1/ *Centralized* apps building atop decentralized protocols may be the winning combination, each furthering the adoption of the other.

2/ As many have pointed out, “decentralize all the things” is a mistake. Decentralize the things that benefit from decentralization.
3/ Starting with centralized apps (think @coinbase @circlepay etc), if you’ve been paying attention, they are utilizing an increasing amount of decentralized protocols & open-source crypto infrastructure, to the benefit of their end users.
4/ The realization this week that @coinbase and @circlepay built their #stablecoin on top of @zeppelin_os was another tick in this trend. https://t.co/rpgyQJ8Sdo
5/ Centralized #crypto apps that build upon decentralized protocols have:

-Global capabilities from day one
-Lower costs due to the on-demand and perfect-competition nature of protocol services
-More rapid innovation as they build upon others’ open source building blocks.
6/ Long term, centralized #crypto apps that build atop decentralized infrastructure will find it the key to what allows them to scale beyond, and outcompete, incumbents that fear public networks & cling to owning their infrastructure.
7/ Having covered cloud companies for 3 years & seeing how long it took big incumbents to embrace the public cloud (and some still haven’t), I have a hard time seeing these incumbents embrace decentralized protocols before it’s too late. Their loss.
8/ All of this leaves decentralized apps (#dapps) in hot water. As many have been pointing out, pure-play dapps are not getting much use.
9/ Connection points to end users need to be hyper-responsive, and due to the laws of physics, #dapps are fighting an uphill battle against centralized apps in response times.
10/ Projects like @graphprotocol or Picolo Network (https://t.co/hd1aN5nO0s) are aiming to help #dapps with their response times, but it remains TBD if it will ever be good enough for a human to not discern the lag.
11/ I also think customer service via #dapps is going to be a hard problem to solve, as customer service is high-touch and doesn’t come for free.
12/ Centralized apps in #crypto also currently have the vast majority of *distribution* to the end user, which so long as they continue to remain technologically relevant I have a hard time seeing them cede to #dapps.
13/ For these reasons, if you’re focusing on investing in #cryptoassets (as @placeholdervc is), I recommend focusing on layer 1 protocols, and important middleware protocols atop the layer 1’s.
14/ Look at what protocols the centralized apps are building atop, and getting real utility out of.

Those will have fundamental value, regardless of how much some obsess over “economic abstraction” and “infinite velocity.”
15/ As always, I’m open to being proved wrong, but I feel reasonably confident that in the short-to-medium term it will be the centralized apps that continue to capture most all of the users — longer term, as people work to make dapps more responsive, we’ll see.

More from Tech

THREAD: How is it possible to train a well-performing, advanced Computer Vision model 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗣𝗨? 🤔

At the heart of this lies the most important technique in modern deep learning - transfer learning.

Let's analyze how it


2/ For starters, let's look at what a neural network (NN for short) does.

An NN is like a stack of pancakes, with computation flowing up when we make predictions.

How does it all work?


3/ We show an image to our model.

An image is a collection of pixels. Each pixel is just a bunch of numbers describing its color.

Here is what it might look like for a black and white image


4/ The picture goes into the layer at the bottom.

Each layer performs computation on the image, transforming it and passing it upwards.


5/ By the time the image reaches the uppermost layer, it has been transformed to the point that it now consists of two numbers only.

The outputs of a layer are called activations, and the outputs of the last layer have a special meaning... they are the predictions!

You May Also Like

Oh my Goodness!!!

I might have a panic attack due to excitement!!

Read this thread to the end...I just had an epiphany and my mind is blown. Actually, more than blown. More like OBLITERATED! This is the thing! This is the thing that will blow the entire thing out of the water!


Has this man been concealing his true identity?

Is this man a supposed 'dead' Seal Team Six soldier?

Witness protection to be kept safe until the right moment when all will be revealed?!

Who ELSE is alive that may have faked their death/gone into witness protection?


Were "golden tickets" inside the envelopes??


Are these "golden tickets" going to lead to their ultimate undoing?

Review crumbs on the board re: 'gold'.


#SEALTeam6 Trump re-tweeted this.