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7) Here are three company descriptions: (a) the 10th biggest US crypto exchange (b) an Ethereum sidechain scaling solution built for high-performance decentralized infrastructure capable of growing the entire ETH DeFi ecosystem by 100x (c) a bank account and a token

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8) Now, this is a bit unfair: I just made up (b). Also, (a) and (c) wouldn't describe themselves that way.

would probably note that they built regulated institutional crypto infrastructure with with one of the few DTC-compatible licenses ever, powering

.

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9) @circlepay would probably say that they built the second largest stablecoin with $25b AUM, powering

's crypto solutions.

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10) And what about (b), the sidechain scaling solution? Well, honestly, it's one way you could describe the fact that

and other exchanges allow deposits/withdrawals of some stablecoins on both Ethereum and Tron. Just put up a website which calls those wallet APIs.

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11) The point, really, is that unless you do a deep dive on crypto companies, it's often hard to figure out what they've really done. Did they build tech that could change the world? Or did they just whitelabel an API and call it a bridge?

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12) But this isn't a case of founder deception or company fraud. Because everyone involved believes their company is the revolutionary one, whether or not they correctly implemented robust optimistic rollups; whether their volume is organic or trans-mining.

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13) The truth is, right now, it's relatively speaking easy to create a token in crypto with a $100m market cap--way easier than building a brick and mortar business. And way easier than actually making $100m unincentivized net profit.

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14) It's easy, in crypto, to mistake the simple paths towards valuation for the excellence of the product built.

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15) This confuses the hell out of investors and users. But worse it confuses the companies themselves, sometimes. They think they've already built tech that will change the world, and so try to go for adoption.

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16) And maybe their idea actually was potentially huge! The problem is that they skip the step where they _actually build a great product_, because early valuation success makes it seem like maybe they already have.

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17) And so you get video game on blockchain companies that don't even realize their vision for a game requires more throughput than a blockchain can theoretically have, instead of thinking critically about what the right fit is and starting with a successful game or team.

1:16 AM · Jul 3, 2021Twitter Web App

Replying to

18) And you get DeFi apps with revolutionary ideas that go for mass adoption before fixing prohibitive fees, or NFTs that make no sense and obviously won't have mass appeal, or exchanges with dysfunctional technology riddled with fake volume.

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19) Or, you just get crazy projections.

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1) BAKKT is about to go public. There are a number of "interesting" things in their deck. sec.gov/Archives/edgar

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20) And these can help, sometimes, short term. But long term they don't set crypto up for success. Long term, there's only one thing that can make us succeed: building great products, piece by piece, with rapid iteration and flexible tech and great user experiences

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21) well, that, and number go up honestly sometimes that works too

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@dizzanxietytho

Replying to

and

This one is a key point.

Replying to

and

Similar thought shared w/

@LeslieisHODLing

@stphnhss It’s not about flopping blockchain onto a game. It’s about building a product, a user experience, a system of rules that drive behavior. Not just tailored mechanics for short-term degens. Build for future mainstream

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Replying to

And yes,

has FTX Pay integration, because we are building integrated crypto experiences not bespoke ones.

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