State of the trenches

Only way to fight automation is with your own automation

Be ready

🄳🄾🄾🄼🄿🄾🅂🅃🄸🄽🄶

Why left are losing their minds about the South African refugees

🄳🄾🄾🄼🄿🄾🅂🅃🄸🄽🄶

Real AI takes a real huge amount of power

— And that amount will only keep growing

He’s not wrong about that

🄳🄾🄾🄼🄿🄾🅂🅃🄸🄽🄶

Pumpfun founder on the new coin creator rewards

Indeed the incentives on coin creators has been to hard dump

🄳🄾🄾🄼🄿🄾🅂🅃🄸🄽🄶

“coin creation is massively stigmatized”

“doxxed devs who try something new aren’t really a thing anymore because it’s instantly assumed that they’re malicious. too often the good ones are repelled by the space while the bad ones stay because they don't care”

“if we normalize backing the dev as long as they remain committed, totally new markets will emerge”

Indeed

🄳🄾🄾🄼🄿🄾🅂🅃🄸🄽🄶

So yeah,

Pumpfun founder pointed out some huge legit problems

— though his creator fees solution, as it stands… doesn’t really seem to solve those problems at all

Tough lesson re-learned repeatedly in crypto — Rewards for good behavior alone do little to shape behavior. Credible threat of massive penalties for bad behavior tend to be the only real effective way.

We’ll see

🄳🄾🄾🄼🄿🄾🅂🅃🄸🄽🄶

Kanye

🄳🄾🄾🄼🄿🄾🅂🅃🄸🄽🄶

GM

🄳🄾🄾🄼🄿🄾🅂🅃🄸🄽🄶

Another attempted crypto kidnapping in central Paris today

This time targeting the daughter and granddaughter of a crypto exchange CEO

Three hooded men in masks tried to force them into a van, but were unsuccessful

🄳🄾🄾🄼🄿🄾🅂🅃🄸🄽🄶

UnitedHealth stock, $UNH, falls -11% after announcing the unexpected exit of its CEO and suspending 2025 guidance.

The stock is now down -45% over the last month, erasing ~$300B of market cap.

🄳🄾🄾🄼🄿🄾🅂🅃🄸🄽🄶

TRUMP: OH, IT'S GONNA GET A LOT HIGHER. IN FACT, I TOLD PEOPLE 5 WEEKS AGO, 'IT'S A GREAT TIME TO BUY.' I GOT CRITICIZED FOR THAT. NOW, THEY DON'T CRITICIZE ME ANYMORE. PEOPLE SHOULD'VE LISTENED. BUT IT’S GONNA GO A LOT HIGHER

🄳🄾🄾🄼🄿🄾🅂🅃🄸🄽🄶

Rugging tutorials continue to go viral

IMO new coin launchers, that the ruggers have not yet migrated to, will be where it’s at next

Saw this briefly with DAOsfun this winter — period of time where clearly the pro ruggers hadn’t arrived yet, and things were on easy mode

Could also be possible for existing launchers to fix their incentives, but not betting on that

🄳🄾🄾🄼🄿🄾🅂🅃🄸🄽🄶

NOW - Trump says U.S. will lift sanctions on Syria

🄳🄾🄾🄼🄿🄾🅂🅃🄸🄽🄶

Fear & greed blasting off

🄳🄾🄾🄼🄿🄾🅂🅃🄸🄽🄶

Traditionally, “angel” investors were… angelic, while VCs were often reguarded as the villains — And typically this was roughly true

This cycle though, many reporting seeing this flipped

~50%+ of angels turning into super-destructive villains, the moment there was a temporary downturn, in ways VCs never would dare to do

— Many reports from across the startup world, those in startups saying they never saw anything like it before, perhaps due to the huge influx of first-time angels, who then try to teach each other what to do. Blind leading the blind, unlike usual with more experienced investors guiding the less experienced

Also some minority of angels who lived up to the “angel” name, and probably those are the ones that will survive

In any case, great we’re out of that bear market now

Jake is also right that today’s community-backed crypto projects have a HUGE retention problem

Have a solution for that community retention problem on the way…

🄳🄾🄾🄼🄿🄾🅂🅃🄸🄽🄶