Cory 🦢 Swan

“Soft-Fork/Covenant Dependent Layer 2 Review" by Peter Todd

"tl;dr: Ark is pretty cool, and CTV is a good way to get it."

https://petertodd.org/2024/covenant-dependent-layer-2-review

"I would love to see a story for where the yield is coming from."

• VitalikButerin, Aug. 26, 2024

Indiana Pacers guard Andrew Nembhard arriving for last night's game. Look closer... #SatoshiNakamoto

I set up a short url for my favorite intro resources to get someone started on Bitcoin:

swan.com/Bitcoin101

Super simple to remember!

8 of the best pieces of Bitcoin educational content, coming in at just under 8 hours.

How much would the NBA pay for a $250M insurance policy against the Celtics losing the East finals?

Either of Mavs-Celts or Wolves-Celts is a massive money maker. Pacers? Ehhh.... notsomuch

A note on my participation and incentives in the Shitcoins-on-Bitcoin and Script Activation dialogs recently on X:

It's been fun and illuminating to tease out different points of view, and to go down various rabbit holes getting up to speed on proposals.

A couple of folks have wondered at my motivations, so I thought it would be useful to share a couple of facts for consideration:

• Swan manages one of the larger mining deployments in the world, and should be top 5 by the end of this year. We stand to make a TON of money with increased fees from shitcoins on Bitcoin. So when I question the narratives proferred by SOB promoters, it ain't bc of my monetary incentives.

• Swan primarily focuses on Bitcoin as SOV * today* but we have already laid the foundation to become a massive player in the development and usage of Bitcoin as MOE. The future of Bitcoin adoption, and thus the future of Swan, depends on it. Valuation multiples on payments revenue absolutely dwarf multiples for financial services revenue, so when I question some narratives of script activation promoters, it ain't bc of my monetary incentives.

I'm here trying to figure out how to support bitcoin the monetary asset, Bitcoin the network, Bitcoiners, and Bitcoin adoption, so that we can win The Race to Avoid the War.

I try to figure out the truth, and then to spread it far and wide.

I work hard to identify false narratives about Bitcoin, whether they originate from inside the ecosystem or outside it, and spread those findings far and wide, too.

Unless I am certain someone is truly malicious or deliberately deceitful, I try very hard not to attack them personally.

If someone I don't consider malicious attacks me personally, they may end up in a sometimes chippy discussion of ideas, but typically I am able to hold back from returning fire in kind.

The people I do consider malicious who have attacked me personally are mostly in prison, or are already widely understood to be irrelevant.

I'm honored to battle it out with the rest of you, to learn from you, to try to test your thinking, hone our narratives, and to do our best for Bitcoin.

Have a wonderful Sunday!

Most people don't spend #Bitcoin  till they have nothing else to spend. That's why the Medium Of Exchange adoption curve lags the Store Of Value adoption curve.

By 2035 you'll be able to buy most goods and services in most places around the world denominated in sats.

I hear Matt @odell claims people think his VC firm, Ten31, is closely tied to Swan and that some people may be influenced to use Swan or invest in Swan because of Ten31's involvement. Let me state very clearly that Ten31 has no influence on Swan, and no information rights. Ten31's biggest investment by far is in Strike, they sit on the Unchained board, and Matt and Marty's podcast is sponsored by River.

Matt was a very early advisor to Swan, specifically focused on privacy, and we very much appreciate his contributions. He owns some advisor shares in Swan, but has never been asked to invest.

Jonathan and Grant from Ten31 each cut angel checks into Swan very early on, and rolled them into their first fund. They also cut a small check into our A round from Ten31, which was a party round (lots of small checks) in Fall 2021. I don't think we ever received an investor referral from Ten31, nor do I remember ever hearing someone mention Ten31 when getting in touch about a Swan investment.

In summary, as @Odell himself said, Ten31 invested a tiny amount in Swan, long ago, and has no information rights. All large investors in Swan do extensive diligence, and they are not concerned with the names of seed funds from early rounds.

Regarding Swan's small hedge fund that we created for a couple of our institutional investors, which seems to have triggered the latest outburst from Mr. Odell:

We needed a head of trading for institutional clients to execute trades with VWAP / TWAP etc and tight spreads from multiple OTC desks. He happened to have a great track record of asset management, and a strong desire to continue managing money. A couple of our investors wanted a lower-vol Bitcoin strategy (sit in cash during drawdowns, ok with losing a little upside by missing part of some pumps), and decided to seed him in a Swan-managed fund. The fund is already at capacity and we are not marketing it.

My advice to retail investors remains the same as it's always been: DON'T TRADE UNLESS YOU WERE ALREADY A PROFESSIONAL TRADER. 99% get rekt, and it's even worse in "crypto" because that game is rigged even worse than tradfi. Much better to stay humble and stack sats, ideally with a Bitcoin-only company like Swan (we don't even have a sell button! and we have still have FREE automatic withdrawals).

Remember when the Bitcoin management team hired a marketing firm to promote the launch of Taproot?

Me neither.

But Ethereum is actively managed by ConsenSys and the Ethereum Foundation with the goal of pumping the price, so they hire marketing firms.

The tax on human productivity of millions of people being fooled into spending time "learning" about sh*tcoins is immeasurable.

Running Nostr

Great to see do many familiar handles here! Look forward to exploring 🏀😎🌴🔥🚀🌔