𝗗𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗗 𝗕𝗢𝗡𝗚𝗢

I want to be very clear about what I’m holding for the foreseeable future..

My core positions are $TAO, $TIG and ribbita-by-virtuals:native

These are the three I have deepest conviction in because my belief is they're building critical infrastructure for the future of our society

Infra for intelligence.. algorithms.. agents.. money.. systems that entire industries will be built on

My bet is that adoption grows over time.. and years from now the market values them completely different than they do now

That's the game

My other major position is $QNT

I built that position many years ago with a simple promise to myself..

Don't touch it until 2030.. I intend to honour that

I also hold sizable positions across #Bittensor subnets

Anyone who has followed this account for a while probably already knows which ones I have the strongest conviction in..

@chutes_ai, @Hippius_cloud, @affine_io, @metanova_labs etc

And then there are a couple of positions sitting in my portfolio that are fucking disasters

Way too smashed to pieces to make much sense of selling now

At this point.. I’m simply hoping they eventually recover enough to make things worthwhile

I don't pretend every investment I make works.. it doesn't

But I want to be clear..

These are the positions..
This is where my capital is..
This is what I believe in..

Not interested in popping up years from now saying what I would have bought

This is the skin I have in the game now..

And I'll accept whatever comes with being right or completely fucking wrong

I'm sure everyone will tell me what an twat I am now and how wrong I am about where my capital is parked

But there it is

Lets see what happens..

🍻

I'm in a weird place..

This isn't going to be a cheery post.. so apologies in advance

Been thinking a lot lately about things lately.. in a strange place

Let me explain..

The whole purpose of this account has always been to try and find interesting things early..

Spend a stupid amount of time understanding them and then try to help other people understand them too

Sometimes I've got it spectacularly right.. sometimes I've got it spectacularly wrong

The first time I really felt like I was making a genuine difference was with $QNT

Back in 2018, @quantnetwork's marketing was pretty fucking terrible

I think even @gverdian would probably be the first to tell you that himself

Overledger was fascinating.. the vision was enormous.. but there was very little information out there that ordinary people could easily understand and digest

So.. I started researching everything I could get my hands on and tried explaining it to people

Every single day.. for years

I watched over time.. a community forming around something that hardly anybody had heard of or even cared about

I'm not claiming responsibility for $QNT's success.. That would be ridiculous lol

But I know the work I was putting in made a difference to a good few people

I still see things I wrote or created back then being shared around today..

And that genuinely makes me happy

But something happened as time past and as $QNT grew

The project became bigger.. more established.. more professional..

There were more people unpacking everything.. better sources of information.. more voices.. more things happening.. and many of it better than I was capable of producing

And naturally.. the role I'd played in those early days became less important

The $QNT community of today largely have no idea who I am..

It didn't happen overnight.. but I just gradually became less relevant to something I'd once felt like a meaningful part of

And if I'm honest, I understand why..

Thats what is supposed to happen when things grow

Then along came $TAO

Back in 2022.. #Bittensor was this strange little experiment with some incredibly ambitious ideas and a tiny community..

Not many people understood what it was trying to do

But something about it was deeply fascinating..

The ambition.. the people.. the passion.. the possibility of what it might eventually become

And once again..

I felt a need to research the fuck out of it and help try to explain it to others

Years of reading.. researching.. writing.. answering questions.. and talking about something most people didn't give much of a shit about

And again.. I am in no way claiming its success is down to my dumb ass lol

But I know it made a difference

There are key people building and participating in #Bittensor today who first discovered it through this account..

And I'm incredibly proud of that

But look at $TAO today..

Its grown into this enormous, complicated ecosystem with miners.. developers.. subnet teams.. VCs.. businesses.. and people far more technical or knowledgeable than I'll ever be

There are people doing incredible work explaining every little part of it

$TAO doesn't need someone like me in the same way it once might have..

And again, thats a good thing..

Its exactly whats supposed to happen

But..

I'd be lying if I said there wasn't something strangely sad about it

You spend years helping people understand something.. and eventually it grows beyond the point where your contributions really matter anymore

Its like..

You wanted it to grow.. and you helped it grow.. and then one day you realise its outgrown you

The weird, sad thing is..

Its mirroring a lot of what I'm experiencing in my personal life right now

Which is probably why I'm writing this ramble nonsense in the first place

So.. I became a father when I was young..

And my daughter has always been the absolute jewel in my crown

I don't think I could ever properly explain how much that little girl has meant to me

When she was younger, I was her everything.. her entire fucking world

Dad could fix anything.. dad knew everything..

I was the strongest person alive

If something scared her, she came to me.. if something made her happy, she wanted to tell me..

If she needed help.. I was the person she'd look for

I was her superman

And fuck me.. theres no feeling quite like being somebodys entire world

But..

Then they grow up..

And it happens so gradually that you barely notice it

They start figuring things out for themselves..

They make friends.. they develop their own interests.. they have their own opinions.. their own problems.. their own little world that you're not always part of

They don't need you to explain everything anymore..

They stop running to you for every little thing..

And eventually.. you realise that person who once thought you were capable of absolutely anything has started to see you for what you really are..

Just a man

Yes, a dad who loves her more than anything.. but just a man nonetheless

And if I'm being completely honest..

Thats been fucking heartbreaking in a way I wasn't prepared for

Its something I have been struggling with deeply..

And not because she's doing anything wrong.. she's doing exactly what shes supposed to do

She's growing into her own person.. she's becoming independent

She's building a life that won't always revolve around me..

And I'm so incredibly proud of her every single day

But.. theres a real sadness that comes with it that I don't know if a lot of others feel or if its just me

You can be unbelievably proud of who your child is becoming.. all while desperately missing who they used to be

And theres absolutely nothing you can do about it

You can't ask them to stay little.. you can't ask them to need you the way they once did

You can't ask them to keep seeing you as Superman when they're old enough to realise that its not who you ever were..

You just have to accept that your place in their world is changing

That the version of you they needed for so many years is slowly becoming someone they don't need quite so much anymore

And I think thats the feeling I've been struggling to put into words

Well.. without rambling like a maniac, that is

Obviously..

Being a dad and talking about crypto on the internet aren't remotely comparable in terms of importance..

But theres a slight, strange similarity in the feeling

In both cases, you spend years giving something your time.. your attention.. your energy.. because you genuinely care about it..

You watch it grow.. you feel useful.. you feel like your presence matters

And then, if things go well.. it needs you less

Not because you've necessarily done anything wrong.. But because it's grown

And you find yourself standing there feeling proud of something.. while quietly grieving the place you used to have in that world

I personally think theres a particular kind of loneliness in that

And its not like you've been rejected or anything to feel it

It just happens.. and life moves forward

And the space you once occupied gradually gets smaller and smaller

And even in saying all of that.. you wouldn't change a single thing

I wouldn't want $QNT to go back to being a tiny project nobody understood just so I could feel of use again

I don't want $TAO to stop growing so I could remain one of the people helping to explain it

And I certainly wouldn't want my daughter to stay little forever just so I could keep being her hero

I want her to grow.. I want her to find her own way

I want her to become strong enough that she doesn't need me to solve every problem

I think thats what being a dad is supposed to be about

But..

Knowing that doesn't make watching it happen any easier

I suppose I'm beginning to understand that a lot of life is like this

You spend your younger years trying to become important to people..

Trying to be useful.. to have relevance in the world

To have an impact and make a difference..

And then you get older and realise that however important you were.. it isn't permanent

Communities move on and forget you exist..

People move on with their lives..

Children grow up..

The world keeps turning..

And you're left trying to figure out who you are when you're no longer needed in quite the same way

Being a dad is all I've know my entire adult life..

And being in this space doing this has been close to a decade now

I'm still incredibly grateful for everything I've been part of.. I've been lucky

I think.. I'm slowly accepting that my role in these things is changing

And maybe thats something I need to learn to be comfortable with..

Because I don't think the answer is to desperately try to remain important or relevant

Or to resent the fact that something has grown beyond you

I think you just have to find a way to be happy that you were there when it mattered and had a hand in it at all

Even if it doesn't matter quite so much anymore

And with my daughter..

I know she'll always be my little girl.. even when I'm no longer the centre of her world

My hope is that as she gets older and life gets more complicated.. she'll always know I'm here

She doesn't have to think I'm Superman.. and she doesn't have to need me every day

I just hope she has a little place for me in the life she's building

I guess what I'm trying to say is..

There's a difference between wanting to be needed.. and wanting to be loved

I think getting older is learning to live without the first.. while hoping you never lose the second one

I don't really have some uplifting conclusion to all of this

Apologiees for the long emotional ramble

At the end of the day.. I'm not whatever you guys think I am

I'm just a dad watching his little girl grow up.. and a bloke on the internet watching things he once helped explain grow into something that no longer needs him

And I'm proud of all of it.. I really am

I just didn't realise that watching things become everything you hoped they would be.. could sometimes feel so much like losing so much

I'll stop rambling now..

Thinking out loud here..

I've always assumed a #Bittensor subnet would struggle to replicate what $TIG is building

But the more I think about it.. the more I'm not sure

$TIG has its own Optimisable Proof of Work system.. where algorithms compete, benchmarkers test them, and then innovators get rewarded based on adoption

$TAO obviously works differently.. with miners, validators and Yuma Consensus deciding how rewards get distributed

But..

Given how flexible #Bittensor subnets can be.. whats actually stopping someone from building a subnet with its own version of $TIG's benchmarking, verification and reward system?

Could someone essentially recreate something similar to OPoW inside #Bittensor?

Someone like @Apex_SN1, for example..

Obviously.. just because something is technically possible doesn't mean it would economically work

Still questions around incentives.. verification.. licensing.. how rewards are distributed.. and whether it would all work properly at scale

And maybe $TIG does have some very real advantages from being built specifically for algorithmic discovery

But.. does that mean theres something fundamental about $TIG's architecture that would make it incredibly difficult for a #Bittensor subnet to replicate?

Or.. does it basically come down to who designs the better system and executes it properly?

I can already see the replies coming.. lol

I'm not trying to FUD anything here.. I'm obviously heavily interested in both $TAO and $TIG

I just think its a genuinely interesting question worth exploring..

Because the more I think about this stuff..

The less convinced I am that its as simple as $TIG = algorithms and $TAO = intelligence

My dumb monkey brain does not know the actual answer..

So happy to be educated 👍

Rent eight H100 GPUs in just 12 seconds for $16/hour on @lium_io 🔥

$TAO