SBF Financial Circle-Jerk, Subscription NFTs, & More

"Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, 'Make me feel important.' Never forget that message when working with people." - Mary Kay Ash

Gm frens.

Welcome to another dose of Psychedelic Toad where we serve nothing but the daily recommended SEC dose of not financial advice:

Here's what we got today:

• 4 Threads of the Week

• Other Tid-Bits

• Meme of the day

SBF Financial Circle-Jerk Theory

1) Sam Bankman-Fried, multi-hyphenate founder and CEO of FTX, Alameda Research, and the guy famous for arbitraging millions of dollars of Bitcoin from Japanese exchanges back in the day, has released a thread on how money flows in finance, all the way from The Fed to VC's to retail customers. He uses Meta, good 'ol Zuck, and Google as examples, along with flowcharts, numbers, and explanations of how modern-finance money actually changes hands.

Future of Subscription NFTs

2) Fascinating futurist thread by Chris Cantino on the outlook of subscription NFTs. He breaks it down by categories and their respective examples:

• Feature Unlocks and Exclusives: "HBO NFTs that let you watch new movies before release."

• IP & Royalties: "Netflix PFPs that puts subscriber's characters 'in the show.'"

• Airdrops: "Disney+ subscriptions that airdrop NFTs of Marvel artwork and Star Wars PFPs."

• Evolving Passes: "Peloton NFTs that grow in value the more you ride."

And many other such categories and examples.

Overall, a well-written speculative piece attempting to prophesy the present and future merging of web2 and web3. Very admirable.

Simple Guide on Navigating the Ethereum Merge

3) Short thread on the upcoming Ethereum Merge by well-known Compound Finance Founder Robert Leshner. This is geared towards both beginners and experts alike.

The TL;DR:

• Don't fall for scams. In times of uncertainty, people are preying on your carelessness.

• Don't use too much leverage. The increase in volatility is enough to make anyone salivate for outsized gains. Be careful not to get too greedy.

• Make sure your assets are custodied safely, whether cold storage or any exchange you trust. (I don't trust any exchange.)

• Be careful with signing any sort of transaction, a potential relay attack by miners is possible.

• "If you’re not sure what to do, do nothing. Seriously." (Probably the best advice he could give.)

Understanding Time Differently

4) In this magnificent thread, The Cultural Tutor breaks down the Ancient Greeks' binary conception of time: Chronos, and Kairos.

"Chronos refers to time as we usually mean it: a sequence of equal parts.

There are twenty four hours in a day, and each hour is the same length of time.

It's what a clock measures, basically."

"Kairos refers to the way in which certain moments are more important or influential than others.

A clock can't measure that, but it's undeniable that some times are much more significant than others."

Other Tid-Bits

+ ENS (Ethereum Name Service) will now allow ENS names to contain the underscore, but only as leading characters, nowhere else.

From a game theory perspective, as well as from an ENS enthusiast angle, this is exciting.

+ People frequently ask "WEN INSTITUTIONS?" Take a look mfer. They're already here.

+ This guy received a $15M offer for Nft.xyx. This undoubtedly raises the cachet of the .xyz domain even further.

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, was one of the first to seriously elevate .xyz to the status of top-level domain (TLD) in the hierarchical website domain space a couple years back with https://abc.xyz/. Since then, many have naturally followed them in suit.

The exact domain-naming mania that happened during the early internet days is starting to happen right now with ENS as well.

+ Some macroeconomic alpha from an obscure group chat screenshot about the impending threat to the US Dollar's global hegemony:

Meme of the day

Let me know if there's anything you'd like to see in future newsletters everyone. I'd love to hear your feedback.

Until next time frens,

~ Basel