Happy Middle of the Decade :)
Let's talk about AI, Crypto, and the Next Five Years.
Hackers. Crackers. Countrymen. Lend me your headphones.
July, 6, 2025 was the exact middle of the decade. July, 2, 2025 was the middle point between 2000 and 2050. And today is halfway between the last time anybody thought about who Satoshi Nakamoto is and that gleaming moment in the future when the world realizes how Ethereum started.
Things we can't even imagine yet will be here before we know to even be looking for them.
That is the nature of exponential technological growth.
MMXXX is at your service in this regard. We think we can help make sense of the rate of change approaching, at least better than most, and enrich your experience of the NEWS - mainly by slowing it down and focusing on the TRENDS behind the news each day.
Isn't it amazing how technology keeps developing, constantly going and going, but this moment is special for some reason or different from times before because why? "There might be some unforeseen dangers" according to the "experts" but let's just brace ourselves rather than check ourselves. Forward march! Who cares anymore about "to be or not to be," or "if" we should or shouldn't. This wild ride of exponential technological growth is going... to be.
But what is it going to be? Something we can't control? Will AI move beyond our ability to understand it before we know what's happening? Will it understand us before we know it does?
Or is it what we make of it? Like with wolves, will humanity tame this wild creature and form a partnership with it to survive in a Brave New World?
Are we already over simplifying AI by assuming we can make analogies about it using wolves? It's just like a dog? Isn't it? Maybe we should ask Palantir CEO Alex Karp. He's a philosopher by trade and not a typical techy CEO despite his dabbling in investing apparently leading to his co-founding of today's defense-tech darling, Palantir, with Peter Theil all the way back in 2003.
Is Alex Karp the new archetype of Silicon Valley? Is the emergence of AI driving a change from tech-visionary to ethicist-thinker? Is this all as simple as going from making stuff to deciding how we feel about it? Well, since The President has asked Palantir to compile data on Americans - including counter-terrorism data - perhaps we should use caution?
Or..?
How about we just roll the dice and see what comes up shall we? Just fling'em Vegas style. What happens in black-ops labs, stays in black-ops labs. What's this? The first new technology of the future is going to be (drum roll please)...AI...I mean LLMs? I mean, you know what I mean. It's baby AI! Happy Birthday!
Did we really get AI at the same time as the Military or did we just get artificial artificial intelligence?
We're seriously just going to start exponential-technological-growth off with AI? We can't start off with something else? Something smaller? Can we buy a vowel or something? How does new technology get rolled out anyways? Don't we get to decide? We don't get to pick what we want? What about really good stuff like this? Can't we build a bunch of these?
Guys, it's a sponge that makes drinking water no cap.
In their own words:
Researchers developed a sponge-like aerogel that transforms seawater into freshwater using only sunlight.
This innovative technology provides a sustainable and low-energy solution for desalination, addressing global water scarcity.
The aerogel features microscopic air pockets and is created from a paste of carbon nanotubes and cellulose nanofibers.
The material’s scalability and efficiency offer a promising path for widespread implementation, potentially benefiting millions worldwide.
Can we please give it up for "The" Hong Kong Polytechnic University? Awesome job guys!
I guess the regular news had better things to talk about. I think they missed covering this one. I guess they make a lot of money talking about more important stuff because it's more relevant and interesting than new drinking water technologies. Who even needs to drink water anyways?
At least now, when the Aliens arrive, Humanity doesn't have to be "that guy" at the party who died of thirst even though his planet is made of 70% water. No one wants to be that guy.
Imagine everyone in the world having water. Isn't that something we can all agree on? Where do we apply the cultural shame to make this happen? What an amazing technology. What a use-case for cellulose and carbon-nanotubes and...and sponges. This is the type of thing we should be writing about everyday. Can these sponges eventually be 3D printed?
From water to the White House, as we state in our whitepaper, "Techno/social trends are driving events faster than ever...current events need to be contextualized and connected to the trends driving [them] so knowledge can be understood by our readers in deeper and more meaningful ways."
If we're going to live through exponential-technological-growth it would at least be nice to understand what is going on as best we can right? That's why we created crypto-scribing and custom journalism. Please read about them in our whitepaper.
Thanks for reading the introduction. If you want to learn more about cellulose, read this. If you want to know more about carbon-nano-tubes, read this. If you want to know more about the middle of the decade, and the next five years, just keep reading :).
WELCOME TO THE LAG
We're entering THE LAG. The beginning of the exponential growth curve. Scientists call it THE LAG period because, even though an exponential system is being studied, the start of its' -exponentialness - seems to drag along at a much slower pace compared to the rest of the curve. And that's true.
It just looks like a flat line.
But that flat line is being filled up with all the technologies that have ever been invented. The reason the line is flat is that when compared to the rate of technological change of what is coming - that is to say technological progression - the advancements of the past are so few and far between that they basically form a flat line. What is coming is the vertical explosion of technological development that carries Humanity into and beyond The Singularity, the point at which we will apparently "transcend our biology" according to the books author Ray Kurzweil.
The point is that - for us - a long flat line known as the past 350 years, from the railroad to the microchip, (even though it's far longer) is, finally, beginning to curve upwards. Like. We're here guys. LLMs will lead to AGIs. This will change the world like no technology before. This is the start of exponential-technological-growth. If we thought the first half of the decade getting here was - interesting - the world leading up to our namesake of 2030 is likely going to surpass our expectations.
So enjoy the world as it is friends. Once we get going here, for better or worse or the kaleidoscope of what could have been, there will be no going back.
Maybe we'll get a modernized Characteristica Universalis at least? Something to help us along our way? Or personalized medicine? Or verifiable voting? Something? Anything?
Honestly we'll be lucky if we can just get the difference right between overarching generalizations like "DE-FI" and foundational concepts like "a decentralized system." DE-FI means decentralized guys, decentralized. That's an important one to get right. Right? Because decentralizing one thing to all points is the opposite of centralization right. Right?
The internet was supposed to be the bank guys, remember? How did the Chicago Board of Trade get their hands on selling Bitcoin?
"Paging Dr. Nakamoto. Paging Dr. Satoshi Nakamoto. Dr. Nakamoto to the E.R. please. Someone is messing with your consensus."
We (the cryptonauts of the internet) have sacrificed so much already haven't we? Decentralization in Bitcoin and Ethereum networking was supposed to be premium. And we've gone from one thing to another just to keep it going. We've broken our own rules to save The Dao. Mainly so we could all keep our money. Just to allow FIAT to attach itself like a parasite. The internet will undoubtedly become "the bank" but that will apparently come after we let the bankers figure this out for themselves.
We shouldn't have abdicated our principals so easily.
We've gone from mining, to forking, to mining, to staking and the idea that this is how crypto is going to work in the future is ludicrous. This is how reddit works. This is how mods control subs. This is not how international finance works. And for those paying attention it seems like twenty years worth of regulation might be incoming at any moment. The FEDS have finally gotten their act together it seems.
Outside of regulation, maybe Ripple XRP and The President's World Liberty Financial will do something on a fin-tech basis. Otherwise it's all starting to look and walk like a duck and sound like a duck. Quack quack to the moon. Make sure you exchange with USDT, because you know, who even remembers FTX anyways? Lets all just keep using Tether. No problems. This is just how it works in international finance right. Right? Can someone ask John McAfee please?
Good thing the entire future of the internet and money isn't based around some unknown guy with a "trust me I'm Asian and good at mathputers" name and everyone just acts like it doesn't matter because we can all be rich now. Which kinda means we're not rich if everyone else is. Whatever. As long as our relative richness to people who actually work for their money is still grossly disproportionate. That's why the groceries are cheap right? It's so nice living in a bubble isn't it. I wonder what happens when it pops? "Just keep it crypto Bro you know? Like, you gotta decentralize it man." At least "jockey" stockbroker types aren't making a fortune shilling MEME coins about digital rocks. Ahh crypto. We could have been Star-Trek. But we chose to be Boiler-Room.
What do you think the world would think of us if they knew what was possible with our tech and then they see us staking so much money behind if we think Zelenskyy wore a suit recently. And what a suit constitutes.
If "the medium is the message" this isn't even about him wearing a suit. It's about why he would. But we like to troll so hard sometimes. Will we ever grow up?
While we're on the subject of how smart we all are for investing in tokens that aren't used for anything anywhere by anybody, except $160M to argue about what a business suit is or isn't, are you guys seeing how crypto is a bubble use-case? Like, because this is what we do with it that's how we should know. Because this is ridiculous. The future isn't about digital rocks or even digital gold. Its always about real rocks and real gold. We're just gonna tokenize them guys. Digital rocks aren't even rocks. They. Are. Not. Real. Guys. This is just the bubble use case. And this iteration of crypto as money is wrong. Need more convincing?
Look at these wallets guys. Some of the oldest wallets that exist. True OGs suddenly active after never even a peep of activity in a decade? Sounds like they have a different primary checking account? Within the same twenty-four hour period eight long dormant BTC wallets were activated for the first time in fourteen years. It happened on the Fourth-of-July. Over eighty BTC gone. More than eight and a half $BUSD!
You want to know why all the token-houses started hiring OSINT? It's not because they understand where they are going. They need people to watch these wallets - to look for the indication that people who actually know stuff (old whales) are moving. And then they base their entire portfolios around these moves instead of the tech behind one or another project. Which is actually irrelevant since only one-percent of the global population even uses Bitcoin. Nothing matters except getting in early and arbitrage. This is one of the main reasons we must conclude we're in a bubble.
And oh yeah, Satoshi Nakamoto who? If you need more evidence, let's get academic shall we?
THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS
So is something big about to happen in crypto? Is the evidence of legacy BTC wallets suddenly being active again indication that something is about to go down? Does it have to do with the impending federal regulation?
The volume in crypto trading is, and always has been, absurdly stupid. Much ado about nothing. MEME coins. Even BTC and ETH are MEME coins. Think about it. The idea they represent is more of a asset - or even a utility - then they are "digital assets" - securities - or digital gold for example.
Despite the idea of digital gold being around since Nathaniel Popper wrote his book on the subject in 2015, aren't we, as technologists and futurists, being a tad presumptuous about our certainty regarding the cross over between the digital world and the real world?
This isn't about holograms in our glasses.
Unless MMXXX is missing something, isn't the future of digital gold in the tokenization of actual gold, rather than Popper's notion of "it's the same but digital." We can't be too hard on Nathanial Popper. He went to Harvard after all. And he works for the New York Times. So cut the guy some slack. Maybe they think gold is valuable because people collect it or something. Maybe they think that money arose from the Barter system.
Dear Harvard. Dear New York Times.
1.) Money did not arise from Barter.
2.) Gold isn't valuable because people collect it.
Sincerely Yours, MMXXX
(Let's take a moment of silence to restore the soul and purpose of journalism and remember that some carried typewriters onto the beaches of war. We must do better. We must prepare with more noble purposes than to ride a gift horse to the moon. Forget holding on for dear life. We need to be building. Who wants to disrupt Bitcoin. Who has an idea? Who wants it? Whose running?)
If we could understand the magnitude of the bubble and it's stupidity would we become emboldened? Would we become relentless again? Unstoppable again? Hack the planet again? Tarzan boys again? Oh wonder.
Sure ETH has utility as gas, but for what, Ethereum isn't anything close to a world standard for processing. So where is "Ethereum 2.0" going? All you Layer2 supporters out there, which I guess is all of us, do we think Ethereum is the only thing evolving? And is disruption likely to come from inside Ethereum or outside?
Layer2 isn't going to work because it's work arounds for things as they are now. No matter how elaborate your work around for being slow af is, the DLTs of today don't approach what is needed for the future. You can't simply use ZK to "math-stamp" your data all over the blockchain and think that's the way it's going to be.
It's not about using math to prove the data because the data is too much so use elliptical pairing curve cryptography because there is no other way. There are many paths to the top of the mountain. We should all re-devote ourselves to making new progress. What even are we anymore?
Side chains. Sharding. The Lightning Network. SegWit. POS. Even new chains like Solana that go super fast... Just shut up already guys. Please. I know you're smarter than me. But how smart do you have to be to be to be or not to be? This isn't about throughput anymore. This isn't about us anymore. We had our time.
This is about what comes after Ethereum. This is about WEB3 technologies like: tokens, blockchains, and smart-contracts forming a new TRUST layer to the internet. This is how it's been going the whole time guys if we pay ATTENTION. 1.0 read. 2.0 write. WEB3.0 trust.
It's the same internet we know and love, it's just that tokens have become as ubiquitous as emails or texting. Everything online can be verified. This is that start of what's coming and the pressure cooker of modern life's shadows will drive these technological niches into the mainstream.
Turns our Dad's digital rocks we're the foundation for Jr's digital identity. Something to think about.
Even still, understanding the hardware and software of the future is at best - speculative - with so many breakthroughs about to be happening. Even the experts struggle. Have you noticed how, for example, the scientists developing AI continually underestimate it's abilities and development time-frames? Maybe they should start writing poetry since we're all going to feel their level of ineptitude at grappling with such profoundly influential technology soon.
If lawyers can write music, maybe scientists can write poetry. After all if, "the society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools,” does that mean “A society that separates its scientists from its ethicists will have its technology built by the reckless and its consequences faced by the unprepared.?”
Maybe. Maybe it be. Maybe that's why Alex Karp is a philosopher. He represents our deepest selfishness. We have used technology to understand everything - even God Himself - but when we have the ultimate technology, now it's philosophical. Now it's not about measuring performance with scientific metrics and engineering standards. Now that we have AI, we need to know how it feels, and so we transpose our most human metric upon this new life form - philosophy - as if our stupid thoughts will save us from the shadow being cast by our greed not just across our own world, but of every future person who inhabits it.
No pressure Homies. Everybody's working for the weekend. What could possibly go wrong? You just had to bring Pippin into this?! Didn't you?! Just remember the words of the light Wizard who was keeping that Palantiri in check, "there is only one Dark Lord, and He does not share power."
While Alex Karp might agree that Thucydides and Gandalf always essential, technologists with less philosophical training from Marxist breading grounds like Goethe University whose famous "Frankfurt school economic" paradigm created past thinkers like Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, Jürgen Habermas, and Hannah Arendt might recommend Thomas Khun's book - The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. In which Khun reminds us the bubbles of new technologies don't pop older paradigms right away. Remember what he says, "the first iterations of our understanding about what was just invented are often wrong." It's when these new technologies are combined with others - new and old - that the breakthrough happens.
So when considered broadly, is this really even about everything fitting into the slow, pathetic, initial iterations of WEB3 like Ethereum that we have now? Or is this more about how WEB3 technologies like; Bitcoin, Ethereum and the vast amount of ideas they have spun off, will fit into and inspire other things in the future and enhance those instead? Which is the way it works again?
The Aliens will just give us all golden gooses if we dance? Then we take the golden gooses and we decentralize them all over. Then they start to lay their golden eggs and we tokenize those eggs using blockchain technology. Then we take the blocks and we build shelters for ourselves and the geese so that we can hold onto our golden eggs. Can you eat golden eggs with regular toast?
The biggest technologies are being pressed to the front of the line. AI and quantum. This is about AI and Quantum...and...and...sponges. Beyond quantum computing, this is about the Quantum Internet, and how the architectures of today are forming the computing inspiration for tomorrow. The DOE's whitepaper on the Quantum Internet is also celebrating an anniversary this month BTW. Happy 5th Birthday Quantum Internet Whitepaper. You're growing up so fast and we're all so proud of you.
As Thomas Kuhn noted in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, the early stage of any new technology is guided by expectations, which are often wrong. "The man who is striving to solve a problem defined by existing knowledge and technique is not, however, just looking around. He knows what he wants to achieve, and he designs his instruments and directs his thoughts accordingly. Unanticipated novelty, the new discovery, can emerge only to the extent that his anticipations about nature and his instruments prove wrong. … There is no other effective way in which discoveries might be generated.”
ASK YOURSELF
Why does Larry Fink go with the President on his trip abroad to Saudi Arabia? Is President Trump connecting high level technologists like Fink (Blackrock), Sam Altman (OpenAI), Jensen Huang (Nvidia), Alex Karp (Palantir), Arvind Krishna (IBM), and Ruth Porat (Google, Alphabet) to markets in the Middle-East? Is President Trump offering an olive-branch instead of a fight? The carrot instead of the stick? The Art of the Deal has to be in opposition to something else?
Are we watching The President close business deals for the biggest tech CEOs that will define the future of international commerce and security?
The interplay of exponential-technological-growth upon politics cannot be understated and this is where the game-theoretical goes vertical alongside the new technologies.
There is a neat case study in game-theory that helps us illustrate how leaders in new political and technological systems posture themselves, again reinforcing the philosophical into this conversation at a broad level. Have you heard of The Prisoners Dilemma? It is something to consider when looking at exponential-technological-growth. In an increasingly digital world, it is also almost refreshing to begin understanding how The Prisoner's Dilemma from game-theory can find human roots in digital soil and reinforce our relevance in an AI world. Can we learn from The President's style about how to deal with difficult, long term, negotiations? Is that what our relationship with AI is going to be and already is? How long have we even been on this train and where the heck are we even going? To the stars?
From game-theory, a subject we should all study more and be exposed to earlier - especially in America - The Prisoner's Dilemma scenario is where two individuals must choose between cooperating or betraying each other without knowing what the other will do, like two prisoners in jail. Though mutual cooperation gives a better outcome for both, rational self-interest leads some to betray their mutual interest in favor of themselves. This results in a worse outcome for each, highlighting the conflict between individual incentives and collective well-being.
Is this how we should be thinking of the future? As a game-theory model? And is it even wise to play game-theory with super-intelligences?
Money is evolving. And that is helping to evolve the internet. The new is being combined with the old and if Thomas Khun is correct, it won't be much longer (since it's be nye on twenty years now) until the bubbles begin to pop and finally, finally, finally we begin to see these revolutionary technologies find their true paths. Like a single person finding their way, the struggle of our ecosystem being wrong allows for so much personal and collective development that change becomes inevitable.
Forward march. It's what Humans are best at. And indeed it is our mandate to cultivate, subdue, increase and to multiply, and to fill the Earth exercising a responsible leadership over it in the image of our Creator. "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver." And as it is with a single person, so it is with our entire species.
Getting to 2030 won't be easy. Sometimes you have to take two steps back in order to really take one forward.
Remember, none of us ever really go it alone. God loves us and while His Son may be gone for the time being, His Spirit blows across the Earth each day searching our hearts. Whose running? Who wants it? Who wants the blessing?
A silversmith explains that to purify silver, it must be held in the hottest part of the fire to burn away impurities. He must watch - not passively but relentlessly - the entire time so it doesn’t get damaged by the heat of the crucible. When asked how he knows it’s done, he replies, “When I can see my reflection in it.”
Maybe this is what Humanity is searching for in AI and the philosophical underpinnings of this radical transformation in exponential-technological-growth are finally beginning to catch up to the technology. It's never been wise for Humanity to play God. But it has always been apart of our story and who is MMXXX to think we can eb the tides. Where were we when He made the universe?
Can we expect AI to feel about us the way we feel about God? Will it help us understand what to believe? Can this type of belief system even survive such radical changes? Good thing we can strive to understand the TRENDS behind the NEWS.
Catch you on the flip side (of exponential-technological-growth).
"Too easy."
screen capture: https://www.sustainability-times.com/energy/this-defies-everything-we-knew-sun-powered-sponge-turns-saltwater-into-freshwater-without-using-a-single-watt-of-electricity/
screen capture: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Prisoner%27s_Dilemma_conceptual_matrix.svg