What a Time to be Alive

U.S. National Debt since 1990: 1990 - $3.2T 1991 - $3.7T 1992 - $4.1T 1993 - $4.4T 1994 - $4.7T 1995 - $5T 1996 - $5.2T 1997 - $5.4T 1998 - $5.5T 1999 - $5.7T 2000 - $5.7T 2001 - $5.8T 2002 - $6.2T 2003 - $6.8T 2004 - $7.4T 2005 - $8T 2006 - $8.5T 2007 - $9T 2008 - $10T 2009 - $12T 2010 - $13.6T 2011 - $14.8T 2012 - $16.1T 2013 - $16.7T 2014 - $17.8T 2015 - $18.2T 2016 - $19.6T 2017 - $20.2T 2018 - $21.5T 2019 - $22.7T 2020 - $27T 2021 - $28.4T 2022 - $30.9T 2023 - $33.2T 2024 - $35.3T 2025 - $38.0T

@rossiadam Yes, I am here for a multi part series of posts related to this content from you Adam. These are great reads for myself as 26 yr old male aware of how precious this time can be to my future self if used correctly 🤝

PART 2 of my "Smaug Series" on Passive Income Tune out all of the screenshots being posted to X of multi-million dollar stock portfolios. Most fortunes begin with "Grindstone Cash", which is capital sharpened into existence through repetition and diligence. This is what a typical 20-something is facing currently: • Bills eating any potential investment capital. • Rent takes 40-50% of income. • Car payment, groceries, inflation… After necessities, maybe a couple hundred bucks left per month. It can be brutal for young folks at the moment. And here’s what they’re absorbing scrolling timelines: • “Just buy crypto” • Buy passive income assets like self-storage or vending machines (with what???) • Take an influencer’s trading course But before you think about anything ‘passive’ you need Grindstone Cash. When Laila and I got married we each owed around $35,000 in student loans. Negative net worth. (But hey at least I know she didn't marry me for money.) Minimal savings, beater cars from college, and our first apartment was a groundfloor shoebox. We wanted to start a business. So we lived frugally and saved every dollar from our 9-5s. I worked as a freelance software developer nights and weekends while making monthly loan payments. It was a hard few years. It stung watching peers drive nice cars and take beautiful vacations while we drudged through. But that moonlight work and diligent saving mindset built our Grindstone Cash. After a two years we had $35,000 saved and were able to launch a software company out of the apartment. We saved this money while paying down our student loans. The advantage of your 20s is natural energy. You need to harness it to get ahead. If you’re in a 9-5, how can you consult your day job skill at nights and weekends? You should be able to make an extra $3-5k/month working 2 hours before the 9-5 and 2-3 hours after with a high-value skill. If you have a skill deficit: YouTube and AI-customized lesson plans exist. Spend time learning how to learn. And a note about “freelancing”… I’d suggest getting away from vague skills (”Business consulting”) and into precise, billable expertise. In my case, I wrote software as an independent 1099 hourly consultant. I wrote a reporting system for a small hedge fund, and I helped an early e-commerce company launch. And even when you start banking some cash from your side gig, you need to live like you’re broke. While your friends are upgrading cars and apartments with their first raises, you're banking every extra dollar. Forget expensive dinners, designer clothes, and weekend trips for a while. Lifestyle inflation is the enemy of Grindstone Cash. Every dollar you don't spend is a soldier in your future army. The delayed gratification burns, but it compounds. That first $35,000 became our foundation for everything that followed … including a deposit on a rundown townhouse which we renovated. Next, I'll dive into how we turned sweat equity into our first real asset as we got into the “Leverage Years"

Strongly agree with your point that the data can show this could potentially be the start of a multi-year trend of traders moving... DEX > CEX

Five years ago, DEX trading activity was at less than 1% market share vs. CEX. Today DEX volume represents about 15% of the market share of crypto trading volumes vs CEX. You can call that a 15x increase in 5 years.

@vnovakovski @notthreadguy More Twitter spaces, I gain great respect for founders who go out in the public square for vocal debate regarding the protocol they are building 🤝

Excited to speak to @notthreadguy live in an hour and debate a few folks who will try to “prove me wrong” as well x.com/notthreadguy/s…

@satoshiheist @vnovakovski @Lighter_xyz The commitment to RWA derivatives is an interesting development for sure, if the 0 fee model is the plan w/ RWA, this could introduce a lot of new capital to the protocol.

The CEO of @Lighter_xyz just did an interview in Russian. I took the transcript from YouTube and asked ChatGPT to summarize it. There's some key points here not mentioned in English speaking spaces or interviews previously. 1. Security (2FA): Optional 2-factor for withdrawals is on the roadmap. Vlad notes it’s helpful but not a silver bullet (attackers could still trade against you), so users should also harden overall op-sec. 2. Spot launch & fees: Spot goes live ~late Oct / early Nov. First listings will be core assets (ETH, BTC; possibly WBTC), then selected memecoins/partners. Fees will be zero or very low (lower than competitors); exact schedule to be announced. 3. Roadmap highlights (next ~6–12 months): Cross-Margin by year-end (use Spot as collateral for perps). EVM “sidecar”/smart-contract extensibility early next year (custom apps that share collateral with the exchange). RWA derivatives (metals first; crypto-adjacent equities like COIN, etc.) targeted for year-end; options next year; dark pools later next year. 4. Ecosystem strategy: Built atop Ethereum (L2-style), so DeFi apps like Aave/Morph/Uniswap can integrate natively—no need to reinvent an ecosystem or bridge. Example: tokenize LLP as an ERC-20 for L1 use; external DeFi positions can be used as Lighter collateral. 5. Revenue model & transparency: Retail trading via GUI is free; pro MM/HFT flow pays a (still low) fee tier, which has driven revenue above expectations. Lighter will publish revenue soon once tiering rules are finalized. 6. Airdrops, points, and token: 25–30% of tokens earmarked for Season 1 + Season 2 points airdrop; total community allocation = 50% (rest used for future airdrops/partners/grants). Season 2 runs up to (roughly) TGE; weekly Friday grants resume (this week a larger drop to catch two weeks, then ~weekly cadence). Expect buybacks and multiple token utilities: access to exclusive/experimental LP pools & markets, lower fees for MMs, potential staking; governance deferred until the system is more decentralized (likely ≈2 years). 7. Sybil Detection: Multi-account self-trading to farm points is detected; past points aren’t clawed back, but future points go to zero for offenders. True high-speed traders may be placed in the premium (paying-fee) tier even if they click via GUI. 8. Market view: After the recent volatility, Vlad expects 1–2 weeks of range-bound chop (buy-low/sell-high regime). Key takeaway: tighten risk management to avoid liquidations when the next shock hits.

@Innerdevcrypto Great commentary on overall market conditions at the moment 👌🏼

Crypto and bitcoin price action are just unusually weak lately (long post) may sound strange, but kind of feel ¨have no idea what is going on¨ with the market. It does not affect me financially, since mainly holding spot bitcoin anyway, but some thoughts on this: - maybe people are more focused on metals & stocks, truly crazy price action there - maybe blackrock & co etc wants price low to accumulate as much as possible - maybe OG´s and early whales are really selling a lot, knowing some kind of multi-year peak is in and they are movings profits to the stock market, humanoid robots investments etc, using Saylor and etfs to unload big time - regarding alts, there are just too many of them, dilution clearly taking its toll. an altseason? doubt it, especially after 10th of october. maybe we just get certain select coins outperforming - maybe btc above 100k is a lot, i mean it surely is, and barely a x2 from previous cycle ATH is all we get - or we just grind along slowly the coming years, slowly up, ignoring all cycles - or maybe I, or we, are all impatient, and an unexpected Q4 violent rally will still come i honestly do not know. i can be wrong on all the above. with that said, not knowing is ok. will just keep holding spot bitcoin and do trades where i see opportunities. got many dm´s from people frustrated with all recent events etc. just take a break, ass you have seen i take breaks often too, entire months, so take some weeks off, come back fresh, the market will always be here

@SigmaSquared_ Could be valid

Something stupid I was thinking about, what if onchain comes back now since trenches were marked safe from liquidations today and they're the ones left with some money

@Tradermayne Screenshot from 1 of my watch list during the crash haha, felt like FTX vibes for myself

I've seen basically every single one of these mass liquidation moves since 2016. You think you'd get numb to it in a way but honestly every time it is pretty jarring. It's hard to comprehend just how much leverage can be built up in the system.

You can't compete with me, not because you can't do what I do, but because I only consider myself as competition

@OGshoots NL, the real brothas know

@rektober 🤝

I was looking into @Lighter_xyz and my thesis on @HyperliquidX was right all along... HL has ALWAYS been just a centralized perp exchange with wallet connect it's basically a CEX with Privy deposits aren't even safe, it's just a multisig but @lighter_xyz is an actual on-chain DEX.. truly decentralized in every way possible, and it's an even better product than HL trustless, deposits/transactions can't be rugged don't get me wrong - HL has one crazy feature: Hyperunit's spot deposits/withdrawals kill Binance that's genuinely insane.. but that's it HL = Binance killer Lighter = actual DEX and once they release their token and everyone gets rich off it... they won't stay loyal to HL anymore Lighter is taking over

Trying to trade a bit of the new listings with lower OI to boost point distro, traded some Zcash on listing

What are you trading on Lighter ? 🕯️

@trading_axe 🤝

Weekend ping-pong and chop every eager beaver LTF trader for both shorts and longs before breaking out next week. P.S.: FUCK bears. ~ Dr. Axius.

@hansolar21 @allaboutvol @vnovakovski Interesting opening in the market IMO for this specific use in perp dex’s, could drive potential non-crypto users use these protocols

@allaboutvol I KNOW RIGHT? @vnovakovski

perp dexes should make a big effort to make paxg/xaut liquid and then advertise to trad degens

the problem with chronic trenchers is they've conditioned themselves to click too many buttons daily so when it's time to size into conviction plays that require marination, they get chopped up or click impulsively during times when sitting still and doing nothing is the skill

@Travvy2Savvy early

Day 54, every day that passes this narrative is becoming more relevant and powerful. Prove me wrong, I implore you to try. Name a narrative stronger in this game. 🌐🖨️ #M2 only goes up. #PrinterStaysON #M2 will open the minds of everyone in the world to the power of the printer, and the death of the dollar. 🌐🖨️ E4n5gooEoFaDPb1oSDmN2VXjWKekrTn3EFE7KjNKpump

@11vultures @IAmPetersburg Coded

@pooop_real Aped🤝

holy sheet. the $scf founder/pastor got shafted by the pumpfun community and has now launched on bonk. he launched the token himself on bonk and is CURRENTLY in the TG speaking on the VC. taking a punt on this too CMe23KMuWpD1PGq3B1gpu7evYCLRj33e4Ba9UCMsbonk