最新报道：This is a snippet from The Breakdown newsletter. To read the full version, subscribe. “We know more than we can say.” — Michael Polanyi on the importance of IRL collaboration Hewlett and Packard; Jobs and Woz; Gates and Allen; Page and Brin; Bezos and (the now-forgotten) Kaphan. The history of American tech is the history of two people hatching whole new industries from a garage. Would Hewlett-Packard, Apple, Microsoft, Google, or Amazon have been hatched on Zoom? We’ll never know, but the empirical evidence suggests not. Even in this age of videoconferencing, face-to-face interaction remains a key ingredient in the alchemy of innovation. For example, one study found that adding a direct flight between two locations led to a statistically significant increase in research citations and co-patenting between those two locations. Another study, published in Nature, explains why it might be worth getting off the couch and onto a plane: “Videoconferencing impedes creative thinking by keeping communicators focused on a screen, which leads to cognitive narrowing.” (As someone who happily works from the couch, I only report this result with reluctance.) The researchers even used GPS data from Silicon Valley to quantify the impact of serendipitous encounters on innovation, finding that “the payoff for face-to-face meetings is substantial.” It’s easy to imagine why this might be the case. To name just one of the pitfalls of remote work, 25% of the emojis we send are misinterpreted by the recipient, often in the opposite way to what they were meant to mean. How long would Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs have tolerated if any portion of their communications were conducted via text message? Not for long, I guess. Businesses seem to understand this — which is probably why they spent an estimated $1.4 trillion last year on IRL meetings for their employees. If businesses didn’t think they were getting a return on their money, they wouldn’t spend so much. I guess this is also why cryptocurrency conferences like Permissionless remain so popular. You can watch all of this week’s panels live from your couch, but being there in person is more fun. And more productive, too. Some of the things I heard on Day 1 Mike Ippolito kicked off the conference with some charts and a call to action. The rising percentage of cryptocurrencies traded on decentralized exchanges versus centralized exchanges is a key performance indicator that everyone attending a conference called Permissionless will be happy about: Binance and Coinbase are great (and would make great sponsors for this newsletter). But the raison d’etre of the crypto industry is getting people on-chain, and by that metric, we seem to be making leaps and bounds. However, revenue generated on-chain is a bit disappointing: Using Solana network revenue as a benchmark, the industry seems to be lacking momentum. Stagnant revenue suggests we’re still waiting for a breakthrough application to incentivize people to do things on-chain (besides trading memecoins). When asked this morning about a crypto success story, Bitcoiner Peter Todd mentioned Polymarket — but couldn’t immediately remember its name, incorrectly said it was on Solana (it’s on Polygon), and then dismissed all non-Bitcoin blockchains and applications as “highly centralized.” This, I think, is a measure of how much work the non-Bitcoin crypto industry still has to do in finding utility and becoming truly decentralized. Non-sovereign currencies, stablecoins, and permissionless gambling (aka memecoins) are an excellent start. But is that all there is? My questions to Permissionless attendees this morning suggest that crypto enthusiasts still want more, but aren’t sure what that might be. At the conference’s opening, Mike Ippolito summed up the challenge facing the crypto industry by quoting Nikola Tesla: “The present is theirs; the future, what I’m really fighting for, is mine.” In other words, money and finance still belong to TradFi, and that’s not going to change unless the crypto guys change it. “It’s not good enough right now,” Ippolito concluded, “and it’s our responsibility, and only ours, to make it better.” Keynote Speaker: Eric Adams, New York’s First Bitcoin Mayor The mayor began his speech by telling his family story, which began in nearby Brownsville, Brooklyn, and moved to Jamaica, Queens. This resonated with me because my mom’s family did the opposite, moving from Queens to Brooklyn, where I spent my formative years from age 0 to 3. (Yes, I’m from Brooklyn, but, no, don’t ask me the way.) More importantly, the mayor used his origin story to explain his support for the cryptocurrency industry. Adams noted that more than 40% of Brooklyn residents speak a language other than English at home, and he hopes New Yorkers will adopt bitcoin as a better way to send money to relatives abroad. This is about the oldest idea in cryptocurrency, but it hasn’t really caught on yet.But maybe we still need to spread the message: Adams stressed the need for the industry to educate people about how cryptocurrencies “can benefit everyday working-class people in cities.” To benefit the city itself, Adams pitched his BitBonds idea — municipal bonds backed by bitcoin. That sounded a bit gimmicky until the moderator asked if New Yorkers could pay their parking tickets with bitcoin, which the city could then use to back its bonds. “We’d love to do that,” the mayor responded. Why not, it’s a cheap call option for the city: if bitcoin goes up, take your profits; if it goes down, default! Unfortunately, the mayor may not have enough time to make it happen. The aforementioned Polymarket gives Adams a 10% chance of reelection in November. Panel I watched: As I had hoped, the afternoon’s discussion on DePIN restored my faith that cryptocurrencies are at least working to solve real problems. David Vorick noted that in some parts of emerging markets, “energy is the difference between life and death.” The mission of his DePIN venture, Glow, he explained, is to incentivize building solar in these places. Listening to Vorick speak was a reminder that cryptocurrency tokens can have uses beyond gambling. “If you want to see more solar in the world,” he said, “holding glow tokens can both express that preference and help make it happen.” (Parse.) If that sounds cringeworthy to you, that’s because you’re reading it in a newsletter—and in person, it sounds pretty sincere, and I believe it is. Abhay Kumar of the Helium Foundation similarly explained that DePIN is a “new way to make networks,” and that tokens determine what kind of networks are made: “Voting with your wallet is real.” Finally, Sam Hougan explained that Inference.net is creating a DePIN network to help “data centers around the world fill in the extra capacity they have”—a use case that’s only going to get more useful, I imagine. DePIN isn’t the newest thing anymore, and the results so far have been mediocre. But hopefully there’s something bigger to come: the panelists identified satellites, manufacturing, and drones as the most important areas for DePIN-enabled disruption. Day 1 Quotes: “This is super stupid and you’ll lose money, but it’s fun.” — Dan Smith, Blockworks Research, on memecoins “You’d have to break your brain to understand it.” — Dan Smith on the memecoin industry “I don’t think tokens should be money. Tokens need to have some role in the network.” — Sam Hougan, Inference.net “I think tokens are one of the most powerful forms of money.” — David Vorick, Glow “We’re super excited about crypto right now.” — David Rhodus, Permissionless Labs, after seeing demand for the bandwidth DePIN provides “We’re actually building something useful enough that people are willing to pay for it, which is super exciting.” — Logan Jastremski, Frictionless Overheard: “People can’t think about two things at once.” — Anonymous, on crypto losing focus on AI and why “TradFi is sleeping on crypto” Crypto conference innovation: Holding half the conference outdoors turned out to be a brilliant idea, even in 100-degree heat. Item of the day: Cooling neck scarves. Dip them in ice water, wrap them around your neck, and you’ll forget it’s summer in NYC. One thing I learned: Air conditioning is the greatest invention in human history. Today’s main takeaway: Egg and cheese roll-ups with salt, pepper, and ketchup. See you tomorrow for Day 2. Get news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters: The Breakdown: Decoding crypto and markets. Daily. Empire: Crypto news and analysis to kick-start your day. Forward Guidance: The intersection of crypto, macroeconomics, and policy. 0xResearch: Get Alpha straight to your inbox. Lightspeed: All about Solana. The Drop: Apps, games, memes, and more. Supply Shock: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin