STRENGTHEN SECURITY

“I think for a while, the last few years, the industry has optimized for scalability and speed and whereas in the early days of blockchain, we really optimized for security. And I think that pendulum is swinging back. Now we know that we can have fast chains. I think we now need to work out how we have secure chains.”

“What's happening is the Chinese are becoming a source of premature deindustrialization for economies in the region. In particular, the auto sector in Thailand, apparel, textiles, and steel in Indonesia, e-commerce in Vietnam. Because the Chinese are just flooding these markets with exports, as a way to keep their manufacturing economy alive.”

“I think it's pretty clear that the driver of the let the next cycle or at least a big part of the story is gonna be different types of actual real world assets and people using it, like, RWA looping, this broader, trend. Shout out three f, small but proud bag holder there.”

“And you have, like, the Cominos and the Morphos of the world who maybe started with a more, isolated markets or, modular approach to lending as opposed to, the more, you know, structured product of of a core. And there are trade offs to both. Right?”

“To me, on the energy security question, the key issue is the debate about energy security in Asia only about price and as a result, a macroeconomic issue that central banks and finance ministers manage or does it become about access to quantity? ... So that interestingly could be a strategic bank shot for the United States where energy security becomes higher on the national interest list and the United States because of its energy independence actually it creates a new foundation for pulling the allies and partners in the region close.”

“The US shock is the fact that A, they see the US self-marginalizing. Through its withdrawal from international institutions, the WTO global trading system, its criticism of European allies, the criticism of NATO, and then just the sort of hyper-transactualism of Trump. And that has generated a degree of uncertainty and reliability.”

“So what you've seen is Beijing's strategy of basically protecting its larger equities in the Gulf, preserving leverage over Tehran, depending on what happens in the future, and avoiding confrontation with Washington. ... Shifting from solidarity with Iran to de-escalation pressure, to me is really, really, really interesting.”

“It's been a month for DeFi. 500,000,000 some 500,000,000 mostly between Drift and Kelp, but it's not great. Not great. You know what this reminds me of is do you guys remember it it just feels very reminiscent of the post FTX c five blow up.”

“I expect the same thing here at d five. I think it's reached probably a bottom, and it's gonna take maybe a year or two plus. Then it'll come back in a massive way, and I think there's gonna be some great innovation learning from these problems and then, yeah, new protocols and primitives being built.”

“The pivot was an expression of a strategic intention and aspiration that was knowingly done that it would take time to achieve, right? And the US strategy in Asia has as its core forward deployed forces, substantial amounts of them. 28,000 in South Korea at its peak, about 50,000 in Japan. Those numbers have not come down in any significant way.”

“The China-Iran relationship fundamentally changes in around 1993-1994, for one very significant reason. China at that time becomes a net oil importer. And China starts to meet its growing energy needs because reform and development is taking off. China starts importing oil from the region. And Iran becomes one of its principal energy sources very, very significantly.”

“The new market is agents accessing something because it's reliable when it works and it's secure. And I think that market is just getting started, and I think that's a massive opportunity right now for both Morform and Aave and human trust brands as well as new entrants that are popping up.”

“Lazarus Group obtained about $2,000,000,000, in hack proceeds last year from DeFi and crypto. That is a non trivial amount, and the exploits here are getting far, far more sophisticated. So a part of this story is we could be doing better in terms of multisigs.”

“The tough part there is they're not, you know, RIAs or whatever else. They don't have the extra level of accreditation, you know, that you maybe might want as a user in future. Like, when you have companies like Bitwise come into the bulk curation space.”

“When you think about the big political issues in the Middle East, it's the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Iranian nuclear issue. The Chinese were marginal bit players in both. When I was at the NSC, Mike, I was tangential to the JCPOA talks, and occasionally, the negotiators would come to us and ask us, the Chinese are doing this, the Chinese are doing that, but the Chinese didn't really drive anything.”

“I think we are, in real time, getting a stress test of the crinks and of the no limits relationship between China and Russia. And based on what you said, what I'm seeing, I think we could say a couple things for now, and tell me if you disagree, but for Beijing, Russia's power is an essential part of their grand strategy for the overall balance of power. Iran, less so, clearly less so.”