Jon Wu

I would estimate as a business that it costs me an additional 2% to accept stablecoins over simple wire / ACH. For customers with stablecoin balances it's almost always easier to *send* stables: - instant test txn - instant settlement - "flight tracking" via block explorer - close to 0 fees But as a receiver, there's a much higher operating burden. Here's the workflow for accepting wires: - send invoice to customer via Quickbooks, including wire instructions in PDF - confirm wire instructions over phone (best practice, but in reality I don't do it) - customer wires; wait 1-3 days - funds hit Mercury account and are spendable immediately - Quickbooks invoice automatically confirmed paid, AR report updated And here's the stablecoin workflow: - send invoice to customer via Quickbooks - send receiving address instructions - confirm network and request test transaction - confirm test transaction, request full send - receive $USDC transaction to Coinbase - remit funds to Mercury; wait 1-3 days ("instant" withdrawal costs $100-200) - manually close Quickbooks invoice as paid - manually update AR report - manually tag transaction with customer name (otherwise all transactions are simply from Coinbase) - and all of this has to be done immediately, otherwise it gets mixed into one big Coinbase balance and it becomes impossible to untangle EOY So: - stablecoins practically take the same amount of time (1-3 days) - they require 4-5 extra manual touchpoints - they don't automatically reconcile, so someone with less context on the business would have to follow a paper trail vs. simply looking at Quickbooks I'd guess this overhead is +2% friction over traditional rails, mostly in operating labor and owner mental overhead. The way this has to improve is via a stablecoin-native neobank (of which there are many starting right now). That neobank has to be at feature parity at Mercury in order for me to switch--a tall order given Mercury is (in my opinion) a best-in-class financial front-end. I'm beyond pleased with my experience with Mercury and the product geniuses there seem to anticipate every need I have while proactively designing the interface to intercept and eliminate friction. I'm rooting for a provider built on stablecoin payment rails that can actually take advantage of the speed and transparency of stablecoins while also meeting all the boring reconciliation and accounting needs of a business.

@spermracing let's take international grudges to the sperm dome

Introducing the Sperm Racing World Cup. 128 Countries. And a $100k grand prize. Apply below to represent your country:

@zach_yadegari so sick. congrats

Cal AI has been acquired by MyFitnessPal 🚨 Henry and I started Cal AI as 17-year old high school students with one mission: make calorie tracking easier with AI. In just 18 months, we’ve helped millions of people lose millions of pounds. And we broke $50m in ARR along the way. We are at an incredible inflection point in history where ANYBODY can build a product that can improve lives and make millions. As founders, we get a lot of praise. The truth is that this would not have been possible without our incredible 30+ person team. We are so proud of what this team has accomplished, and are thankful to everyone that has been instrumental in Cal AI’s development and success. Cal AI will continue as a separate app from MyFitnessPal. The combined team will share resources to continue helping people achieve their fitness goals!

@cplangfo @fortyiq Incredibly fun chat, can’t wait for the full season

Tomorrow I'm launching LORE: The Podcast! Our first guest is @jonwu_: crypto whisperer, excellent follow, and founder of frontier tech comms firm @fortyiq. Subscribe here so you don't miss the drop: lore.site. Illustration credit: the infinitely talented Blair DeCrane.

@RobertMSterling Epic post. Thanks for sharing

Most of the highest IQ people I know have nothing to show for it. They work dead-end jobs and spend their spare time playing video games and arguing over Star Wars minutiae on Reddit, contributing little to the world and producing nothing of value. It’s not because they’re misunderstood geniuses, whose brilliance is incomprehensible to us normies (as much as some of them would like to think this to be the case). It’s because the culture and the incentivizes of the K-12 school system and the academic world failed to teach them what society actually values. If you’re naturally smart, you can sail through the education system with ease, even at the post-grad level. You go to class (or don’t go to class, as the case may be!), write an occasional paper, study a little bit the night before your midterms and finals, and walk away with pieces of paper attesting to your a status as a Certifiable Smart and Capable Person™️. Because this is the only world you’ve known for the first 22 to 25 years of life, you mistakenly believe that this matters, that the broader world—the one in which, unbeknownst to yourself, one must create value for others in other to receive value for oneself—will appreciate you simply by virtue of your natural gifts. It’s not your fault for believing this. But it’s wrong. Because, as we normal people know, what our society—whatever every flourishing society in human history, for that matter—value is output. Deliverables. Product. Things of utility to other people, be they economic, cultural, intellectual, or any other nature that someone, somewhere, will be willing to exchange some measure of value to gain access to. (Side note: Let’s be honest, it’s all economic in the end.) Your natural talents—your high IQ, your analytical capabilities, your creativity, etc.—are INPUTS for these outputs, not outputs unto themselves. And, in a world that rewards production, not consumption, inputs only matter as a means to the end of delivering said outputs. So you now find yourself in a competitive environment, where the gifts that brought you heretofore in life are no longer celebrated for their own sake but are valued only in as much as they are useful in delivering work. For many, it’s a brutal awakening. But there’s a second lesson you’re about to learn that’s likely even more painful: Work requires… work. As in a work ethic. Discipline. Grit. Accountability. And you likely never developed those things. You didn’t need to. You were rewarded—celebrated, even—by virtue of NOT needing them. This is why gifted education in the K-12 system is so critical. It’s not just so that smart kids “don’t get bored” (though that, in its own right, is certainly important!). It’s because, if the best and brightest of our youth aren’t tasked with work commensurate with their abilities, they won’t be forced to actually work. And they’ll never won’t develop the skills and personality traits that society requires until, for too many of them, it’s too late. If we want more Isaac Newtons and fewer disgruntled Reddit trolls, that’s the change we need to make to our education system and the investment we need to make in these kids’ future.

@fern lfg!! congrats Adam!

After some time off, I'm excited to share that I'm starting a new position as Head of Product, Onchain & Defi at Robinhood! In my new role, I'll be overseeing the HOOD blockchain, Robinhood Wallet, and our tokenization efforts. I could not be more excited to join a company that has been on the cutting edge of fintech for the past decade, regularly seeing around corners and creating new and exciting products to meet customer needs. As somebody who has been in fintech since 2011, I've long seen the value that blockchains can provide to make finance cheaper, faster, and more accessible to the masses. It took some regulatory changes, an administration change, and for us to get beyond the Toy Phase of this new technology and it's now full steam ahead. If you are excited about ushering in the next phase of global finance, please hit me up! Robinhood is hiring engineering, designers, and PMs Onwards!

@RobertMSterling @brandon 🫡

@brandon Tagging the legendary @jonwu_ because he knows tons of people in this space

Looking to expand our crypto GTM team by 1. If you’re a savage in this space message me.

@MoneroMahesh congrats guys!!

1/ We’re thrilled to announce EV3 Venture Fund II, an oversubscribed $61.74M early-stage venture fund dedicated to backing entrepreneurs with generational drive and ambition. We’re tripling down on crypto with bigger checks and deeper involvement. Watch the EV3 Vision Below:

as a parent i now understand the adult opposition to snowdays when you're a kid you're just like, wait--i get to stay home and transform into a feral animal? how is that not the best thing for all parties

@samlogic yup

@jonwu_ Read through all the replies; no one has given a compelling answer.

I have a very stupid question about AGI: If AGI replaces production, and therefore there is no need for labor, then there are no jobs and consumption disappears, obviating the need for production. So doesn't *the thing that does all production* necessarily ruin the economy?

@cplangfo 😂

explaining what it's been like in crypto since 10/10

@obvs___ 🙏

@jonwu_ Android: revanced.app/patches -> "Disable Reels scrolling" iOS: regram.fouadraheb.com -> needs iOS dev certificate (or a little digging around /r/sideloaded to get setup)

i'm in a long term battle against dopamine addiction. i suspect i'm not the only one who thinks i have a problem, but i'm very open about my disastrous phone addiction and i've tried most solutions. but i think i have an answer. use this system and your phone use will plummet: 0. admit you have a problem alcoholics anonymous 101. if your phone is in any way getting in the way of your goals--being present with your family, being productive at work, getting enough sleep and rest--you have an addiction. it's not useful to dance around it and say "oh maybe i use my phone a bit too much." if you feel physically compelled to reach for your device, feel out of control when you scroll, avoiding things in your life because of your phone habits--you are a textbook addict and you are abusing digital dopamine. 1. begin by disaggregating your phone have single-purpose objects so you don't have to pick up your phone to get tasks done. below are some recs but most alternatives will work just as well: - wristwatch: g-shock 5600 series - scientific calculator: TI-30X IIS - camera: fujifilm x-t or x100 series - physical alarm clock (or a baby who wakes you up): any - kitchen timer: any--buy 3-4 and scatter them around - paper notebook and pen: traveler's notebook for to-do's and daily tasks, leuchtturm for general purpose and moleskine ruled journals for journaling all these things combined cost about the price of a new iPhone (the vast majority of it being the camera), and not only are they more convenient and better designed for their individual tasks, their specificity means they are more engaging and beautiful than little skeuomorphic apps. the principle is that every time you pick up your phone for a functional task, you are tempted to enter the dopamine casino. so a huge part of the battle is just reducing the number of pick-ups, and the way to reduce pick-ups is to make accessing basic functions easy without a phone. 2. kill night-time scrolling i use opal or cold turkey blocker to set hard limits around scrolling media after 9pm: youtube, instagram, tiktok, X. if you need to use social media for work, as i do, this doesn't kill your ability to do so--it just makes it impossible to scroll mindlessly at night 3. cold-turkey your weakness i used to convince myself i had enough self control to set an app limit on games, play 10 minutes a day, and move on with my life then i'd find myself mainlining balatro at 2am on an old iphone without app restrictions, sitting on the floor tethered to an outlet to keep the 2017-era battery from dying there are some things that some people are not meant to consume. for me, those things are games of *any kind.* that doesn't just mean no Actually Good Games like balatro but no casual games, no word games, no cross words, no chess. no games whatsoever. it is far, far easier to quit your weaknesses cold turkey than to give yourself a little dab of digital heroin every single day and hope you don't find a way to acquire more. 4. install parental restrictions on your device and throw away the key i have my phone set up that i can't uninstall apps, because i discovered if you do allow uninstalls, you can reset app restrictions by uninstalling then reinstalling an app. so i set a parental control on my phone that blocks uninstalls and let my wife set the password. she's since forgotten the password. you have to set controls during times of sobriety so that you can't circumvent those controls during times of desperation. you don't always act like a crack addict, but when you do, you'll be glad Sober You locked the crack away. 5. grayscale where people fail with grayscale is assigning triple-click of the powerbutton to grayscale toggle. you should still make that assignment, but it's too easy to click for color, forget to go back, and stay on it. instead, go to apple automations and use this trigger setting: - turn on color filters - - you close any app (you have to manually select them all) that way even if you enable color for certain apps that absolutely require it (maps), you default back to grayscale as soon as you close out grayscale absolutely KILLS my desire to use my phone. the phone simply isn't that interesting without color. 5 steps. you can implement all this in less time than it took to read this post. godspeed

@obvs___ wow, link?

@jonwu_ I've been playing around with this and have tried following the usual 'greyscale filter' advice but never got it to stick Recently found patched versions of apps that gimp the feature set, currently running a version of Instagram without a Reels tab

@n00buntu @grok think of consumption as being downstream of income and then it makes more sense

@jonwu_ > consumption disappears @grok what definition of consumption is being used? Because obviously humans will still need to eat, travel, shelter, clothe.

@0xAvious it's extremely real

@jonwu_ please tell me this isn't real

@svpwycherley this seems obviously true now that you say it

@jonwu_ "Cheaply" is endogenous. Say AGI is more productive than humans on every task. In equilibrium, performing tasks are still not going to be costless, and prices are going to direct AGI to those tasks it has a greater advantage in

@svpwycherley (i'm with you i'm just trying to steelman the "AGI replaces all labor" claim)

@jonwu_ It will still have resource constraints! Energy, compute capacity, availability of rare earth elements etc. Even if it becomes much more energy efficient, the theory of comparative advantage should still apply.

@svpwycherley is Ricardo relevant if literally every single thing can be automated? i think this might be a terminology debate, but "AGI" I assume means "it does everything better and more cheaply than humans with no resource constraints"

@jonwu_ Yes, this is why it wouldn't replace all production. Labor share of income will decline if its labor-substituting, but it won't be eliminated. Even if AGI and robots together had absolute advantage in *everything*, comparative advantage still means human labor will be valuable

@BaronHakkinen Where does the UBI come from

@jonwu_ Great Depression x2. The government will have to step in and provide UBI for the armies of unemployed, most likely by raising taxes and closing loopholes.