Musings on Technology
A personal collection of notes, reflections, and essays on technology, finance, and building — written over the years as I made sense of the ideas shaping our industry.
Tether and the Risk of Shadow Banking in Crypto
As stablecoins become crypto’s settlement layer, the industry is rebuilding a shadow banking system — privately issued dollars with opaque reserves. If Tether is systemically important, its transparency is not optional.
The Cost of Compliance in Crypto Is Actually a Moat
In the early phase, crypto treated compliance as a tax. In the next phase, compliance becomes a moat — because regulated distribution, custody, and institutional access require infrastructure that most teams can’t build quickly.
When Central Banks Study Crypto, It Enters the System
When central banks start publishing serious research on crypto assets and digital money, it marks a shift: the topic moves from fringe speculation into institutional agenda. That doesn’t mean endorsement — it means inevitability of engagement.
Why Most Enterprise Blockchain Pilots Will Die
In 2016–2017, enterprises announced blockchain pilots nonstop. In 2018, many will quietly disappear. The reason isn’t that the tech is useless — it’s that most pilots never solved a real coordination problem, and incentives were never aligned.
Ethereum in 2018: Why Layer 2 Becomes the Main Story
After CryptoKitties and rising gas costs, Ethereum’s scaling debate is no longer abstract. In 2018, the practical path forward is Layer 2: channels, sidechains, rollup-like constructions, and better UX for off-chain execution.
EOS and the Tradeoff We Keep Avoiding
EOS is not just another smart contract platform — it’s a test of a tradeoff many crypto people avoid: performance through governance centralization. If the thesis is global infrastructure, we need clarity on what we’re willing to sacrifice to scale.
The Lightning Network: The Most Important Bitcoin Upgrade You Can't See
Lightning is easy to dismiss because it’s not a flashy hard fork — it’s a second layer. But if it works, it turns Bitcoin from a slow settlement network into a scalable payments rail, without rewriting the base layer’s rules.
Ethereum's Road to Proof of Stake: Why It Keeps Slipping
Ethereum’s move to Proof of Stake is one of the most important upgrades in crypto — and one of the hardest engineering and governance problems. Delays are frustrating, but they’re also a signal of how high the stakes are.
The Myth of the 'Token Economy'
In 2017 every project promised a self-sustaining token economy. In 2018 the market is learning a harder truth: most tokens don’t need to exist, and many incentive designs are just circular storytelling.
GDPR Meets Blockchain: Immutability vs. the Right to Be Forgotten
Europe’s GDPR is about to take effect, and it collides head-on with one of blockchain’s core properties: immutability. If crypto wants to touch real-world finance, we need better design patterns for privacy, deletion, and compliance.