Better alone than in bad company.

The GENIUS Act is getting signed today, bringing clear rules of the road for stablecoins. Here's why stablecoins are better money, how they're better for people and businesses, and the mental models you can use to understand them. My master thread on stablecoins. 👇

Never thought I'd say this but your normie friend that is buying XRP is probably going to outperform you degen in the trenches Sorry I don't make the rules

Everything is pumping. But are you outperforming Bitcoin?

The House just made history by passing major legislation on stablecoins (GENIUS Act) and market structure (CLARITY Act) in an overwhelmingly bipartisan way. This is a huge moment for crypto and for all Americans. We’re very close to having comprehensive, proactive rules in place for the first time. Next up: the GENIUS Act goes to the President’s desk for his signature. After that, the Senate should pass the CLARITY Act. We believe passing these laws is the best way to ensure that America remains the world leader in the next era of the internet. Thank you to all the cosponsors of these bills and the incredible supporters on both sides of the aisle in Congress.

The game gets more fun when you get to the big leagues Take Kobe and Jordan. Unlike most players, they kept their insane work ethic when they got to the NBA. Go watch "The Last Dance" or listen to the Founders episodes on Kobe and Jordan to understand their mentality. They saw other players check out after they had "made it" and understood they would clean up and win championships. They simply outworked everyone else. Were they born with some skill? Yes, but there's many tall guys out there that can play ball. They worked until their bodies stopped. Day in and day out. They worked to perfect their craft. They loved the game so much they couldn't imagine doing anything else. Both Kobe and Jordan weren't there to play for a few seasons and check out. They were there for the love of the game aspiring for greatness. Most people are playing short term games optimizing for some arbitrary "made it" figure. It’s remarkable how much of a competitive advantage it is having a time horizon longer than 1-2 years (h/t Ben at ParaFi). I don't think you realize what retiring in your early 20s feels like. Retiring early sounds great - until you try it. Remember craving summer break, then missing your friends after a few weeks? Happens in life, too. I’ve seen it all across crypto: people hit a number, cash out, instantly feel lost. Retire? Retire from what? The game I love? I will only retire when I am dead! What you want is financial freedom. Owning your time to be able to play the game uninterrupted and without forced errors. In the quest to achieve financial freedom, be careful of anchoring your identity to some arbitrary financial figure. If you don't have a strong sense of identity independent of your net worth, you will keep moving that goalpost and be deeply unsatisfied. I learned this the hard way. Find meaning and relevance in the game. If it's no longer fun, go back to your earliest memories to remind yourself of why you love the game. If you can't find meaning, then go find another game to play. Life is too short to play games you don't love. If you don't love the game, you won't work hard and you likely won't win. And sure, have a strong sense of self worth to negotiate hard and get paid for your contributions. But don't let an obsession with money, a certain lifestyle, or anything else distract you from playing the game you love. When I stopped valuing myself based on my net worth, I discovered writing and other passions. It was a necessary reset to strengthen my foundation and rekindle my passion for the game I love: investing. Now that I'm building Inversion, I can tell you most people I've interviewed are not optimizing for money. They're optimizing for relevance. People would rather get paid less and feel more relevant. Find a game you love, where you feel relevant, and get paid for it. Ah, that is the golden state of Ikigai. May you all find it!

DePIN will transform infra heavy industries - from wireless to mobile. In order for DePIN networks to succeed we need reliable and accessible hardware and software to support the networks. This back box is a step in that direction. @neilc_dawn first shared this concept a while back and it's very cool seeing it come to life. The idea is to have a convenient all-in-one machine that simplifies the experience for users to provision capacity to DePIN networks and earn for their contributions. This initiative supports the transformation from centralized to community-owned infrastructure networks. congrats @dawninternet team! Disclosure: Investor in DAWN

False. This is the opposite of what’s likely to happen. And I say this as someone who got in trouble at Citi talking about stablecoins as far back as 2018. (I was also on calls with Circle management where various bank MDs mocked the very idea of a tokenized dollar). Fraser is correct that there are many profitable things banks could do to service stablecoin issuers, and crypto in general. They should do all of those things, in part to offset the coming competition for payments related services. This was the overall pitch the few of us on the inside who understood crypto made post 2020: embrace bitcoin, custody, trading etc, to offset the inevitable losses from when the “sell side” no longer controls the rails. The notion proposed by Citi, JPM etc that they’ll use tokenized deposits (that are restricted to their customers) to improve payments is nonsensical. Banks don’t need blockchains to do this, they could do it with an excel spreadsheet or Oracle db or whatever. Permissioned blockchains are just bad databases. Bank-based payments across borders aren’t slow and expensive due to a lack of better tech. They are that way because there are too many intermediaries, and it’s profitable for each one to slow things down. If a wire takes 3 days to settle, who gets the interest on it? And who decides the F/X rate? Etc etc Part of this friction is regulatory (AML, etc) and part of it is due to liquidity constraints (banks have capital/reserve requirements in every country they operate, so they batch and net payments to save money). But you know how you eliminate both? By getting rid of some of the intermediaries! A stablecoin enables P2P payments on a decentralized rail. It also enables fierce competition likely to lead to the issuer paying out most of the float. Banks can’t compete with that. Deposits are meant to be a cheap source of funding. If USDC pays 4% and can be sent to anyone, and a CitiUSD pays only 1% but can only be sent to Citi clients, which coin would you want? Fraser is correct that for now, there’s lots to be done in terms of on and off ramps, servicing the reserve, and so on. But that’s like AT&T arguing in 1998 that their long distance phone franchise, one of the most profitable businesses in history, was safe because “if customers want VOIP, we will be the ones to give it to them” LOL, sure. What they left out was how calls on the internet would be free, and that would blow up the business model. Payments on the blockchain will also be effectively free. Banks make a killing charging for payments. For a bank like Citi, the payments franchise has been the crown jewel for a while. Their profit margins are stablecoins opportunity.

Bitcoin = Scarcity drives value Everything else = Utility drives value Solve for utility

The narrative of “pushing institutional adoption of crypto by doing treasury deals” is lazy and won’t fix the underlying issue we have. Crypto is not relatable yet for most. We need to make crypto relatable beyond pure speculation. We are selling ourselves short as an industry by peddling this product. How about less financial engineering and more crypto engineering; delivering crypto-enabled valuable products and services to more users. Make companies more operationally efficient with crypto. Play the long game. It’s harder but the payout is greater Treasury deals are short term and net value destructive. It won’t push this space forward when NAV premium gets crushed.