Deciphering Decentralization
September Newsletter
Hi from New York City 👋,
It’s great to speak with you again.
I’m Satvik - a 16 y/o on a journey to learn and explore as much of the world as possible. This is my monthly newsletter! It’s awesome to have you reading :)
Breaking into Blockchain - Learning Solidity and Web3.0
In the last month, I’ve started teaching myself solidity in a course called Smart Contracts by Buildspace. As I’m going through the course, I’m building my own Web3.0 Website (in react) and connecting it to the Ethereum Blockchain such that people with a wallet can then send me a digital “wave” on the blockchain. If you’re curious about what exactly I’m working on, feel free to check out my Github Repo for the project, which I’ll be periodically updating :)
Side notes:
What’s Web3.0?
Web3.0 is effectively the internet but decentralized. If you’re curious to learn more, feel free to check out the video here for a quick (3 minute) explanation.
Why I think Blockchain+Crypto is the Future
In understanding the usefulness of blockchain, I think it is most productive to start with the most known use-case: Cryptocurrencies.
What is a cryptocurrency?
A cryptocurrency, without any technical understanding, is really just a currency like any other, except instead of being backed by a government, it’s backed by a computational infrastructure.
But why does it matter?
The Status Quo
The Western world over the last 30 years finds itself in a “decline of the nation-state”, while groups like LGBTQ+, feminists, BLM, and Upper-class white people adopting Buddhist and Hindu practices (meditation and yoga) are becoming increasingly common.
People’s identifies are actively diversifying, at the same time of a decline in nationalism in the western world.
So how does this connect back to blockchain?
Peer-to-peer platforms are the ultimate form of diversity because no one has the ability to regulate them. No one can say no to the creation of a virtual group to attach your identity to or a virtual platform for you to store wealth.
Cryptocurrencies let you create your own swiss bank account in the cloud.
In this way, Blockchain acts as a form of empowerment to the individual - allowing their identities, and resources, to cross the limitations of statehood, geography, and cultural barriers.
If I spend half my time in London and New York, I don’t identify as British or American, I don’t need to convert Pounds to Dollars, I can just use Bitcoin everywhere.
To me, it seems almost obvious to say that products, services, and entities that can transverse cultural and geographic barriers will win out in the end, because this is our new reality. Blockchain creates a democratized platform for people to begin to break free of abstract limitations of statehood, and I find that incredibly powerful.
Addressing the Volatility of Crypto
A likely point to be made in the way of increased adoption of cryptocurrencies is the point of volatility in the crypto markets, To some degree, this is addressed by stablecoins, but I still think even non-stable coins are going to see a rise in usefulness and adoption.
Money has value because of a shared belief in its value.
If everyone in the US suddenly stopped using the US dollar and switched to the Japanese Yen, the value of the dollar would crash, and the yen would rise.
This trend would occur because people would have more faith that the Japanese yen can be transferrable for goods and services in the future.
On the other hand, because no one would use the US dollar, it would become far less useful for transactions. Thus, its actual value, in usefulness, and tangible monetary value, would fall.
As described above, people will increasingly adopt crypto because it offers the ability to reduce friction in diversify their identity. Increased adoption means less friction in adoption, which leads more people to follow the diversification of identity trend. And thus, we have a positive feedback loop fueling people to convert onto cryptocurrencies.
My Top Podcast of the Month
Controlling your Dopamine by Huberman Lab
My Insights:
The more we can remove ourselves from compulsive indulgance in activities that give us dopamine, the higher our dopamine baseline will be.
Indulging in things that release dopamine too often (even when used in context of positive habbits (i.e. playing music to help your workout), can lead to dopamine fatigue and burnout by large, unsustainable, flushes of dopamine at once.
Dopamine is relative to your long term baseline and immediate exposure. If you eat something sweet and then something slightly less sweet - the thing that is less sweet might actually taste worse than it would if you ate it first. Too many highs with too much intensity can also deplete your baseline to burnou
Seek out suffering, and normal becomes pleasure.
Dopamine isn’t just your pleasure chemical. It controls your drive and motivation for things outside yourself, and it feels really good. It’s more strongly correlated with the pursuit of things than it is with the reward of once you’ve gotten something (although it is certainly correlated with the pleasure of obtaining something.)
You can coniously tell yourself what activities you are to “enjoy”, almost lying to yourself, and it will actually form neurological pathways that chemically make you enjoy those activities more. In specifics, your prefrontal cortex can effectively guide one of two major dopamine pathways to give you pleasure from whatever you conciously decide.
You are not at the mercy of your subconcious.
The higher your dopamine highs, the lower the crashes.
By learning to regulate your dopamine you can train yourself to recieve dopamine from things that are generally more difficult (i.e. excersize, pursuing goals, etc.) in very sustainable ways.
What’s next?
Flying to Web Summit Portugal - Super psyched that at the end of this month I’ll be flying out to Lisbon, Portugal to attend the annual WebSummit Confrence along with 12 other people at The Knowledge Society :). Catch me there October 30-November 7th.
Reading The Lean Startup by Eric Ries - interesting take on optimizing efficiency and how to gain the most number of useful insights in the least amount of time.
Continuing to Explore Blockchain - I’ve been finding Tim Ferriss podcasts with Balaji Srinivasa, Naval Ravikant, and Nick Spazbo really quite fascinating. Next steps will include reading the Bitcoin and Ethereum Papers, and going deeper into the world of decentralized finance.
Thanks for Reading!
See you Later 👋
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