SwiFt

having worked in the blockchain space for ~2.5 years I've formed some unpopular opinions that I'd like to share. 1. the problems with security are laughably underestimated by almost everyone here. most people act as if losing your identity and all of your money because you clicked the wrong button is not a massively huge, unacceptable, gaping problem. this still happens all the time, even to "veterans". this is such a problem that I find it tough to recommend to people who are not tech savvy to even try using most of this stuff. 2. the large majority of companies are absurdly overvalued. at peak euphoria there was software that barely worked and with hardly any actual users valued at multiple billions of $, there are still protocols valued a billion $ or more who have yet to launch a working product and if launched, the majority of these projects will no where even close to live up to their marketing or self-imposed hype and often have critical issues they have yet to actually figure out that are part of what they promised, and are often just overly complex ponzi schemes who have successfully overpromised and confused investors enough to give them money. 3. I love most of the people I've met and have worked with. that being said, there is a massive variance of people working in this space, more-so than anywhere else I've worked and by a long shot. this means being bombarded by a countless stream of grifters and people who want to simply use you as a financial instrument or a stepladder of some sort. when you reach a somewhat high profile this becomes unmanageable and will affect your mental health. my dms and many of my tweets are bombarded by airdrop farmers or scammers. people will go to almost any length to get your attention only to often just be trying to get something out of you once you actually talk with them. 4. there are few use cases that actually make sense today. finance / payments, digital ownership, data archival, recently our infrastructure is beginning to be able to handle the scale of things like gaming and social. but as a developer building an app outside of these domains, it's extremely tough to find a use case that's valuable to the *average* person in the world, especially with the limitations of wallet UX and security. instead everyone keeps building for the exact same set of users over and over. these are *extremely* talented builders, this isn't their fault, it just isn't possible today with the current state of the technology. 5. almost everyone you meet is founding a company of some sort, often competing with a hundred other similar products that do or are hoping to do the same thing, instead of collaborating. almost all with the hopes of launching a token and striking it rich. yes, this happens in the traditional software world, but it is at an extreme in the blockchain world. innovation is great though, so this could be looked at as a good thing if you take into consideration that a percentage of these people are actual geniuses with good intentions who deserve to be successful, which is the case IME. 6. business models are fucked. there are very few protocols or apps generating actual revenue, most are just hoping to launch a token. this is because it is very tough to build a product, get users, and monetize with the current state of the technology. there are a few outliers of course, but they are just that. 7. hype as a measure of integrity. it's all a blur. the more hype a team, company, person, etc... tries to gather around themselves the less I can trust them. every day there are countless announcements all claiming to be revolutionary or game changing. there are teams who have raised hundreds of millions simply from tweeting out the right things. instead the teams and people I've learned to trust are the ones who ship then shout, and who are pragmatic about their updates. @paradigm is a great example of this, only talking and gaining excitement once a big thing is ready, and usually it is of very high quality. an announcement of an announcement or an announcement of a pre-announcement is not unheard of in this space and is a huge red flag. >> conclusion I have more I could go into but I'll stop for now. the point of this isn't to be negative, I am one of the biggest believers of this technology. instead it's to be a realistic view of how things are in hopes that we can improve the entire space. again I will underscore that most of the people I've actually had the chance to work with, meet at conferences, or meet through acquaintances have been some of the most exceptionally smart, kind, and socially conscious people i've ever met. even with all of the negatives, things have come a long way in the 2.5 years that I've been here. some of the issues i've outlined are things that we're working on at @AaveAave and @LensProtocol which is fulfilling work.