Few people in Toronto seem to be talking about the important role that this city has played and is playing when it comes to cryptocurrencies (specifically Ethereum). And if you believe, as I do, that Ethereum and other blockchain technologies have the ability to form the backbone for an entirely new kind of world, then this is kind of a big deal.
The Financial Times recently published this article about "Wall Street's crypto whisperer." It is about a guy named Joseph Lubin who is the founder of a crypto company called ConsenSys and previously the co-founder of Ethereum. Lubin is from Toronto.
If you read the article, you'll see that Lubin is a pretty bright guy (and now a billionaire with his crypto assets). Born in Toronto, he ended up going to Princeton to study computer science. He worked on Wall Street for a bit (hence the whisperer moniker), but also did a bunch of other interesting stuff, including moving to Jamaica with a girlfriend and working on music production.
In 2013, he was back in Toronto and went to a Bitcoin meetup in the city. The article says it was in a downtown warehouse (which makes it sound pretty cool and underground). And at this downtown warehouse meetup, he met a guy (actually a teenager) named Vitalik Buterin. Vitalik had just written a white paper on what would ultimately become Ethereum and he gave Lubin a copy. Lubin was so "blown away" when he read it that he decided to join the movement.
The two (and presumably others) would then go on to live together in shared houses in Toronto, Miami, and Zug (Switzerland), and work on this new smart contract technology. Today, Ethereum has a market cap of nearly $400 billion (as of September 12, 2021).
Even if you ignore for a second that we're talking about crypto technologies, this is still a fascinating city building story. It is fascinating because it shows the value of in-person urban interactions (again, the two allegedly connected at a meetup in a downtown warehouse). And it is fascinating because the Toronto braintrust has been instrumental in advancing a technology that could arguably end up powering not only the future of the internet but perhaps the world.
At the same time, it strikes me that we need to be much better at both celebrating and encouraging these kinds of new ideas locally. Are we out in the world telling this story to the best of our abilities? Have we properly positioned Toronto as one of the most important places for cryptocurrencies and innovation in general? Mayor Suarez of Miami has been a great promoter of his city in this regard.
"Innovation" isn't usually neat and tidy. It happens on the fringe and it is often not obvious at the outset. Imagine what an Ethereum pitch would have sounded like back in 2013. But this is how new ideas start. And Toronto has proven to be full of them.
Photo by Narciso Arellano on Unsplash
With seemingly so much happening in the world these days -- everything from COVID to climate change -- it is perhaps easy to feel a little discouraged about the current state of affairs. But I am an optimist. And as I mentioned on Twitter a few weeks ago, I haven't been this excited about the future of tech and the internet in a long time.
We are seeing the auto industry quickly transition to electric vehicles (though, in my opinion, not driving at all is still better for our cities than driving something that is electric). Norway has created the world's first ever zero emission, autonomous cargo ship. And LIDAR vision systems are looking pretty promising as one of the technologies that will ultimately power fully autonomous vehicles.
I believe in the resiliency of cities and, as I have been arguing on this blog all throughout COVID, I think the claims about the demise of our cities have been greatly exaggerated. In fact, I think this pandemic has forced us rethink a lot of things about our urban environments, including how we allocate and use our public spaces (think patios). Some of these changes have been for the better and they're not going to go away.
I think the benefits of working in close proximity to others are too great to have everyone working remotely. Yes, we have learned that decentralization is possible. But there's an overwhelming amount of research telling us that we're all more innovative and productive when we cluster together in cities and in offices.
I have been back in the office almost 100% of the time since it has been possible to do that. And I am much happier and more productive as a result. There's also research suggesting that there are
https://www.instagram.com/p/CPX05kKAXPb/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Last month a digital-only version of a Gucci bag sold on gaming platform Roblox for about US$4,115. Again, digital-only. No physical bag that can be brought to brunch. At the time, this was about US$800 more than the real life version of the same Gucci bag. So why not go and buy that one instead?
I am sure that most of you are scratching your head at this and wondering: who the hell is valuing the digital more than the physical? Could it be that status and signaling -- perhaps the real purposes of a designer bag -- are even more important online in the world of Roblox than in real life? In this case, it wasn't even an NFT and so presumably there aren't any value claims around scarcity and authenticity. (Full disclosure: I don't know how Roblox works.)
It's important to keep in mind that meaningful innovation often starts out looking pretty silly to some/most. And to me, this feels like one of those times. What we are clearly seeing is a blurring between our digital and physical worlds. In fact, just today I was reading about a slew of digital-only clothing companies that sell, you know, contactless cyber fashion. One of those companies is Tribute (embedded post above).
The way it works is that you first buy a piece of digital clothing (which can sell out just like regular clothing). You then send them a picture of yourself and the company goes and renders that piece of digital clothing onto your photo. The result is what you see above, which to me looks fairly realistic (though at the same time fantastical, which I think is part of the point).
As out-there as this may seem, this strikes me as something that could become a very big deal. What is real on Instagram anyways? I can also see this being applied to other industries, including real estate. Maybe that is already happening.
What do you think?
Few people in Toronto seem to be talking about the important role that this city has played and is playing when it comes to cryptocurrencies (specifically Ethereum). And if you believe, as I do, that Ethereum and other blockchain technologies have the ability to form the backbone for an entirely new kind of world, then this is kind of a big deal.
The Financial Times recently published this article about "Wall Street's crypto whisperer." It is about a guy named Joseph Lubin who is the founder of a crypto company called ConsenSys and previously the co-founder of Ethereum. Lubin is from Toronto.
If you read the article, you'll see that Lubin is a pretty bright guy (and now a billionaire with his crypto assets). Born in Toronto, he ended up going to Princeton to study computer science. He worked on Wall Street for a bit (hence the whisperer moniker), but also did a bunch of other interesting stuff, including moving to Jamaica with a girlfriend and working on music production.
In 2013, he was back in Toronto and went to a Bitcoin meetup in the city. The article says it was in a downtown warehouse (which makes it sound pretty cool and underground). And at this downtown warehouse meetup, he met a guy (actually a teenager) named Vitalik Buterin. Vitalik had just written a white paper on what would ultimately become Ethereum and he gave Lubin a copy. Lubin was so "blown away" when he read it that he decided to join the movement.
The two (and presumably others) would then go on to live together in shared houses in Toronto, Miami, and Zug (Switzerland), and work on this new smart contract technology. Today, Ethereum has a market cap of nearly $400 billion (as of September 12, 2021).
Even if you ignore for a second that we're talking about crypto technologies, this is still a fascinating city building story. It is fascinating because it shows the value of in-person urban interactions (again, the two allegedly connected at a meetup in a downtown warehouse). And it is fascinating because the Toronto braintrust has been instrumental in advancing a technology that could arguably end up powering not only the future of the internet but perhaps the world.
At the same time, it strikes me that we need to be much better at both celebrating and encouraging these kinds of new ideas locally. Are we out in the world telling this story to the best of our abilities? Have we properly positioned Toronto as one of the most important places for cryptocurrencies and innovation in general? Mayor Suarez of Miami has been a great promoter of his city in this regard.
"Innovation" isn't usually neat and tidy. It happens on the fringe and it is often not obvious at the outset. Imagine what an Ethereum pitch would have sounded like back in 2013. But this is how new ideas start. And Toronto has proven to be full of them.
Photo by Narciso Arellano on Unsplash
With seemingly so much happening in the world these days -- everything from COVID to climate change -- it is perhaps easy to feel a little discouraged about the current state of affairs. But I am an optimist. And as I mentioned on Twitter a few weeks ago, I haven't been this excited about the future of tech and the internet in a long time.
We are seeing the auto industry quickly transition to electric vehicles (though, in my opinion, not driving at all is still better for our cities than driving something that is electric). Norway has created the world's first ever zero emission, autonomous cargo ship. And LIDAR vision systems are looking pretty promising as one of the technologies that will ultimately power fully autonomous vehicles.
I believe in the resiliency of cities and, as I have been arguing on this blog all throughout COVID, I think the claims about the demise of our cities have been greatly exaggerated. In fact, I think this pandemic has forced us rethink a lot of things about our urban environments, including how we allocate and use our public spaces (think patios). Some of these changes have been for the better and they're not going to go away.
I think the benefits of working in close proximity to others are too great to have everyone working remotely. Yes, we have learned that decentralization is possible. But there's an overwhelming amount of research telling us that we're all more innovative and productive when we cluster together in cities and in offices.
I have been back in the office almost 100% of the time since it has been possible to do that. And I am much happier and more productive as a result. There's also research suggesting that there are
https://www.instagram.com/p/CPX05kKAXPb/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Last month a digital-only version of a Gucci bag sold on gaming platform Roblox for about US$4,115. Again, digital-only. No physical bag that can be brought to brunch. At the time, this was about US$800 more than the real life version of the same Gucci bag. So why not go and buy that one instead?
I am sure that most of you are scratching your head at this and wondering: who the hell is valuing the digital more than the physical? Could it be that status and signaling -- perhaps the real purposes of a designer bag -- are even more important online in the world of Roblox than in real life? In this case, it wasn't even an NFT and so presumably there aren't any value claims around scarcity and authenticity. (Full disclosure: I don't know how Roblox works.)
It's important to keep in mind that meaningful innovation often starts out looking pretty silly to some/most. And to me, this feels like one of those times. What we are clearly seeing is a blurring between our digital and physical worlds. In fact, just today I was reading about a slew of digital-only clothing companies that sell, you know, contactless cyber fashion. One of those companies is Tribute (embedded post above).
The way it works is that you first buy a piece of digital clothing (which can sell out just like regular clothing). You then send them a picture of yourself and the company goes and renders that piece of digital clothing onto your photo. The result is what you see above, which to me looks fairly realistic (though at the same time fantastical, which I think is part of the point).
As out-there as this may seem, this strikes me as something that could become a very big deal. What is real on Instagram anyways? I can also see this being applied to other industries, including real estate. Maybe that is already happening.
What do you think?
I think things like digital fashion and augmented reality are going to have profound impact on the way we consume things. You could also argue that there's a sustainability angle to more digital and less physical. And of course, I am excited about the transformations that I believe cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies will continue to bring to many different industries (if not most).
This morning I was reading a Financial Times article about cryptocurrencies in the developing world. It it perhaps no surprise that many of these countries are providing to be early adopters. People are leapfrogging over to cryptocurrencies because their existing currencies and financial systems aren't effective enough. That has lead to adoption and penetration that looks something like this according to FT:
There is, of course, many other things to be optimistic and excited about. But I'll leave that for the comment section below. What are you excited about these days?
I think things like digital fashion and augmented reality are going to have profound impact on the way we consume things. You could also argue that there's a sustainability angle to more digital and less physical. And of course, I am excited about the transformations that I believe cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies will continue to bring to many different industries (if not most).
This morning I was reading a Financial Times article about cryptocurrencies in the developing world. It it perhaps no surprise that many of these countries are providing to be early adopters. People are leapfrogging over to cryptocurrencies because their existing currencies and financial systems aren't effective enough. That has lead to adoption and penetration that looks something like this according to FT:
There is, of course, many other things to be optimistic and excited about. But I'll leave that for the comment section below. What are you excited about these days?
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog