Cheryl’s writing is second to none. Wow. “The crypto industry wants to have it both ways: we want to build world-changing technology that's "unstoppable" and "permissionless," but we also want to disclaim responsibility when that technology enables genuinely harmful behavior.”

leave it to me to write a 3,000 think piece on a friday afternoon when the weather is immaculate

building powerful tools comes with powerful enemies!

Roman Storm's conviction is splitting the crypto community in half, and it's not falling along the usual tribal lines At its core is an uncomfortable truth: when regulators don't understand new technology, they don't write new laws, they criminalize the developers I unpack it all in my latest piece 👇

update: i’ve joined the incredible team at @privy_io to scale operations and support our industry-shaping customers. over the moon to reunite with @segall_max, @henri_stern, and @jayhinz and co to enable a new generation of global internet-native financial and consumer products. just getting started!!!

Crypto isn't going through a personality crisis. It's just growing up. The tension between “crypto-native” and “crypto-adjacent” isn’t a battle for the soul of the industry. It’s a sign of maturation. Every new platform starts this way: a small group of power users pushes the limits, funds the infrastructure, and creates the conditions for the rest of the world to show up. @Polymarket's top 196 users (top 0.06%) drive half the volume. Their bets build the trust layer for casual users to lean on. @farcaster_xyz's early adopters pay to mint, build clients, and experiment with onchain UX so new users and crypto-curious can scroll in peace. @blackbird_xyz hides token plumbing behind better restaurant rewards. These aren’t edge cases. This is how scale works. And the shift from cowboy founders to commercial ones? It’s not a replacement. It’s a merge. The builders winning right now aren’t web2 devs adding token wrappers. They’re the ones who grok crypto’s technical unlocks and know how to ship them through familiar distribution rails. @chippedsocial turns your manicure into a social rewards system, letting you tap to share your profile, earn points for making connections, and redeem them for real-world perks. @zora makes NFTs disappear for the end user by understanding the culture deeply enough to abstract it.

Tokens are balance sheet expansion technology.

The builders winning right now aren’t web2 devs adding token wrappers. They’re the ones who grok crypto’s technical unlocks and know how to ship them through familiar distribution rails. @richardchen39 @base @zora @farcaster_xyz @Polymarket @chippedsocial @blackbird_xyz @tldr_x

“Hundreds of USDC transactions happening naturally while people focused on the art, music, and ideas. This is crypto culture at its absolute best: weird, optimistic, and completely unafraid to experiment with new ways of bringing people together.”