Lou Smith retweetledi
Lou Smith
292 posts
Lou Smith retweetledi
I went to the second Bitcoin conference ever, 2011 in Prague.
It was exciting and the energy was palpable, I would have never guessed at the time where Bitcoin would be now.
I wasn't all in, this was very much an exciting toy project to me and I focused too much on the shortcomings (mainly the lack of privacy).
This month I was at the @zodl_co summit in Prague, almost 15 years later. In a way the energy was similar.
But Bitcoin is a trillion dollar asset now and crypto has become an entire industry.
What I witnessed was a room full of world class cryptographers, protocol engineers, builders, industry leaders, investors, and more who are really going for it.
Everybody I talked to was really committed. Many are all in. Nobody thought this is an experiment.
This time I'm all in. This time we will separate money and state for good.
The next 15 years in crypto will be incredible.
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@kankanivishal It can be a complement and/or a competitor, depending on a few possible outcomes. I think this is still path-dependent.
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Lou Smith retweetledi
This is a correct take. ZEC is a complement to BTC.
Chris Burniske@cburniske
Finally reading "Broken Money" by @LynAldenContact and it's a good reminder that $BTC and other internet-native hard monies will most reward the patient ($ZEC the most credible complement to $BTC, in this category). From 2016-2025 there was a wave of impatience as the promise of blockchains drew crowds of people that didn't deeply understand Bitcoin, and treated the space as simply another tech platform. Bitcoin is more of a social reboot, than a technological one, and such a reboot takes decades to play out. Now, impatience is washing out to other seemingly faster moving waters, taking us closer to what things felt like in 2015 and before... which will once again reward those that understood all along.
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@beyondlogic34 @ztackingzats Well, that’s understandable. It is volatile, and there are obviously risks. I do believe it’s the best risk/reward opportunity for me since BTC in 2017/2018, but I’ve accepted that my exposure is an amount I am willing to completely risk.
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@SnakeGreener @ztackingzats These large ZEC swings are making me impatient. But I’m hodling
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Zcash is the most obvious crypto asset to own since literally Bitcoin. It’s up over 1000% while most tokens are down 70% in the same time. It’s blatantly obvious but the issue is most of you are idiots.
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Lou Smith retweetledi
@packformoon @LynAldenContact I never said she did, but her book increased my own conviction in $BTC and $ZEC.
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@robustus @mert @KevinWSHPod @tushar_jain For part of this reasoning, I consider that gold is currently valued more than 5x the largest company.
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@robustus @mert @KevinWSHPod @tushar_jain I can’t see the cash flows for a gas token being enough to even come close to digital SoV TAM. So if I’m right about that, then they’d be competing almost entirely as forms of money.
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"I think ZEC is a top 5 crypto asset"
@tushar_jain reveals he doesn't set price targets for $ZEC - he ranks it
"When it comes to something like Zcash, I think about it: where is it on the list? Is it number 20, is it number 15, is it number ten, is it in the top five? I think it's going to go top five"
"That also allows you to adjust for the market movement. My price target for Zcash is different if Bitcoin is at 80k versus if Bitcoin is at 200k. Everything is relative to each other"
"When it comes to an asset like that, I think about: is it in the top five, is it in the top ten?"
@Multicoin
MR SHIFT 🦁@KevinWSHPod
E178: Tushar Jain - Why Multicoin is betting big on Hyperliquid, Zcash and Solana Tushar Jain is Managing Partner at @Multicoin. He's back on the show to talk about where crypto is in the cycle, how he sizes bets across $SOL, $HYPE, and $ZEC, and the frameworks he uses to manage his own psychology. Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 1:31 - Who is Tushar Jain 3:44 - Are we at a crypto turning point? 4:57 - Buying into bad news before confirmation 6:24 - Buying vs. selling: which is harder 7:13 - Still bullish on @solana ? 9:15 - TradFi issuers and credible neutrality 11:47 - Sponsors: @variational_io @Bitwise 12:39 - How to size two competing bullish bets 14:13 - Category leader vs. "better play" 17:00 - Most obvious trade for 2026: $ZEC 19:39 - What @Zcash represents 22:27 - Valuing an asset with no revenue 24:18 - Trading framework vs. buy-and-hold 26:40 - Valuing $SOL and $HYPE 31:45 - Sponsors @KASTxyz @Trezor 32:54 - Timing entries in volatile assets 36:26 - Why @Multicoin doesn't trade, only manages 39:25 - The four sources of investing edge 41:14 - Edge examples: $ZEC, $HYPE, $ENA 43:21 - What Ethena represents 45:37 - How much founder quality matters : @gdog97_ example 47:09 - When to take profits 49:50 - Thoughts on Ethereum and $ETH 51:44 - Kyle leaving Multicoin 53:03 - Sponsors @JupiterExchange @ethena 53:46 - Why Tushar is still in crypto 58:26 - Wrap-up and thanks 1:00:37 - Bonus segment intro - Zcash drama + Hyperliquid report 1:00:39 - What happened with the Zcash bug 1:04:13 - Zcash's fix: the Ironwood pool 1:05:50 - How long it took to decide to buy more 1:08:13 - Multicoin's Hyperliquid report 1:09:55 - Base case: $319 $HYPE price target, key assumptions 1:15:21 - Is the crypto bottom in? 1:18:11 - Closing thanks
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@robustus @mert @KevinWSHPod @tushar_jain I don’t see why the leading smart contract platform should be above Zcash. Both are valued as SoVs, and Zcash is much better suited for that.
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@mert @KevinWSHPod @tushar_jain 1: Bitcoin
2: The leading smart contract platform
3: Zcash
...does indeed make sense.
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@jeremiahrogers This was a good read. Thanks for sharing. How was the summit?
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Lou Smith retweetledi
@cypherpunk @mert $ZEC is best prepared for Quantum in the whole market. Others, including Bitcoin, are just smelling the coffee and it might be too late.
Can't get clearer than this: (link in reply)
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.@mert on quantum risk:
"A store-of-value asset has to be low-entropy, the one thing you don't want is a surprise. So you build to minimize surprises first, which means a concrete quantum migration plan ready before anyone asks."
Zcash.
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what makes me like him the most is he likes everything I like and has the same joyous whimsy about life that I do
(he just like me)
Kosher@koshercockney
Erling Haaland eats a classic Jewish pastrami sandwich from Katz’s Deli in New York The man knows. 🙌🏽
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@robustus @stephanlivera @EliBenSasson You may be right. My thinking is that the current path alone of relying on fees seems doomed. And I also don’t see the Bitcoin community being introspective enough to acknowledge PoW’s failings and pivot. But I could certainly turn out to be wrong.
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Capping the supply of Bitcoin at 21M doesn't make sense. Beacuse over time, keys will be lost. In fact, as time goes to infinity, all keys will be lost.
I strongly support a clear monetary policy with an absolute upper bound on the # of Bitcoins in the future. Say, fix a max issuance rate and you get that (a good choice is 4% a year, this is a reasonable upper bound on human population expansion).
This way, you ensure there's enough to go around.
And I'm not even talking about the security problem, looming large on the horizon.
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@stephanlivera @EliBenSasson In fact it is the one thing that is not negotiable, under any circumstances. Someone can fork bitcoin to have a max supply >21mm, but I (& millions of others) will never call that "bitcoin".
Monetary supply certainty *is* "bitcoin".
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@Zpartan @eosionemesis I agree. I think the Bitcoin community is too stubborn to admit the issue.
x.com/SnakeGreener/s…
Lou Smith@SnakeGreener
@thefrankbraun 6. Formal verification 7. The community actually recognizes the potential security budget issue and is open-minded enough to address it if needed.
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You have an extremely optimistic take which I can appreciate. I feel like lumping zec and btc together here is dangerous because zec does have plans for scalability and that *could* be what’s holding btc back as a MoE.
The original point was regarding bitcoin and I am less optimistic any of that other stuff gets solved so you may as well start to inoculate market participants to expanding the security budget via inflation now.
I also don’t think it’s likely they do any of this FYI. I think the average bitcoiner (and probably human generally) is too stubborn to admit a problem, and too idealistically rigid to do anything about it. What should happen and what I expect to happen are vastly different. I am screaming into the void on this app and I’m aware.
I also think that in zcash’s case should it fail to achieve MoE and be perceived as private SoV, it is best to have a plan in place that doesn’t rely on fees.
Neither project is in a place where urgent action is needed, but you shouldn’t wait to hit a crisis point before changes occur. I think you can apply an if->then approach toward the security budget where if (fees + issuance) drop below a certain level then a safeguard might be in place to go ahead and issue rewards to miners. I think a threshold of acceptance should be agreed to long before it would ever need to be utilized.
The discourse among the majority of bitcoiners is that they don’t even want to discuss it. Ultimately that is the biggest red flag in my eyes. An unwillingness to explore possible outcomes. Both their greatest cult like strength and most likely their eventual downfall.
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A lot of people criticizing Eli here without offering up any better alternatives.
Seems that the popular strategy is for everyone to bury their head in the sand until it becomes a massive problem.
Checks out and I’m exhausted by most of you tbh.
Wu Blockchain@WuBlockchain
Zcash Co-Founder Suggests Bitcoin Move Away From Fixed 21M Supply Cap and Grow 4% Annually Zcash co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson said on X that he questions the rationale behind Bitcoin’s fixed 21 million supply cap. He argued that private keys will continue to be lost over time and that, in the long run, all private keys will eventually be lost. Ben-Sasson said he supports a monetary policy with an “absolute cap,” but suggested adjusting the strategy, such as setting a fixed maximum issuance rate, for example 4% per year, to keep circulating supply aligned with human growth and ensure sufficient liquidity.
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