PaperImperium

Tomorrow will be my last day at GFX Labs.
I joined GFX four years ago when it was brand new, and DAOs just beginning to hit their stride.
In my time leading GFX’s governance arm, I and the rest of the GFX team built a strong brand known for diligence, financial practicality, tokenholder friendliness, and weighting heavily a longterm view. GFX’s governance will still have the same flavor and quality as before, since being a serious, honest, thoughtful actor is built into GFX’s DNA.
GFX has been a wonderful place to work, and would recommend them to anyone applying for a role there.
I’ll still

As an archaeologist, state formation (countries, not chain state), was one of the most important questions in human (pre)history.
Personally, I was always most convinced by a loose framework of theories that centered on the distinction between Roving Bandits and Stationary Bandits.
Roving Bandits took what they wanted, and often that mean burning down the fields and villages you plundered. Vikings and steppe nomads are some relatively modern examples. Also pirates.
Stationary Bandits didn’t move around much, staying within a defined range to repeatedly plunder the same targets. Protection rack

What weird or wonderful projects have recently launched that I might not have heard of?
RWAs, lending, payments, chains, bridges, DEXes, consumer apps, anything
More unique the better.

A governance token’s value is inversely correlated with its credibility as a means to hold management accountable.

“CDP stablecoins can’t scale”
It’s worth noting that 3/4 of USD money supply is CDP-generated dollars.
Chains that lack CDP stables that are at minimum integrated with, and at best fungible with, other stables and lending markets deprive themselves of an important form of stimulus.
Just as when I buy a Tbill in the real world, when I deposit USDC into a lending protocol, there is no expansion of the monetary base. Every dollar present on a chain has to be imported.
CDP stablecoins have not taken off on any chain besides Ethereum (and they’re stagnant even then).
This indicates a role for chain

You have taken a DeFi loans to:

With all the SBF astroturfing going on, it’s important to remember what the fraud was.
SBF said customer deposits were not lent out. This was untrue, he knew it was untrue, and it was in pursuit of financial gain.
Fraud. Insolvency was not the crime, and never was.

As we experience down prices, this is a good time to remember that price ≠ value.
At the end of the day, an investment is worth the sum of all income you can extract from it.
This means discounted cash flow (intrinsic value) +/- speculative premium/discount (extrinsic value)
I personally am a value investor, who underwrites only on the basis of intrinsic value. But it’s not illegal, immoral, or impossible to underwrite on the basis of future demand being higher than current demand.
Most crypto is, quite frankly, worthless. But not all of it - both from an intrinsic and extrinsic valuation fram

Are there any examples where tokenholders removed a founder, a foundation, or its board of directors?
I’ve been looking for precedent and this seems to be a theoretical possibility only? If you know of an example, please drop it below, with context.
Sushi maybe? Although I don’t think that was a removal as much as a resignation

Are there any examples where tokenholders removed a founder, a foundation, or its board of directors?
I’ve been looking for precedent and this seems to be a theoretical possibility only? If you know of an example, please drop it below, with context.

I won’t out them here, but met with someone from an upcoming RWA project today, and it was a refreshingly solid idea.
Where there’s one, there’s usually more, so hopefully 2026 will have a good crop of projects with clear usefulness and credible business plans.

Gov token prices seem to finally reflect that they’re the bottom of the food chain. Founders and foundations are the natural predators of tokenholders.
Tokenholders will always just be a source of free financing until they stand up for themselves

Gov token prices seem to finally reflect that they’re the bottom of the food chain. Founders and foundations are the natural predators of tokenholders.
Tokenholders will always just be a source of free financing until they stand up to founders and foundations.

That’s not a very good GDP print at 1.4% annualized. Especially with slightly higher PCE. If the previous quarter’s GDP print of 4.4% was accurate, that’s a really rapid slowdown.

Whether an AI created or contributed to some code really isn’t material. What it’s important is that there are review processes in place (which could include a different AI) prior to production.
If autocomplete changes an email’s message, our eyebrows don’t go up about autocomplete being used. We just say, “Well, I guess you didn’t read over this closely before hitting send.”
You could go further down the technology stack and think of typos that didn’t exist with handwriting for the same point, if you prefer.
Anyway, let’s find a more interesting topic to fill the timeline with.

Pro tip: You can turn off auto-play for videos. I did this a year ago and made the doom scrolling much less doomified. Text and thumbnails aren’t Michelangelo, but they’re better than short form video.