make it possible for us to read each other's posts like this - social media, the internet, free speech, the computer, the smartphone - are overwhelmingly american

🇺🇸America is the most successful political experiment in history. She aimed to bring liberty, equality, and prosperity for all. And she has succeeded beyond any reasonable person’s wildest imaginations. America and her allies defeated the tyrannies of monarchy, fascism, and socialism/communism. Instead of bringing brutal oppression and deaths on a global scale which any other nation would have done in her place, America created for the first time in history a maritime global order where nations and peoples are free to trade with each other and prosper together. Not only that, America was and is the greatest producer of scientific and technological advancement. Oil, electricity, nuclear power, computers, the internet, and now AI. A truly ludicrous amount of prosperity came as a direct result. America is also the only nation in existence that truly accepts immigrants as her own. If you move to Japan, you will never be Japanese. If you move to the Netherlands, you will never be Dutch. But if you move to America, you can become American. America is objectively the single biggest force for good in history. She is loved by most and envied by the rest. She is living proof of what wonders humanity is capable of when given the freedom to pursue happiness. 🇺🇸🎆🍾Happy 250th birthday America!