Governance tokens are essentially memecoins as they do not have revenue sharing and are not effective at community-oriented decision-making. Since they launch at massive VC-backed valuations, they prevent retail investors from getting a fair acquisition price. Memecoins are evolving into their own asset class, facilitating capital coordination and early community formation, before later becoming the backbone for decentralized protocols. Though VCs deserve profit for the risks they take, the investment process should be more transparent and open.
There are three main components to blockchain bottlenecks – execution, which is solved via parallel processing and faster VMs, data, which has been remedied through EIP-4844, and DA layers like Celestia, and state. Ethereum's state growth, the amount of data needed to be stored by nodes, leads to bloat and slower transaction times, and rollups do not solve the problem. Fuel's approach is to leverage the UTXO transaction model and state minimized techniques to add more capability to Ethereum rollups.
Interest derivatives market Pendle has grown exponentially by capturing tokenized yield from LSTs and LRTs, and becoming a go-to protocol for speculating on points. It dominates the yield swap market, which is expected to grow with more integrations and products. Pendle V3, expected to launch later this year, will introduce intents-based execution and a native cross-margin engine – part of the reason Pendle's value is expected to increase by over 10x by the end of 2027.
Context, a product studio, recently saw its NFT aggregator, mint.fun, acquired by Zora. Since then, it has launched a new project, rug.fun, aimed at changing memecoin engagement. Context wants to create innovative experiences that capture more centralized engagement within the memecoin space and broader crypto landscape.
Onchain media's value is its power to be both abundant and valuable, with provenance for creators and programmability for developers.
Bitcoin's annual volatility, resembling gold in its early stages, is now lower than that of several large-cap tech stocks (Meta, Nvidia, and Tesla), marking a significant shift towards its maturation as a stable asset class.
This post articulates why the low gas cost on Ethereum L1 and the increasing number of transactions on Ethereum L2s is a good sign for the Ethereum ecosystem.
Bitcoin's Runes protocol, released in the same block as the halving, generated $135 million in fees in its first week but has now dropped to below $10 million per week.
The advert, which is still live on Apple's YouTube page, shows tools used by creatives – including instruments, desks, games, and paint – being crushed. When the press retracts, an iPad is shown. The video was intended to show how the iPad can be used. However, it was broadly criticized by creatives on social media, who believed that it showed how technology can replace human creatives.
LottieFiles has announced strategic investments from Figma Ventures and Webflow Ventures. With more than 9 million users and 280,000+ teams, the company recently launched Lottie Creation, a web-based creation tool, and has been focused on building integrations with popular design tools. Through the investment, the company wants to lower the entry barrier for animation so it can be included in more projects.
Autodesk, renowned for its 3D modeling software, faces backlash from artists over its new generative AI model for 3D design, reminiscent of Adobe's controversial approach with its users. Its experimental "Bernini" project, which can create 3D shapes from various inputs, has sparked concerns about the company's commitment to its core user base.
Leaders from Stripe, Linear, and Figma assert that attention to craft and beauty transcends superficial aesthetics, acting as key differentiators and drivers of product usability, customer engagement, and business growth. In a panel discussion, they shared how focusing on quality has increased revenue and highlighted every touchpoint's cultural and pragmatic importance in the user experience.
The rapid advancement of AI in advertising and creative fields may replace jobs, leading to a rise in "single-person, full-service agencies" as AI automates tasks. However, strategic thinking and idea generation will remain valued skills. AI's democratization of design could create new opportunities. Learning AI platforms and strategic skills will help young creatives to stay competitive.
Design storytelling is needed. Your story must be told from the user's perspective, and you must ensure your audience empathizes with them, bringing the user perspective through the first-person peripheral perspective. In design storytelling, the focus is not on what you observed, but on what users experienced.
2024.05.13·dataanddesign.substack.com·10 min read·TLDR Design A collection of interaction sounds that designers can use for prototyping. It includes sounds for buttons, tapping, success, failure, whoosh, and many more.
No code tool for creating 3D assets, critical visuals for social media, identity elements, and other marketing and design needs.
Crush a group of icons like in the controversial iPad Pro commercial.
The UX challenge seeks to improve the iPhone call screen by addressing complexity and confusion through two design attempts. The first attempt introduces "Ignore" and "Accept" options, each with two sub-options, and the second attempt simplifies the design further, removing the "Ignore" option.
Metaphors play a crucial role in interface design. They simplify complex information, often borrowing from corporate contexts like the "desktop" and "folders," and evolve over time, as seen with the transformation of the "save" icon from its floppy disk origins. As design grapples with managing complexity, future interfaces might explore alternative sensory cues or spatial representations for conveying meaning.
The new Bombardier logo, the "Mach," follows a naming trend. Assigning a name can help shape a logo's meaning and control how it's discussed, which is particularly important for abstract symbols that might be interpreted differently. Naming a logo imbues it with an identity and a sense of uniqueness.
2024.05.13·links.tldrnewsletter.com·2 min read·TLDR Design As a symbol of multifunctional design, Sello reduces waste and environmental impact, allowing users to customize the product as they see fit.
Sharece's art starts with acrylic pigment applied in copious arrangements of dots, swirling shapes, and geometric patterns. Once the artist has secured the initial design, she swipes a squeegee across it, revealing a surprising and beautiful composition.
Components must be built logically using Figma's advanced features, such as nested elements, local variables, instance swaps, and embedded prototype interactions.
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Eight Sleep, a company from YC's Summer 2015 class, developed the Pod, an intelligent mattress cover that adjusts temperature for optimal sleep, which has become highly popular. In this article, the founders share key insights for hardware startups, emphasizing the importance of solving unit economics early, maintaining high development velocity, creating a unique product feature that is hard to replicate, aligning hardware and software teams, and integrating robust customer support into the product experience.
The recent Q1 earnings season for software companies has been challenging, with many companies experiencing weaker demand, increased scrutiny of budgets, and slower deal progression. Despite some mixed signals from consumer spending, the overall outlook for the software industry remains uncertain, with only a few companies tied to AI tailwinds seeing positive growth.
2024.05.13·cloudedjudgement.substack.com·5 min read·TLDR Founders Apple is close to reaching a deal with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT technology into the upcoming iOS 18 operating system for iPhones. The company is also in ongoing discussions with Google about potentially licensing its Gemini chatbot as part of a broader effort to introduce new AI features across Apple's products and services.
Convertible notes and SAFEs have become increasingly popular in recent years due to their simplicity, speed, and lower transaction costs. With a single document and standardized terms, these instruments allow founders to raise money quickly without the need for complex negotiations or extensive legal work. However, this simplicity comes with some notable drawbacks, including uncertain dilution, lack of price discovery, and the potential for misaligned incentives between founders and investors.
This author shares a personal story of burnout and introduces the "Energy Audit" tool, which involves categorizing daily activities as energy-giving, energy-draining, or neutral. One can aim to end each day with a positive energy balance and combat burnout by identifying trends, reducing energy-draining activities, increasing energy-giving ones, and strategically scheduling them.
The Growth team at Dropbox concentrates on four core metrics: acquisition, activation, monetization, and engagement. The team is divided into two functions - Growth Product Management and Data. The former focuses exclusively on distribution, while the latter analyzes data. Dropbox is highly deliberate in developing a growth culture and hiring people to join the team. It encourages learning from mistakes and prioritizes continuous innovation, with a particular emphasis on improving product-led growth.
Five companies will receive a $1 million investment in exchange for 5% equity.
An ecosystem map of AI automation vendors.
AI-generated illustration library.
Having a life outside of work, such as being a parent, can actually enhance one's leadership skills by fostering efficiency, risk-taking, and emotional accessibility. This perspective challenges the common narrative that having personal commitments outside of work leads to failure, instead highlighting the benefits of balancing multiple responsibilities.
Late customer payments are causing significant cash flow issues for businesses, prompting the need for a more efficient collections process. Strategies such as running AR aging reports, documenting and optimizing collections workflows, and incorporating payment terms into sales compensation plans are recommended to improve the timeliness of customer payments and overall financial health of the company.
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly altered the SaaS landscape, with remote work and Zoom meetings becoming the norm for closing deals and engaging with customers. However, in-person meetings with top customers and prospects remain crucial for fostering stronger relationships, increasing win rates, and driving customer success, even if the timing of these face-to-face interactions has shifted to later stages in the sales funnel.
Focusing on creating products and experiences tailored to individual customers, rather than abstract market segments, is crucial for success.
The relentless pursuit of more and better can lead to a never-ending cycle of dissatisfaction, causing individuals to overlook and underappreciate the present moment and the accomplishments they've already achieved.
The story of Icarus also cautions against flying too low, emphasizing the need for a balanced approach between ambition and contentment, highlighting the dangers of both extremes.
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The Ohio Lottery cyberattack conducted by the DragonForce ransomware group in late 2023 impacted over 500,000 individuals. The hackers claim to have obtained over 1.5 million records of employee and player information, including sensitive data like social security numbers, addresses, winnings, and dates of birth, and have leaked over 90GB of stolen files as backups.
Google has released a security update to fix a use-after-free vulnerability in the component that handles rendering of content in the Chrome browser. Google has stated that exploit code is available. Google Chrome updates automatically for security fixes but users can verify that they are on the latest version in Settings.
A malicious Go binary was hidden in a PyPI package named requests-darwin-lite. The binary was concealed within a large PNG image file, allowing the attacker to target specific macOS systems. Versions of the package containing the malicious binary were removed from PyPI after being detected.
This post goes into how curiosity led a pentester to discover a vulnerability that allowed him to track 130,000 cars worldwide. It reminds readers to not download just any random app that uses IoT or GPS as they are wildly insecure.
This blog post walks through the process of fuzzing an Android application using AFL++ in Frida mode. It details the process of building the application and writing a test harness. The post then provides a primer on JNI linking and details the process of building a harness for weak JNI linking and strong JNI linking.
Researchers from KPMG Romania have published this in-depth article about how public AMIs are exposing sensitive data. They collected AMIs from all AWS regions, identified owners with many public AMIs, and accessed the contents to discover secrets like access keys and confidential data. The researchers emphasized responsible disclosure and highlighted the need for companies to secure their public AMIs.
Token Security is a "machine-first" identity security platform that provides visibility and continuous threat exposure management to manage identities. It starts with a list of machines and identifies who can access each machine by integrating into existing infrastructure. It then triages data to extract context, evaluate, and prioritize threat detection
Okta Terrify is a tool to abuse Okta Verify and FastPass. The tool allows an attacker to backdoor an Okta account via a compromised machine.
MS Devblogs Search is a Python script that downloads Microsoft Devblogs articles and searches them. The tool is helpful for learning about Windows development from the perspective of Microsoft developers.
The CISA has announced a new vulnrichment program to enrich vulnerabilities from the CVE database with additional details from testing. The goal of this project is to alleviate some of the load that has plagued databases like the NVD and led to slowdowns in cataloging new CVEs