Thea Kaage

🚨The Larva Labs digital sculptures that you’ve been sleeping on. $1.5B traded. Below 1 ETH. More than just 3D Cryptopunks. Meet Meebits ❚ ❚ - John Watkinson & Matt Hall’s art that’s still early [thread 🧵]

“Parallel execution isn’t a nice-to-have — it’s what makes on-chain apps usable for normal people.” @sachishiokava is joined by @jayendra_jog, Founder of @SeiNetwork, to break down which Ethereum-native apps stand to benefit most from a parallelized stack — and why higher throughput is ultimately about usability, not benchmarks. Jay points to trading and DeFi as the clearest winners. If an 18-year-old wants to buy $20 worth of a meme coin but has to pay $15 in fees, the experience breaks immediately. In low-TPS environments, users are not just slowed down — they are priced out entirely.

“Watching Robinhood turn off buys during GameStop made one thing painfully clear: the rails still have gatekeepers.” @kenzixbt catches up with @jayendra_jog, Founder of @SeiNetwork, to unpack how Jay’s pre-crypto journey shaped his conviction around building in Web3. From joining Robinhood in 2017 when it was still a scrappy startup in Palo Alto, to watching it scale 10x and eventually go public, Jay saw firsthand both the power and the limits of traditional financial infrastructure. That experience — especially moments like GameStop — made one thing obvious: if the core rails can still be shut off by a handful of gatekeepers, then the system was never truly open to begin with.

“Virtual machines are like cities — once they’re established, they become magnets.” @dikshaarden sits down with @jayendra_jog, Founder of @SeiNetwork, to unpack Jay’s macro thesis: why legacy hubs — whether cities like New York and San Francisco or dominant virtual machines — tend to remain on top, even when their weaknesses are impossible to ignore. Drawing from his own experience living in both cities, Jay explains the intuition behind the analogy: congestion, safety concerns, homelessness, and other structural issues rarely drive people away on their own. The real force is gravity — activity, talent, networks, and opportunity compound where they already exist.

The New Bitcoin Mining AI Play With data center construction hitting an 8-year bottleneck, crypto miners' existing power contracts have transformed into some of the scarcest assets in tech. Here's why AI's infrastructure crisis is sparking a mining stock renaissance 👇 ~~ Analysis by @TheaKaage ~~ Mining's Early AI Bet ChatGPT's November 2022 launch immediately highlighted synergies between BTC mining and AI. During first-half 2023, mining stock valuations expanded multiples as investors priced in new value. Post-FTX, miners had already transitioned to high-performance computing (HPC) generalists to diversify revenue. As AI compute demand accelerated, miners marketed infrastructure toward the sector. Early efforts disappointed: - Applied Digital's North Dakota AI facility reportedly cost 10x more than equivalent crypto mining construction - Hardware incompatibility. Mining-specific GPUs and ASICs largely don't work for AI applications, requiring hardware replacement and facility upgrades - Limited demand. Early attempts to repurpose GPUs for large language models generated disappointing revenue, indicating weak demand for lower-quality AI compute The Permit Pivot AI's compute demand has exploded, unlocking trillions in capital and creating incessant demand for data centers. Yet the industry hit a physical infrastructure bottleneck: new data center construction takes eight years total. The most variable portion is permitting and approval. Projects face community opposition on environmental, economic, and quality-of-life grounds: - Job creation. Data centers create only a few hundred permanent jobs versus thousands for similarly-sized factories - Resource strain. One hyperscale facility requires ten million gallons of water and one hundred megawatts of power daily—the demand equivalent of 100,000 homes - Quality of life. Criticism over aesthetics and noise pollution often depresses local property values In the United States, permitting delays have become so severe that new data center construction declined for the first time since 2020 despite soaring AI demand. Desperate for workarounds, AI companies are targeting cryptocurrency miners with established data centers for permit arbitrage. Miners are increasingly valued for access to power and water rather than core operations. The sector is equipped with 6 gigawatts of grid-connected capacity and plans to double its pipeline by 2027. Investment firms have started betting big, scooping up stocks like CORZ, IREN, and RIOT to profit from embedded power contracts and development permits. Leopold Aschenbrenner, who grew a $1B fund to $5.5B in one year, dumped his Nvidia position to buy Bitcoin mining companies—not for Bitcoin exposure, but for their existing infrastructure. New Paradigm? The idea that Bitcoin miners could ride the AI wave is not new, but the thesis has evolved. While early efforts fizzled, the current narrative centers on scarce permitted power. Mining stocks enjoyed a secular bull market from June through October 2025, but have treaded water to begin 2026. Whether this narrative unlocks sustained value remains open, but permitted power is becoming one of the scarcest assets in the compute economy.

continue to believe that zcash is the last possible 1000x in crypto. gov overreach, money printing, rise in socialism, quantum. all massive multi-decade tailwinds. as with btc, don’t trade it. accumulate during periods of apathy and hold it for 10-20yrs.

Monkey business 🐒

one of our best conversations so far with a lot of real signal on where DA is heading and why AI native infrastructure changes the game

“After moving from Berlin to Silicon Valley, I found myself bored at a new school — so I started spending time at my dad’s SAP Lab: fast internet, endless reading, and the beginning of my love for technology.” Our host @kenzixbt sits down with @michaelh_0g (@0G_labs) to trace his origin story — from early curiosity and a growing obsession with tech to his path into Web3, and ultimately, the founding of his company.

New episode dropping this week with @michaelh_0g, founder of @0G_labs. We go deep on AI × crypto: modular AI chains, decentralized AI infrastructure, community-owned data, and why modularity is the unlock for scaling AI on-chain. Also: Michael’s founder journey, and how meditation + spiritual practice shape his leadership as he builds the first modular AI chain.

FIVE YEARS AGO TODAY (gm)

Catch the dogs out of the cage in Berlin.

Show me your best work! 🎨🔥♦️

Only 23 more days until 𝐀𝐫𝐭 𝐁𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐥 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐊𝐨𝐧𝐠 2026! 🇭🇰 Find everything you’ll need for the fair – opening March 27 – on our website, including: ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ 🔍 Visitor info 📆 Events calendar 🗺️ Floorplan and maps ✏️ Artist interviews ...and more! Link: bit.ly/4cVDzYU

The upcoming Ex Nihilo online exhibition (10 March) includes a series of 256 generative works and 5 drawings. Details here: feralfile.substack.com/p/casey-reas-e…

This reminds me of when you could get a 30 min uber in nyc for like $10/$15, and now it costs $50 to get 5 blocks. We’re going to look book at this time and wish the vc’s would subsidize our compute again.

Subway's $5 footlong is now the five dollar four inch.

I understand some people didn't grow up around guns & they can be intimidating at first, but your duty to your family is to provide & protect. Don't know where to start? 9mm P365X MACRO 21+1 in a Vaultek safe that doesn't leave your side. Train until it's second nature. ♥️🫂

You can now buy CryptoPunks with stablecoins. USDC purchasing is available on the official marketplace.

HAHAHAHA, amazing. 😭

@tinoch True

I don't need a utility to buy an NFT. I don't need phygitals to buy an NFT. I don't need an airdrop to buy an NFT. I don't need a roadmap to buy an NFT. I don't need speculation to buy an NFT. I don't need tokenomics to buy an NFT. All I need is great art to buy an NFT.