Neha Narula

New episode! Neha Narula, Anders Brownworth, and Daniel Aronoff on Understanding Stablecoins in the GENIUS Era Watch @neha, @anders94, @danaronoff, and @DavidBeckworth discuss their work at DCI, the current state of stablecoins, their paper on the hidden plumbing of stablecoins, the basic mechanics of stablecoins, the technical and operational risks of stablecoins, the implications for the treasury market, interoperability between blockchains, and much more. youtu.be/7IxjJAPQFb8

@hmichellerose please do this

If I ever quit tech I think I'd run one of those hippie dippie wellness retreats, but like w/ science. So you can totally bring your crystals, but we also have Cognitive Behavioral Therapy & anti-inflammatory food. Chant whatever you want but you have to do your EMDR session! It won't cost an obscene amount cuz it's just some shack on the side of a mountain in Peru. So you just have to get down there then it's like $250! 🧘🏻‍♀️⛰️

Meaningful recognition of the legitimacy & importance of privacy as security in todays US Treasury "Report on Innovative Methods To Detect Illicit Activity Involving Digital Assets" (p.8):

@VitalikButerin I think this is missing that state is the *result* of computation on data. In the extreme you could avoid materializing state (UTXO set, state trie) and recompute from the data (blockchain) each time you needed to access it. That doesn't help you scale.

The scaling hierarchy in blockchains: Computation > data > state Computation is easier to scale than data. You can parallelize it, require the block builder to provide all kinds of "hints" for it, or just replace arbitrary amounts of it with a proof of it. Data is in the middle. If an availability guarantee on data is required, then that guarantee is required, no way around it. But you _can_ split it up and erasure code it, a la PeerDAS. You can do graceful degradation for it: if a node only has 1/10 the data capacity of the other nodes, it can always produce blocks 1/10 the size. State is the hardest. To guarantee the ability to verify even one transaction, you need the full state. If you replace the state with a tree and keep the root, you need the full state to be able to update that root. There _are_ ways to split it up, but they involve architecture changes, they are fundamentally not general-purpose. Hence, if you can replace state with data (without introducing new forms of centralization), by default you should seriously consider it. And if you can replace data with computation (without introducing new forms of centralization), by default you should seriously consider it.

Exclusive: Obtained Starlink terminal debug data from Iran during the ongoing internet shutdown. The telemetry shows direct evidence of GPS spoofing: the dish detected 18 GPS satellites with valid signal lock, but activated its anti-spoofing countermeasures (inhibitGps: true). This isn't simple jamming; the government appears to be broadcasting fake GPS signals to confuse terminals. The impact: 20%+ sustained packet loss, connection never stabilized after 24 minutes, bandwidth restricted, and beam pointing ~1° off target. Starlink stayed online but was barely usable. The anti-spoofing detection works, but SpaceX's fallback positioning can't currently maintain normal performance under electronic warfare. First documented technical evidence of state-level GPS spoofing against consumer satellite internet. github.com/narimangharib/…

@bhalligan @tjparker fwiw I don't think #1 is an issue. SF and NYC are both way more expensive than Boston and yet better for startups. I think it is #2, but even more so density and mentorship. When I lived in SF/SV you tripped over VCs and people in tech and starting companies. It was a default.

@tjparker Wasn't aware of some of those policy issues. I see it as two main things: 1. Its too expensive. Build housing. 2. Its not fun. Fix happy hours, open later, fix liquor licenses. There's nothing we can do about the cold winters, but we can make a nice dent in those 2 issues.

I did a bunch of analysis of the AI 50 produced by Fortune this year (not perfect, but vaguely right). Of the 50 companies listed, 2 are Boston (actually Cambridge), Suno and OpenEvidence. OpenEvidence is headquartered in Miami. So, 1 out of 50 is actually in Greater Boston. Thank you @MikeyShulman! 17 of the 50 top ai companies have founders that went to school in Boston. The average age of those 17 founders was 28.5 years old when they started the company. We need to make Boston a great place to start a company. We need to make Boston an extremely attractive place for new grads to put down roots. There is a lot to like about Boston! A bunch of us are getting together on Wednesday night to talk about it. This is a problem worth solving. Lets continue discussing, debating, and engaging on how to improve the region. I'd like to see some of the elected officials who are DM'g me weigh in here.

@AFDudley0 @xCryptoAlucard just write it rick

@xCryptoAlucard Regardless of gender, S-Tier wordcels are far more rare than S-Tier shape rotators, but A-Tier wordcels and shape rotators are about equal. Similarly, it's the distribution genius women and the general obliviousness to it that's note worthy to me.

If I was a better writer, I'd write a short essay on how many genius women I've met working in crypto and how no one seems to notice.

@riabhutoria @jillgun Still super curious about this. Anything so far?

@neha @jillgun I will share my discoveries 🫡

I’ve been thinking about how AI agents will make payments A lot of people say agents need stablecoins. Wallets are easier to spin up than bank accounts; stablecoins are more programmable, composable, etc. At the same time, Stripe is powering agents on existing rails (like with Perplexity), and companies like Nekuda are building SDKs on top of card networks. I'm trying to develop a clearer POV on which setup actually works better today - what's the best writing or thinking on this?

@callebtc this? cypherpunk.camp

at a cypherpunk conference. some thoughts: - interesting humans with many different backgrounds: hacktivists, cryptographers, civil society activists, infrastructure guys, electronic voting people, vpn people, tor devs, solarpunks, radio comms, file sharing, internet archive, general freedom tech, and many more. - bitcoin is mentioned all the time but there are practically no bitcoiners in sight. I'm the bitcoin guy now. - everyone knows about nostr. people are very interested in it. maybe 2-3 nostr users are here, no devs. many people representing bluesky. I'm the nostr guy now. - many people know about cashu and bitchat. lots of excitement. - many synergies, lots of groups and companies working together. the urgency is obvious. cypherpunk vibes are strong. verdict: bitcoin and nostr are severely under-represented in communities where a lot of important work is done. shitcoin phobia isn't a good reason to not engage in a much larger discourse about privacy, freedom, and technology. we haven't lost the plot but there's a lot more to do.

@the_city_dude It will be on MIT OCW after it completes, sometime in 2026! It takes some time to edit the videos. We'll post slides here: github.com/mit-dci/cde-20…

@neha hey neha! is the updated course being uploaded somewhere yet? I could only find the 2018 version for now

We’re launching DCI Global, a nascent research network to study real-world Bitcoin & stablecoin use, starting with a joint MIT–UnB open-source course to build global capacity.

@rohangrey @gladstein I was *not* slighting comprehensive answers -- merely providing them in the tweet thread format. I appreciate comprehensive answers, and now that we've moved to the doc I'm hoping it will be a bit easier to read and digest.

@neha @gladstein To give a more comprehensive answer it's "this is an essay omg". Can't win either way, and id prefer to *not* do the kind of response that this shorthand medium would normally have in this scenario, which is to be as glib and reductive in response as the thing being responded to

Bitcoin breaks this worldview so badly

@rohangrey @gladstein Might you try a different way?"

@rohangrey @gladstein Implicit in this is "Many people seem to think this is interesting and useful, so I'd like to understand it better and please help do that, if you have the energy and time (which I appreciate). But unfortunately (no fault implied) what you've said so far is not helping me.

@rohangrey @gladstein I left six (one of which was a correction). A bit different than an essay! Anyway, I have done exactly what you suggest (changed the format). If this doc doesn't work for you just let me know (and send me your email address if you'd like edit access)

@neha @gladstein Neha, you were the one who left multiple different replies to my initial tweet! I put the response in a single thread in the same forum as you first contacted me. With respect, if you want an easier way to discuss complex ideas than a long tweet thread don't discuss them here

@rohangrey @gladstein Rohan, honestly, this was a bit of a nightmare to read and parse. Next time please feel free to email me instead of dropping dozens of threaded posts! I have collected our back-and-forth here in a doc and left some comments: docs.google.com/document/d/1if…

@neha @gladstein Crypto etc, even as most of their economic critiques remain sound. But wouldn't be the first time people w otherwise good frameworks downplayed the cultural significance of new technologies, and the associated transformative economic effects that come with it.

@rohangrey @gladstein *without the existence of

@rohangrey @gladstein > "instead locating both its historical origins (empirical claim) and core logic (theoretic claim) in legal acceptance by public authorities of nominal tokens" if you start with this, then how do you explain forms of money that have popped up with the existence of a state?

@rohangrey @gladstein because I would *not* describe mainstream economics views on money today as based in "precious metals and bartering of commodities." they definitely emphasize the role of central banks and credit. but they do not identify with MMT.

@rohangrey @gladstein it sounds like you disagree with the characterization of MMT in this article, which is kind of summarized in this chart. is that correct? if so, how would you define MMT, in particularly emphasizing the difference from *mainstream* economics views on money today (not metallism)?