A cautionary tale in mismanagement — Ethereum ushered in one of the great innovations in decentralized governance with the creation of DAOs. Decentralization encourages models that emphasize networks over hierarchy to organize human coordination, but that requires effective cooperation among individuals. In reading Laura Shin’s “Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big…

A venture into an early form of the “Experiential Internet” — For years, my three boys have been asking me to play video games with them. They prefer to play Fortnite with the limited gaming time they get, but it never struck my interest no matter how meme-worthy the dances are. What has interested me is the metaverse, and more specifically…

A look at the past, present and future promise — Introduction When I first read about the prominent digital artist Beeple selling a non-fungible token, or NFT, of a digital image called “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” back in March for $69 million, I thought there must be something really special about that token, like exclusive access or interactivity with the…

The Smart Contract Race Is About More Than Network Fees and Scalability — I have spent the last several months taking a quantitative look at smart contract platforms by scoring and ranking them based on network value, developer activity, number of transactions and Dapp activity. …

A look at the future of software engineering — In Part 1 of this post, we imagined the world through the lens of an average person in 1920s versus the turn of the century. We talked about the acceleration of technology adoption, the exponential pace of change, and how companies have to create bespoke solutions to more quickly to…

A look at the future of software engineering — In 2011, Marc Andreessen famously coined the phrase “software is eating the world.” Software is everywhere, and for decades it has been a ubiquitous part of our existence as digital versions of our physical dwellings. Unlike physical engineering, which has matured over millennia, software engineering is still a relatively immature…

What happens when the truth is it was all a lie? — In small suburban Chicago neighborhood in 1954, a doomsday cult led by housewife Dorothy Martin believed the end was near. Martin claimed to receive messages from an alien inhabiting her body, and she dutifully wrote them down for her followers. …

3 Principles to Explain Die Hard Trump Support — Events like the extraordinary riot at the Capitol don’t happen without unwavering, cult-like support for a controversial figure. Ever Since that fateful day in 2015 when Trump descended the escalator and announced his presidential run, I’ve been fascinated by his continued support despite many character and judgement failures. Under normal…

Which Smart Contract Platforms are Winning, and by How Much? — The smart contract wars are as hot as ever, with the promise of a greater Defi explosion in 2021 and the massive runup in crypto prices over the last two months. Back in October, I published a blog that took a quantitative approach to score the layer 1 smart contract…