When I first heard of Bitcoin, it sounded like something out of a dystopian sci-fi novel. Digital, cryptographic, uncensorable money? It seemed such a radical idea, it couldn’t possibly belong in this decade. But if it did—if Bitcoin were to go mainstream—I was convinced it would lead to a massive geopolitical disruption, shifting the power relations between governments and their citizens. It would mean investing into Bitcoin would be like...
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How do you learn something no one can teach you? Whatever success I’ve had in my career, I attribute almost entirely to my aptitude for unstructured learning. This is the kind of learning required when delving into a cutting-edge field, navigating a new job, or creating anything genuinely new. Notably, it’s the polar opposite of what is taught in schools and what most people call “education.” In structured learning (like...
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How do you govern a blockchain? That might sound like a strange question. In theory, blockchains aren’t supposed to be governed at all—they’re supposed to be “permissionless decentralized ledgers.” But a blockchain is more than just a ledger. It’s also an ecosystem of software, an economy of merchants, companies, and exchanges, and beneath all that, a community of developers, miners, and users. At the end of the day, blockchains must...
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A useful currency should be a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value. Cryptocurrencies excel at the first, but as a store of value or unit of account, they’re pretty bad. You cannot be an effective store of value if your price fluctuates by 20% on a normal day. This is where stablecoins come in. Stablecoins are price-stable cryptocurrencies, meaning the market price of a...
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Cryptocurrencies, ICOs, magic internet money—it’s all so damn exciting, and you, the eager developer, want to get in on the madness. Where do you start? I’m glad you’re excited about this space. I am too. But you’ll probably find it’s unclear where to begin. Blockchain is moving at breakneck speed, but there’s no clear onramp to learning this stuff. Since I left Airbnb to work full-time on blockchain, many people...
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