Genegated on the prompt: “Developer called on users to celebrate his stars on GitHub”
Last week was a whirlwind of events in the crypto realm. Beneath the surface drama, I’ve spotted some fundamental oversights that might just be at the heart of our current dilemmas. Let’s dive in.
Failed Marshmallow Test
Ah, Bostrom Network. Just when you think the week’s about to coast by without a hitch, drama strikes.
Now, I’m fond of a good marshmallow test, and by that I don’t mean roasting them by a campfire. I’m referring to the age-old test of temptation and instant gratification. Seems like the developers over at Bro_n_Bro just flunked that test, big time.
Imagine this: You’re part of a group holding a big jar of marshmallows (let’s call them community pool). One of your acquaintances, let’s dub him Bros for now, suddenly and sans any preamble, they approached the community, tin cup in hand, asking for a charitable donation of marshmallows to fund their next brilliant innovation. Their pitch?
“Spacebox is a transformative solution that promises to empower Bostrom’s analytics teams, data scientists, and app developers. […] While we recognize that indexers are not a panacea for network ecosystem development, we firmly believe that Spacebox has the potential to catalyze growth in the immediate term.”
I mean, it sounds wonderful, almost like a grand Silicon Valley presentation (well, not really). But folks, reality check—it’s more fairy tale than fact. The community watchdog of the Bostrom Network, The CyberChurch, was not amused. They perceived this as double-dipping: an attempt to raise funds twice for, let’s just say, the same questionable benefits.
Yet, before they could fully voice their concern, other powers-that-be (read: the project team with the majority voting power) nodded and handed Bro_n_Bro the marshmallows.
The mood in the community? Somewhere between surprise and a brewing storm. With the token value doing the limbo (how low can it go?) and the project team looking like they’re on an extended lunch break, swiping funds for a team pat-on-the-back is, well, a head-scratcher.
While I won’t play the prophet, I have a hunch this saga is far from its finale. One thing’s for certain: The Church values its rep. Playing the role of a bullied kid getting his lunch money taken? Not quite their style. And while Bro_n_Bro might be making waves, they’d do well to remember that when it comes to forcible seizure of funds, The Church isn’t one to turn the other cheek. Grab your popcorn; this is just heating up.
One Dev’s Pledge Shakes the Universe
One would think that in the vast cosmos, a single star burning out shouldn’t make much of a difference. But what if that star’s impending supernova threatened to consume neighboring constellations?
Enter stage: Rarma, a Twitter sleuth, who in a moment of eagle-eyed revelation, identifies that a developer from the beating heart of the Cosmos ecosystem’s primary DEX is playing a risky game. The stakes? Borrowed a cool million in USDC, all collateralized by the declining OSMO token. Now, OSMO, unlike a fine wine, doesn’t seem to be getting better with time. Instead, its value drying up faster than a puddle in the Sahara, bringing our daring developer to the brink of financial ruin.
The kicker? Liquidating this position wouldn’t be easy, considering the token’s shallower-than-a-kiddie-pool liquidity. Slippage is a whopping 30% on a volume of $1M, making this more a tale of ’Fast & Furious’ rather than ‘Wall Street’. Add to the mix OSMO’s intricate dance with other ecosystem pairs, and suddenly, we have a disaster movie in the making.
Now, the audience was divided. On one side, a choir sang, “Let him do as he pleases! This is the permissionless world we championed.” On the other, more pragmatic folks, perhaps less willing to watch the world burn, realized the gravity of a potential domino effect. With a dash of Sherlockian flair, they sleuthed out the developer’s identity. Jacob Gadikian from Notional, chimed in to reassure the masses: the prodigal developer was en route home, presumably to settle the bill.
A tale so riveting, it could only find a home in our beautifully chaotic crypto marshland.
Efficiency, Darling
Cue the spotlight on the drama surrounding Maker - that grand stablecoin supplier. News broke that it was contemplating a major shift for its backend operations. After much digital ink spilled in forum debates and back-channel discussions, the finalists emerged from the shadows: Solana and Cosmos IBC, the two gladiators in the arena. Alas, Solana was crowned the chosen one. Why, you ask? Efficiency, darling. Pure, unadulterated efficiency.
Their reasoning, summarized and paraphrased for our less tech-savvy theatergoers:
Solana is like a precision-tuned racecar, built from the ground up for sheer performance. Cosmos, while charming in its own right, is like a classic convertible – it might cost more in upkeep and not deliver the same raw speed. Also, Solana’s got a solid crew behind it, while Cosmos… well, it’s a bit more of a free-for-all.
The crypto chorus responded with an uproar that probably registered on the Richter scale. Maker’s co-founder, Rune, with an air of exasperation mixed with a dash of condescension, shot back:
“Tribalist incels (of every flavor) are in the wrong decade, go back to bitcoin and let the rest of us build.”
And with that mic drop, the crypto clans retreated to their respective corners. Until the next act, of course.
No Chance to Fork
For a moment, let’s divert our lens from the cryptic crypto chaos to the glittering streets of Silicon Valley. A change of scene, if you will.
One might think a clergy’s calendar is filled with sermons, scriptures, and perhaps, confession sessions. But here at The Church, our recent Sunday was highlighted by the YC Alumni Demo Day. A sacred gathering? No. A sign of divine intervention? Maybe.
For the uninitiated, Y Combinator isn’t a cryptic mathematical formula but Silicon Valley’s rite of passage for budding startups. Picture it as an Ivy League institution for the tech world, minus the varsity jackets. Its alumni? Think Coinbase, OpenSea, and Airbnb. Titans, in other words.
The Demo Day is their graduation ceremony, a parade of potential tech prodigies, to be public held on September 6th and 7th (save the date!). While it’s primarily a secular affair, we at The Church found a revelation. A pattern, if you will, in this batch.
A common thread we at The Church picked up amongst these startups: They’re unforkable. No, not in a technological sense, but in essence. These startups seem to say:
“Look, we’ve been in the trenches of our industry. We’ve seen its warts and wounds. We’ve assembled an Avengers-like team, each an expert in stitching up these multi-billion industry-specific issues.”
A refreshing change from the typical “just another blockchain for X” pitches. It got us pondering: When did we last witness such depth in web3? True, our crypto unicorns weren’t hatched overnight; they were sculpted by maestros, deeply acquainted with the intricacies of their markets. But the rest? What happens when expertise isn’t at the helm? Well, they seem to be playing a different tune.
These web3 projects, while technologically robust, often lack the nuance and context that stems from deep industry experience. It’s as if we’re in an era of cloning crypto concepts without understanding the DNA. The question is, will the market continue to reward this? Keep those popcorns handy.
Misalignment
In the vast expanse of the crypto kingdom, there’s a drumbeat that resonates across the decentralized lands: the battle for developers is everything. Devs are the coveted prize, the metaphorical dragon’s hoard.
Doubting this is even called an unpopular opinion:
Heretical, some might say.
But what if being the Pied Piper of developers isn’t the ultimate win? Sure, the Cosmos ecosystem has amassed a stellar band of tech virtuosos, continually churning out wonders. Yet, I find myself contemplating: Is a talent pool brimming with coders sufficient to clinch the global race?
If you squint through the current kaleidoscope of news and noise, a pattern emerges. An ecosystem rich in code, yet sometimes lacking in broader expertise, might be setting itself up for pitfalls.
Consider Bro_n_Bro, that guys who reached into the community cookie jar. They’re not seen as sly foxes trying to scam; their move seems more naive than nefarious. Perhaps, just perhaps, they didn’t have a sage whispering in their ear about the dos and don’ts in a world beyond their developer den. What might seem to Bros and theirs delegates like a benign transaction could be a financial fraud in the more mainstream arena. Normies and everyday Joe doesn’t take kindly to funds disappearing from their wallets without a by-your-leave.
Then there’s the Osmosis prodigy, who seems to have deciphered the code of permissionless-ness but misses the broader narrative of the market terrain. Their technical acumen stands in stark contrast to their naive grasp of the exchange landscape, especially when treading the treacherous waters of penny stock markets.
The MakerDAO episode? It’s a case in point about market nuances. Junior Sales Rep 101: Know thy market. Understand what makes it tick. For high-stakes financial systems, it’s speed. Decentralization, that golden calf of the crypto world, sometimes takes a backseat, especially if its essence is misunderstood. The indignation from the ecosystem is palpable but pointing fingers at perceived biases speaks to a disconnect.
As for the coveted balance between decentralization and speed? That’s a tale for another time. Stay tuned.