Smart Contracts

I can't help but think back to the middle of 2000 when any mention of the web or the internet or even the hint of a dot-com would get you laughed out of every VC’s office. The internet was alive and well and growing strong, but Wall Street was angry at itself for getting caught up in a bubble of its own making, and it took a year or two for financiers to collectively come to their senses and start investing again. Continue Reading →

The saying, "Not your keys, not your coins" is a truism amongst seasoned blockchain users. It means that if your private keys are not in your own digital wallet (preferably a hardware wallet), you do not actually own your cryptocurrency or NFTs or any other asset stored on a blockchain you believe you own. Continue Reading →

In the wake of the FTX implosion, everyone is talking about the pros and cons of cryptocurrency. This week, for clickbait reasons, it’s mostly the cons. Before you offer an opinion about cryptocurrency to your friends or consider formulating a cryptocurrency policy for yourself or your business, you should take a moment to understand that cryptocurrency “crypto” is a catchall phrase, and a lazy one at that. Continue Reading →

Web2 (aka the centralized web) is the web as we know it today. It is dominated and controlled by our tech overlords. Web3 (aka the decentralized web) is supposed to replace it, releasing us from our data servitude. It won’t. For reasons I will share with you, it will be obvious that it can’t. We are already living in a hybrid world where Web2 and Web3 technologies are each leveraged to their best purposes. You can call it Web2.5 – it’s a more accurate description of where we are now and where we are likely to go next. Let’s review. Continue Reading →

When someone says "the metaverse," what do they mean? At the moment, the observable metaverse is a continuum that spans experiences from virtual reality (VR) through mixed reality (MR) to augmented reality (AR). The experiences are different, but some of the most successful metaverse projects share many common creative and technological attributes. What are they? To help figure it out, we've been developing a framework we call the Standard Model of the Metaverse. Continue Reading →

I was honored to be asked to do the opening keynote at Block Im Park (Block in the Park) at Frankfurt's Deutsche Bank Park this past week. Hosted by Eintracht Frankfurt, it was an extraordinarily diverse gathering of business and tech professionals focused on innovation. Continue Reading →

The most significant event in the short history of Web3 will most likely occur on September 15, 2022. That’s when Ethereum, the largest smart contract blockchain (with the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap), is now scheduled to enact an existential operational change. If it fails, “The Merge,” as it is colloquially called, is almost sure to take the crypto markets down with it. But even if The Merge is 100 percent successful, it will come with profound implications regarding censorship, regulation, and the future of money. Continue Reading →

On a Labor Day weekend a few years ago, I had a crazy idea that labor law might be an alternative path to meaningful data privacy regulation. Now, with several organizations working on blockchain-based, SSI (Self-sovereign identity), what was a real stretch of the imagination is inching closer to practical application. Think about this… There Continue Reading →

Ethereum is a few days away from "The Merge," its transition from Proof of Work (mining) to Proof of Stake (staking). The promised benefits of Proof of Stake (PoS) include a significantly higher number of transactions per second (tps), reduced environmental impact (PoS requires far less energy than mining), and greater scale. Where mining rigs are expensive, require a lot of electricity, and require specialized skills to efficiently operate, PoS rigs only require average hardware, a static IP address, and the ability to read and follow directions. So, should you stake ETH? And, if so, should you do it in a pool or solo? Continue Reading →

You just purchased your first NFT. Where is it? Is it sitting in your account on the marketplace you purchased it from? Do they have custody of your digital asset or do you? Did you transfer your NFT to your crypto wallet? If so, do you believe your new NFT is actually in your wallet? It isn't. That's not how this works. Here's what is really in your wallet. Continue Reading →