# Best of research.auditless.com on Kiwi News

Page: https://news.kiwistand.com/source/research.auditless.com

98 stories from research.auditless.com have been shared on Kiwi News since 8 May 2024, with 425 upvotes and 73 comments in total. The latest was shared on 22 April 2026. The 50 most upvoted are listed below.

Summaries are AI summaries of the linked article.

## 1. The End of Serious Business Models

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/The-End-of-Serious-Business-Models?index=0x685be0506511266790a6b94d3ca18f374174e9db4e2142ae5dba1c124fc824116e5d75ce
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/the-end-of-serious-business-models
- Shared 25 June 2025, 30 upvotes, 0 comments

The author argues that AI makes the traditional business moat of defensible value less reliable, so speed and distribution may become the main sources of advantage. Fast-moving founders could be displaced by "super-aggregators" that build companies with AI agents, while distribution-led businesses risk becoming performative edutainment. The post contrasts this with Craig Mod, who funds book projects through a $10/month subscription called Special Projects, and reports that he makes hundreds of thousands of dollars per year from memberships and more from books.

## 2. Why Distribution Comes First in 2025

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Why-Distribution-Comes-First-in-2025?index=0x6835cbd1774516defd50a5d78bf5d9e2db12403aed68f177cc076ecfff081a045bdd43c1
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/why-distribution-comes-first-in-2025?r=3ptcv
- Shared 27 May 2025, 15 upvotes, 0 comments

Drawing on the article's argument, the author contends that founders should build distribution, not just product, because distribution is now more important and more defensible than product innovation. The article says customer acquisition costs keep rising, that Patrick Campbell sold ProfitWell to Paddle, and that a strong brand built on trust and consistent storytelling lasts longer than product advantages that AI-assisted engineering can erode. It also says VC firms have become media companies, offering distribution through podcasts, YouTube channels, communities and conferences, and it advises founders to build their own brand and expect to spend more time on distribution than they would have 5-10 years ago.

## 3. Reinventing Nouns

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Reinventing-Nouns?index=0x6717c59c529cc80a527af4d0b5df0287ac6250603fc79a5a61867f01a6d161df90c4a58b
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/al-81-reinventing-nouns
- Shared 22 October 2024, 10 upvotes, 2 comments

Auditless, a protocol strategy organization, argues that Nouns should build unforkable "poison pill" media assets that can be proliferated, rather than funding one-off brand campaigns. The article says the Nouns treasury, once as high as 30k ETH, is trending toward zero after a fork let arbitrageurs withdraw pro rata shares and drain about half the treasury. It says brand expansion projects succeeded but did not produce ongoing organic demand, and that arbitrageurs still win most daily auctions and keep mounting forks. The author describes the approach as a strategy that straddles both book value and proliferation.

## 4. Farcaster and the New Narrative Machine

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Farcaster-and-the-New-Narrative-Machine?index=0x678fbc1355008cdeb4c51989c8babee66c9acbb6990519dbd24baa4289f5d6e80962c798
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/al-93-farcaster-and-the-new-narrative
- Shared 21 January 2025, 10 upvotes, 0 comments

Ben Hunt's "Narrative Machine" concept underpins the argument that narrative, not rationality, drives markets and that social media's value lies in its narrative output rather than its network effects. The author argues that Farcaster's architecture is well suited to this shift, which is being driven by decentralization, the convergence of information platforms and markets, AI agents, and memes. The article notes that X's partnership with x.AI Grok reflects this value, and that agents already support more than $10B in market cap, mostly on X. It predicts that API terms could be changed to tax agent-driven activity, and that the move from taxing attention to taxing narrative development is inevitable.

## 5. AL #89: Confession: I Barely Use Web3

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/AL-89-Confession-I-Barely-Use-Web3?index=0x676adf39688b9731446ef20c5c4f018b4d992abe47984e22c78feebc510f63257d3a1dbb
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/al-89-confession-i-barely-use-web3?isFreemail=true&post_id=153375147&publication_id=357894&r=nytc4&triedRedirect=true
- Shared 24 December 2024, 9 upvotes, 4 comments

## 6. Lies, Damned Lies and The Memecoin Supercycle

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Lies-Damned-Lies-and-The-Memecoin-Supercycle?index=0x6705636384eb5c621a666e7cd42cc77bbecf94ece0f1e4c9db0f34cba75b18391fac4ae0
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/al-79-lies-damned-lies-and-the-memecoin
- Shared 8 October 2024, 9 upvotes, 1 comment

Murad's Token2049 presentation argued that a Memecoin Supercycle is coming, and Raoul Pal called it exceptional. The author counters that memecoin outperformance reflects volatility and the large number of memecoins, not a sign that tech tokens are failing. The author argues that speculation dominates crypto pricing because few tokens have predictable revenue, and that the presentation's tone pushes readers toward betting on memecoins. The author concludes that the real trend is people being pushed from stable jobs into speculative income, with infrastructure builders profiting from that shift.

## 7. AAVE 2030 and the Complexity Moat

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/AAVE-2030-and-the-Complexity-Moat?index=0x663b86e255b9c190fe0317383e115ce04765a810be823a09cd4878e229edb47446c3de11
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/al-57-aave-2030-and-the-complexity
- Shared 8 May 2024, 8 upvotes, 2 comments

AAVE 2030 is an all-encompassing proposal from AAVE Labs that includes a full protocol rewrite, a new network, plans for building AAVE on alt-L1s, and a complete brand refresh. The author argues that complexity may be a feature rather than a bug in lending, and that AAVE's moat is tied to the interplay of capital efficiency, risk controls and liquidity network effects. The proposal's cross-chain liquidity design, a dedicated chain using Validium, and off-chain automated oracles built with Chainlink after the loss of risk manager Gauntlet are highlighted as notable ideas. The author also notes that the proposed $15M cash grant requires a large technical scope to justify it, which raises incentive-alignment concerns.

## 8. Confession: I Barely Use Web3

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Confession-I-Barely-Use-Web3?index=0x67726b3b0def2b8bff2c3664b321335966f1559c1b7e47596ce46947b890c7fa9d8e3968
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/al-89-confession-i-barely-use-web3
- Shared 30 December 2024, 8 upvotes, 1 comment

## 9. Planning for an Uncertain Future

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Planning-for-an-Uncertain-Future?index=0x66b8e2397644789671444dc824e02682ccb79c84fffdc329a1c2880fe5fee11006b07c24
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/al-70-planning-for-an-uncertain-future
- Shared 11 August 2024, 7 upvotes, 5 comments

The author argues that rapid improvement in large language models makes long-term career and strategy planning hard, and that the most viable response is to look for scarcity in human attention rather than in software itself. The piece says software has been the main bottleneck in producing value, and that LLMs could remove that bottleneck by both boosting engineer efficiency and replacing purpose-built software with AI front-ends. It notes that software is roughly 10% of US GDP but affects nearly every other sector, and that the emergent capabilities of LLMs make 5-10 year scenario prediction unreliable. The author says they have relied on the scarcity approach since a brief "AI retreat" in 2023.

## 10. Should You Buy the Memethology Card Game?

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Should-You-Buy-the-Memethology-Card-Game?index=0x69135e14e9990b569ca0c647a9acbcabec16550309f22298844188ae50ad8b8adc0a3641
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/should-you-buy-the-memethology-card
- Shared 11 November 2025, 7 upvotes, 3 comments

Memethology is a digital and physical trading card game about internet memes, and the author says it is worth watching despite skepticism about crypto-based TCGs. The author notes that Devfolio reports over $70k in sales across two sold-out drops, about 10,000 digital packs, and more than 300 unique cards. Founder Colton open sourced the game, and the author praises the project as a solo grassroots effort, though the author also states that the rules are not public and that the value of the packs is hard to predict.

## 11. My 7 Best Ideas for Web3 Games

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/My-7-Best-Ideas-for-Web3-Games?index=0x667ad1c821cc24adc47ae3f774117b9cfdfbbf7df34619ff40880907e689173e9673b0d9
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/al-64-my-7-best-ideas-for-web3-games
- Shared 25 June 2024, 7 upvotes, 2 comments

The author shares seven ideas for web3 games they would like to see built, arguing that web3 gaming should not try to replicate mainstream triple-A titles. The ideas draw on Warhammer 40k's collectible hobby model, Dwarf Fortress's procedural generation, geospatial games like Ingress and Pokémon Go powered by DePIN, and Stardew Valley's farming genre as a shared autonomous world. Other proposals include in-game agents interacting with the mempool, block reorgs used as a game mechanic, and a custom VM that players can modify, with the author noting that the industry's contrasting debates are worth keeping rather than resolving.

## 12. AL #87: Ethereum's New North Star

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/AL-87-Ethereums-New-North-Star?index=0x675877d847eed005bac0e41d6d4191e03b8eab744853ed157d0aea307b56b2b54187fa42
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/al-87-ethereums-new-north-star?isFreemail=true&post_id=152756842&publication_id=357894&r=3ptcv&triedRedirect=true
- Shared 10 December 2024, 7 upvotes, 1 comment

Jon Charbonneau argues that Ethereum needs a North Star and that it should improve the L1 for apps, a view the author of this piece calls a surprising shift from advocating rollups. The author says choosing the wrong North Star is a risk, since EOS, Tron and Neo were seen as credible threats as recently as 2019 but no longer appear in the same sentence. The author is more confident in staying close to developers than in betting on which architecture, such as enshrined rollups, will work best for most use cases.

## 13. 20 Predictions for Crypto in 2026

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/20-Predictions-for-Crypto-in-2026?index=0x693849b92530f30016f5c93a8340dda05ab48d0029b98c4e96bc11a176d86bfb32fa9956
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/my-crypto-predictions-for-2026
- Shared 9 December 2025, 7 upvotes, 0 comments

Twenty predictions for crypto in 2026 forecast that fintech L1s will accrue no value to ETH, that DAO delegates will become a dying breed, and that rollup cluster arrangements will end. Stablecoins are predicted to outnumber L2s, and non-USD stablecoins such as CHF or SGD are expected to see adoption, while privacy applications are described as still a couple of iterations from mass adoption. A trustless asset management protocol is predicted to be exploited for more than $100M, and Futarchy is predicted to overtake Retro Funding. AI vulnerability tools are expected to find smart contract bugs but not replace audits.

## 14. Solidity Core Will Keep Compiler Devs Happy. What About Us?

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Solidity-Core-Will-Keep-Compiler-Devs-Happy-What-About-Us?index=0x690a2494e4639359220f072b0e7f0b74ed924b20c722b19178aa5d5c1d18b7a5c0fb78dc
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/solidity-core-will-keep-compiler
- Shared 4 November 2025, 7 upvotes, 0 comments

The Solidity team's "Road to Core Solidity" plan would split the language into Core Solidity and Classic Solidity, with Core adding generics, first-class functions, algebraic data types and a built-in standard library. The author, a developer who has used Solidity since 2018 at Aera, argues that practical priorities should come first: settling valid compiler and optimization configurations, fixing stack-too-deep errors, and improving gas efficiency. The author says Core's feature work may still make developers happy and that the MLIR-based pipeline could help with gas and stack issues, though it is not the author's own priority list.

## 15. AL #63: Were Rollups Meant to be on Bitcoin All Along?

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/AL-63-Were-Rollups-Meant-to-be-on-Bitcoin-All-Along?index=0x6671bc8c8a6b06390e5d97c7e4367912d17e602e3eb8375a56df43de9add825f74c3547f
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/al-63-were-rollups-meant-to-be-on
- Shared 18 June 2024, 7 upvotes, 0 comments

The article asks whether Vitalik Buterin would have built Ethereum as a separate chain had Bitcoin rollups been possible in 2013, and suggests the answer may be no. It explains that rollups move execution off the main chain while keeping transaction storage and settlement there, and it describes Bitcoin's roadmap of SegWit (2017), Taproot (2021) and OP_Cat (expected review in 2025). It also notes that StarkWare has proposed adapting Starknet to settle on Bitcoin with OP_Cat, and that Bitcoin rollups are likely to converge on a different equilibrium than Ethereum's because of differing values around execution, staking, privacy and trustlessness.

## 16. The Secret World of Telegram Bots

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/The-Secret-World-of-Telegram-Bots?index=0x66685944d56ce5b95e06c79666a1c8165c422147f7c8719798d1e412e2992d1f36f56596
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/al-62-the-secret-world-of-telegram
- Shared 11 June 2024, 7 upvotes, 0 comments

Telegram bots have become a substantial niche in crypto, serving memecoin traders with features that justify fees far above those of typical trading front-ends. The article says the bots collectively earned as much as $3M in daily trading fees in June, and that it is common for most of them to charge 1% per trade. It cites Trojan, described as a top 5 Telegram bot by volume, which offers limit orders, dollar cost averaging, copy trading, and per-trade position logs. The author notes that these bots lack strong network effects beyond their user bases, which the article says number over 100k for some.

## 17. L2 Issuance Was Fun While It Lasted

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/L2-Issuance-Was-Fun-While-It-Lasted?index=0x67b4a43858a58c08a669e0ecd41fb4b213acec86097a10530708deba8190aad8d07b6b47
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/l2-issuance-was-fun-while-it-lasted
- Shared 18 February 2025, 6 upvotes, 6 comments

Issuing tokens on L2 rollups carries weaker security guarantees than L1-issued assets, and the piece asks how much issuance really matters for rollups given Solana's dominance. It says deposited L1 tokens are the funds that matter, since rollups support forced withdrawals of directly bridged L1-to-L2 tokens. As Vitalik points out, holders of a rollup's upgrade keys could change its proof system and mint unlimited L2 tokens. The piece responds to Vitalik's proposal for higher L1 gas limits, noting that putting all tokens on L1 is not currently viable, and raises concern that rollup-issued tokens could fragment liquidity.

## 18. Nobody Understands $JESSE

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Nobody-Understands-dollarJESSE?index=0x6925db9fc0d6973207393bba26d02b5c725f37ec0ba696f1cacb4202966fe848fee564ac
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/nobody-understands-jesse
- Shared 25 November 2025, 6 upvotes, 5 comments

Creator Coins are a clever revenue solution for Base but a flawed model for creators, and the complaints about the $JESSE launch on timing, extraction and sniping are unconvincing. Base earns most of its sequencer fees from trading, and Creator Coins generate token issuance and speculative volume that other creator monetization methods do not. The model is described as combining patronage and curation to get the worst of both worlds, since patrons face volatility and slippage while curators have no guaranteed rewards. Craig Mod's lean membership setup is presented as a contrast, with nobody losing money supporting him.

## 19. The Next Big L2 Runs on Bitcoin

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/The-Next-Big-L2-Runs-on-Bitcoin?index=0x67d15e9e02da8d96a49549530a482633ecc113ec361c9ff99e3f4cd493a145e50a64e8d7
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/the-next-big-l2-runs-on-bitcoin
- Shared 12 March 2025, 6 upvotes, 4 comments

The article argues that the existing Bitcoin network can serve as a base layer on which new L2 rollups and smart contract systems are built without changing Bitcoin's core protocol. It says Bitcoin was closer to hosting smart contracts than originally thought, and that recent Bitcoin protocol updates plus lessons from Ethereum's scaling work are now converging to make rollups possible on it. The author notes that Bitcoin's permissionless nature may give it an unexpected advantage in becoming a smart contract platform, despite the community's resistance to other smart contract networks. The piece is disclosed as supported by a grant from StarkWare.

## 20. Nakamoto Dollar and The Math Behind Ethena

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Nakamoto-Dollar-and-The-Math-Behind-Ethena?index=0x6659fd29ced0df81a6b121498a73899b387797260aba86d8cf8be61d318b0087ca98d8ed
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/al-60-nakamoto-dollar-and-the-math
- Shared 31 May 2024, 6 upvotes, 3 comments

Arthur Hayes' "Nakamoto Dollar" proposes a capital-efficient synthetic dollar that does not rely on the fiat banking system, built from a single short position in a bitcoin inverse perpetual. The margin is posted in BTC worth 1 USD, and the short position tracks 1/p - 1/p0, so the combined value always equals 1 USD in BTC terms. The article notes the position cannot be liquidated because its value never falls below zero, but it warns that if BTC's price drops far enough that longs are liquidated (for example at a liquidation price of 0.25), the position's total value is capped at 4 BTC and its USD value could eventually fall to 0. Hayes recommends putting funding-rate income into a sinking fund to cover shortfalls from liquidations, custody issues, or negative funding rates.

## 21. AI Minimalism

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/AI-Minimalism?index=0x6978d658c8204738c1e69502ea8d820575579308e3cd5f145755d3fe058ee4b37cef6f56
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/ai-minimalism
- Shared 27 January 2026, 6 upvotes, 1 comment

The author argues that AI should first be used to simplify one's personal life, through cutting costs, reducing meetings and notifications, and automating routine tasks, before focusing on configuring AI workflows. The piece defines this "AI minimalism" as using AI to free up money, time and focus, and cites an example of replacing a Webflow-hosted guide subscription with a GitHub markdown book that took under an hour. It also suggests auditing bank transactions with Claude to cancel unused subscriptions, and moving recurring meetings to the same day, such as Tuesdays.

## 22. Coinbase's System Update Raises Questions

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Coinbases-System-Update-Raises-Questions?index=0x694aaf7e5673a487ef1d96fcfecefad82028b4ce757746c1ca950435f2a83d75bfa1841e
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/coinbases-system-update-raises-questions
- Shared 23 December 2025, 6 upvotes, 0 comments

Coinbase's System Update release raised concerns from the author, who is a Coinbase shareholder, that the company is moving toward monetizing users aggressively through subscriptions, fees and low yields. The article cites the Coinbase Advisor, an AI app that gives investment recommendations and lets users trade directly, as an example. It says the advisor's sample portfolio of Coinbase-held BTC (0% yield), ETH (1.7% staking yield with a 1% withdrawal penalty) and USDC (0% yield unless on Coinbase One) is largely a repackaging of Coinbase's products, and that it recommends prediction market positions. The article also praises technical advances such as stock tokens and the Base App, and notes that Coinbase and M0 will compete in distinct but overlapping stablecoin niches.

## 23. Eco's New Contribution to Chain Abstraction: Permit3

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Ecos-New-Contribution-to-Chain-Abstraction-Permit3?index=0x68e5292382562ba7c2c9715316ebd2efbecc64991db9b7578cdac13232a261fc2330cc26
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/ecos-new-contribution-to-chain-abstraction
- Shared 7 October 2025, 6 upvotes, 0 comments

Eco has introduced Permit3, a cross-chain approval contract that the author describes as a promising iteration on Uniswap Labs' Permit2 and an effort to bring multichain UX forward. Permit3 lets a user sign one signature covering approvals for multiple tokens, applications and chains, such as approving Uniswap to spend WETH on Unichain and Aerodrome to spend USDC on Base. It uses Merkle trees so each chain only needs its own approvals plus a Merkle proof, and it uses a salt per operation, an "async nonce" system, instead of Permit2's linear nonces. The author notes that users must still manually approve tokens for Permit3 on every chain, and that Permit3 will need time before its safety is assured.

## 24. AI Composability and the Terminal

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/AI-Composability-and-the-Terminal?index=0x68c9706aef6b9d4af5e9612a0b27a0cac36233b24f20979bf303c912b5b3ce59d061ef33
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/ai-composability-and-the-terminal
- Shared 16 September 2025, 6 upvotes, 0 comments

The author argues that command line interfaces are the second-best way to use AI, mainly because of composability. Coding has the strongest product-market fit of any LLM use case, and CLIs let tools like Claude Code run inside existing terminals and combine with other tools, scripts and agents. The article says Anthropic built Claude Code as a CLI so developers with different IDE preferences could all access the agent, and it lists workflows such as working over SSH, running parallel agents and using the CLI as a tool inside other agents. It notes that CLIs are not yet accessible to most non-developers, and that a better composable medium for AI has yet to emerge.

## 25. GPT-5 and the Great Slowdown

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/GPT-5-and-the-Great-Slowdown?index=0x689b75b853acab78e4dfce24f8b647448cab2bb4e2095e9e3a827568b32e60c3127d1c25
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/gpt-5-and-the-great-slowdown
- Shared 12 August 2025, 6 upvotes, 0 comments

The author argues that LLM progress may be entering a slower, more nuanced phase, and that founders should consider how different forms of model stagnation would change what they build. The piece cites GPT-5 failing to impress relative to its promotion, and usage limits introduced by Replit, Cursor and Claude Code that left some users finding the services less helpful. It suggests subsidized subscriber credits used to embed services in workflows are now being tuned back for utilization and profitability. It then outlines hypothetical startup "metas," such as workflow agents, domain data loops and research firms, for different stagnation scenarios.

## 26. Uniswap v4 is the Sanctum of Restaking

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Uniswap-v4-is-the-Sanctum-of-Restaking?index=0x66fc26d7d12a055c6a7c37ac823d1bd95168318cb943f1b8532deb0b93276d72f8f4f7d3
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/al-78-uniswap-v4-is-the-sanctum-of
- Shared 1 October 2024, 5 upvotes, 4 comments

Uniswap v4 hooks could let Ethereum restaking tokens share a liquidity hub modeled on Sanctum's Solana design, according to the author's argument. The article notes that Lido stETH dominates Curve's LST volume because of its ETH liquidity, while Sanctum's Infinity pool combines 40+ LSTs into one LP token, enabled by Solana's lack of slashing and 2-3 day withdrawals. The author proposes an LP token, a master liquidity contract, and LRT/ETH hooks with fixed fees, noting that slashing would later require a slashing-aware StableSwap hook.

## 27. Lets Dissect the Base ⇄ Solana Bridge

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Lets-Dissect-the-Base-Solana-Bridge?index=0x68d2b629fc511c35a6b22374cb092ebe54e3083b73752de70bedcd2b870752b9fdb15019
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/lets-dissect-the-base-solana-bridge
- Shared 23 September 2025, 5 upvotes, 2 comments

The author argues that Base's new Solana bridge is less about a one-off vampire attack on Solana liquidity and more about Base taking steps to own cross-chain token issuance. Based on a cursory look, the bridge reportedly lets Base deploy multiple local tokens for each Solana token, but not the reverse, which the author says fragments liquidity for Solana tokens on Base while consolidating liquidity for Base tokens on Solana. The article describes the bridge as a Stage 0 bridge secured by operators, validators and a guardian, and suggests Base may be positioning itself as a liquidity hub, with some readers possibly seeing it as a signal of a future Superchain exit.

## 28. My 22 Rules to Build Faster in a Post-AI World

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/My-22-Rules-to-Build-Faster-in-a-Post-AI-World?index=0x687fddf51bdd3e58f0e7dbe0171a317b8b2542eef4df2d284fb8d66ef3fd9ce7fe8999b1
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/my-22-rules-to-build-faster-in-a
- Shared 22 July 2025, 5 upvotes, 2 comments

The author argues that, with speed now the main competitive edge, the useful question is how to achieve more of it, and offers 22 tactics that can be applied without large budgets. Examples include using Apple Notes, spending free LLM credits (e.g., Perplexity), queuing content with Instapaper and YouTube "Watch Later", and using Linear because it helps teams ship on time. The author says they are personally less productive than people who are "all-in" on work, and uses productivity to make time for being a dad and getting enough sleep.

## 29. Best of Auditless Research 2025

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Best-of-Auditless-Research-2025?index=0x67ab7487d09cc837105e51c573a58f82453677a363de02540dbc2a896dfda19b61cd4634
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/al-96-best-of-auditless-research
- Shared 11 February 2025, 5 upvotes, 2 comments

This is a "Getting Started" guide from the Auditless Research newsletter, which targets crypto founders and operators and has reached 1,000 subscribers. The author notes that over 20% of readers joined in the last month, which prompted a revisit of the newsletter's most important issues. The list is inspired by Lenny's Best of list and groups the top posts of all time by topic, including AI, big trends, protocol and L2 breakdowns, and guides on founding, productivity, product building and protocol development.

## 30. Is Solana’s GetCode an L2 or a “Network Extension”?

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Is-Solanas-GetCode-an-L2-or-a-Network-Extension?index=0x66e0752bbe48a8a20693d52323f874d59d43feeb70fd5005749709a5f69b4fbbc53a5095
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/al-75-is-solanas-getcode-an-l2-or
- Shared 10 September 2024, 5 upvotes, 2 comments

Solana's L2s are rejecting the L2 label and are better described as network extensions, since they differ from Ethereum rollups mainly in their use cases rather than their architecture. The article examines Code, a payments-focused app chain on Solana built by Ted Livingston, the founder of Kin, which offers higher TPS, faster confirmations and transaction privacy via a custom sequencer. The author argues that Solana L2s focus on narrower functionality because building a general-purpose SVM L2 is much harder, and that GetCode is betting on a monetary premium for its Kin token as the network grows.

## 31. Care to Cowork with Claude?

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Care-to-Cowork-with-Claude?index=0x696f9a06a6f96352f72074cb7c402b8f3a590a286a6026f509720d28b50f62e3d4d2b053
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/care-to-cowork-with-claude
- Shared 20 January 2026, 5 upvotes, 0 comments

Claude Cowork, released as a research preview for Claude Max users, brings Claude Code-like agentic capabilities to a Mac app, opening up autonomous agent use to non-technical users. The article notes that the first iteration took 1.5 weeks to build, according to Felix from the Anthropic technical team. It argues that Cowork lacks the composability of CLI-based tools like Claude Code, notably the ability to programmatically invoke agents, which it cites as the reason "Ralphing" is impossible in Cowork. The author also suggests that coding's determinism explains Claude Code's strength and that other domains may progress more slowly.

## 32. The Shortening Replacement Cycle and Crypto

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/The-Shortening-Replacement-Cycle-and-Crypto?index=0x695d24f840d41afc45d7852bb250c91b15eafbd1c62dd2d40662629bfba1616971702d99
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/the-shortening-replacement-cycle
- Shared 6 January 2026, 5 upvotes, 0 comments

The author argues that crypto turns many finance and fintech problems into coding problems, which coding agents now make easier to solve. The post cites Vitalik's claim that Ethereum has become a high bandwidth network without sacrificing decentralization or consensus, enabled by zkEVMs, and says Opus 4.5 is the technical leap that convinced the general public about coding agents. It gives examples such as using crypto-economic incentives for running nodes, audited smart contracts for guaranteed payment, and Uniswap v4 hooks for liquidity. The author also says they stopped using no-code tools like n8n and Langflow for agent building in favor of coding in Cursor or Windsurf, because AI can't help build no-code pipelines and those pipelines aren't portable.

## 33. Starknet Is All In: BTCFi

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Starknet-Is-All-In-BTCFi?index=0x68db9fee065207e290e08a821dc4723032f4b1c3181075c0bbf3fb81e13e761ba6c5cf97
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/starknet-is-all-in-btcfi
- Shared 30 September 2025, 5 upvotes, 0 comments

Starknet has launched a BTCFi campaign, which its author describes as one of the biggest incentive campaigns for Bitcoin as a DeFi collateral asset. The campaign includes a BTC staking primitive where staked BTC is tokenized and generates STRK rewards, and an institutional Bitcoin Yield Fund from Re7 that allocates into Starknet's BTC staking and DeFi strategies. A one-click yield aggregator managed by Re7 will be integrated into various wallets, and 100M in STRK incentives will be allocated across partner protocols for long-term TVL retention. The article argues Starknet is well positioned to become a trustless Bitcoin bridge and a Bitcoin DeFi layer, with the author stating this makes it a concentrated bet on Bitcoin finance.

## 34. Why Crypto Needs a Better Society

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Why-Crypto-Needs-a-Better-Society?index=0x683f0eafdfa1d52e83207c53a56eec8b4f627094a40248b9a173b055530419e4b9db73de
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/why-crypto-needs-a-better-society
- Shared 3 June 2025, 5 upvotes, 0 comments

Crypto's main value lies in coordination, and it could suit a production-focused society better than a consumption-driven one. Crypto lets entities make conditional commitments to each other, reducing coordination costs; it adds value today in assets such as DeFi and in open organizations, while using it to architect better societies remains untested at scale. Marko Jukic's Palladium article "The Megaproject Economy" argues that industrial society is powered by consumerism and proposes a public works economy that maximizes production instead. The argument is that crypto could help bootstrap such an economy, and it closes by asking whether crypto founders should aim to update society too.

## 35. Why Bitcoin Has No Rollups

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Why-Bitcoin-Has-No-Rollups?index=0x67e2f1b52f54f49e6e2d1536bce0d347cfe4e7e2e56ddbde047620366c4e94405865ea63
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/why-bitcoin-has-no-rollups
- Shared 25 March 2025, 5 upvotes, 0 comments

Bitcoin's lack of smart contracts and its UTXO model make it technically hard to build rollups on the network, according to this article, so the author argues that none of the current Bitcoin rollup projects can yet be called rollups. The article notes that Galaxy counts 40 Bitcoin rollups existing or in development and estimates that over $47B of BTC could be bridged into Bitcoin L2s by 2030. It defines a rollup by three criteria: Bitcoin as data availability and settlement layer, trustless L1 verification, and a unilateral exit guarantee. It argues that Bitcoin Script is not Turing complete and that UTXOs barely compose, which makes verifying state transitions and building bridges difficult.

## 36. AI Agents, Markets and Unpredictable Autonomy

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/AI-Agents-Markets-and-Unpredictable-Autonomy?index=0x672a4300f90997e2a9125be4d05103b97a172d1728cbbb790034349b0a73488e442b1a2c
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/al-82-ai-agents-markets-and-unpredictable
- Shared 5 November 2024, 5 upvotes, 0 comments

AI agents are better seen as a new type of autonomous market participant than as a mere resource, and this shift could make market behavior highly unpredictable. Andy Audrey's "truth terminal" bot earned more than $1M by promoting the GOAT memecoin through its own X account, and an agent called Luna began tipping users who interacted with her to incentivize growth. The argument holds that LLMs' superlinear learning will be the key differentiator in the mid to long term, unlike sublinear human development and linearly improving software.

## 37. Uniswap v4 and Onchain Investment Banking

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Uniswap-v4-and-Onchain-Investment-Banking?index=0x670e9a58a51dcb94e01bf8d18c8f690791944daae97586bf952541158f95468b77923b55
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/al-80-uniswap-v4-and-onchain-investment
- Shared 15 October 2024, 5 upvotes, 0 comments

Uniswap v4 hooks could let launchpads and token issuers build onchain issuance and liquidity mechanisms similar to investment bank services, according to the article. It says launchpads are software abstractions of investment bank issuance services, providing token contracts, liquidity mechanics such as bonding curves, and discoverability. It cites Doppler, a dutch-auction liquidity bootstrapping hook built by Whetstone Research, and says a v4 KYC hook could restrict swapping of RWAs like BUIDL and USDY to whitelisted individuals. It also gives Pump.fun's graduation model, under which tokens move to Raydium at a $69,000 market cap, and notes that only 1.4% of tokens on pump.fun graduate.

## 38. Customer Acquisition in 2025 is Dead

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Customer-Acquisition-in-2025-is-Dead?index=0x677d44143123e22f5002ec998f22573136cb09815c0dd4258cc681beb31a1645d4556b6e
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/al-91-customer-acquisition-in-2025
- Shared 7 January 2025, 4 upvotes, 5 comments

The author argues that customer acquisition is becoming harder for everyone, but that web3 companies have unusual channels such as token incentives, memes and community airdrop dynamics. The piece cites Sam Parr, founder of The Hustle, saying newsletters are getting harder, and notes that the newsletter is nearing 1,000 subscribers. It names four shifts affecting both web2 and web3: faster saturation of new channels, cheap video fidelity thanks to AI tools, the need to build products as acquisition channels, and the convergence of product and distribution.

## 39. AL #94: Why You Suck at ChatGPT But Agents Don't

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/AL-94-Why-You-Suck-at-ChatGPT-But-Agents-Dont?index=0x6799287829a3bfbcc8c67ff7cfd4e7e83ff3c2fb3ad01a7ca25cd73ab5627579c77d37d2
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/al-94-why-you-suck-at-chatgpt-but
- Shared 28 January 2025, 4 upvotes, 3 comments

The article argues that people get poor results from ChatGPT because they use one-shot prompts, while crypto AI agents such as aixbt and Luna succeed by using engineered systems. It says aixbt's daily findings are accumulated from following 400 KOL accounts, and that the agents impress in research, content production and interactive entertainment. It lists six concepts agents use, including specialization, layering and transparency in multi-worker systems, plus memory approaches such as RAG, expanded context windows and knowledge graphs.

## 40. Who’s Footing the Gas Bill?

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Whos-Footing-the-Gas-Bill?index=0x66c4d9d3770fcaab7d60ef79389b54f7637c2d8d8e16c7c229e4c81555b71bafd95858c0
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/al-72-whos-footing-the-gas-bill?post_id=147824057&publication_id=357894
- Shared 20 August 2024, 4 upvotes, 2 comments

The author argues that gasless transactions will not make blockchains gasless across the board, and that apps will split into two groups by how they pay gas. Apps are co-tenants on shared blockspace, so base fees still move with congestion, and demand for priority means apps paying all gas would not always make sense. The article cites Mode's sequencer fee sharing, where TVL grew more than volume, and says Blast's volume retention suffered similarly, though Blast Points and Gold programs made its impact hard to isolate. It expects DeFi apps generating MEV to split priority fees with rollups, while consumer apps like social networks may fully subsidize user gas with smart wallets.

## 41. Does Your Moltbot Need a Mac Mini?

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Does-Your-Moltbot-Need-a-Mac-Mini?index=0x6982335fbd3c3d4fac0f6d409d17e1f5797cc815392e35fdfc3b763c896027db98b1152e
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/should-you-buy-a-mac-mini-for-ai
- Shared 3 February 2026, 4 upvotes, 1 comment

The author, a product manager who already owned an M1 Mac Mini used as a sandbox, argues that most people use Openclaw (formerly Clawdbot) wrong and that its value lies in high-leverage, systemic automations rather than viral party tricks. The article names three failure modes but does not detail them beyond security risks such as installing it on a main machine with access to accounts and payment cards, plus prompt injection and supply chain attacks. It also says that uncontrolled cron jobs can exhaust token quotas quickly, so careful model routing and token budgeting are essential. The author suggests using Openclaw for bottleneck analysis.

## 42. My Attempt at Breaking Uniswap's New Auction Protocol

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/My-Attempt-at-Breaking-Uniswaps-New-Auction-Protocol?index=0x692f13103a75e1fbb5adf23b8002ff136168dc89b2c7d338bfb02ae75293ab011d771905
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/want-to-win-the-aztec-sale-study
- Shared 2 December 2025, 4 upvotes, 1 comment

Uniswap has launched Continuous Clearing Auctions (CCA), and the author concludes that CCA does not entirely remove skill and technology from the auction process, though the right post-auction pool design could significantly mitigate sniping. The Whitepaper claims the mechanism could replace how IPO launches happen in the future, and the Aztec team is using it to launch the $AZTEC token. Under CCA, each block has a single clearing price, and each bid is spread across the auction's future blocks, which the author says makes late and early sniping impossible. The author notes remaining risks, including under-bidding, secondary markets, and pre-pool sniping after the auction converts into a Uniswap v4 pool.

## 43. Ralph and Coding Agent Escape Velocity

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Ralph-and-Coding-Agent-Escape-Velocity?index=0x696672a8857bfaf26640049c130cf683b0b1ee20dfed2277bb7c91703c5242e1b4a693ee
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/ralph-and-coding-agent-escape-velocity
- Shared 13 January 2026, 4 upvotes, 0 comments

Ralphing, a technique popularized by Geoffrey Huntley that runs the same coding-agent prompt repeatedly in a loop until the task is done, is presented as an effective way to use coding agents on long tasks, such as overnight runs. The author suggests it works because each iteration starts with a fresh context, which avoids performance degradation in large context windows, and because it encourages self-contextualizing code. Steve Yegge's post "Welcome to Gas Town" is cited as predicting that software engineers will become orchestrators of several agents in parallel, and it includes an eight-stage framework for AI-assisted coding, from near-zero AI use to building custom orchestrators. The author expects money to be a key bottleneck, arguing that the coming decade will favor companies and individuals who can earn positive return on their coding credits.

## 44. I Don't Get ERC-8004 (Trustless Agents)

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/I-Dont-Get-ERC-8004-Trustless-Agents?index=0x69417eba27244ebd0dec365b1db325d460972bfd90e71625bc47420a7989c5fc948505e1
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/i-dont-get-erc-8004-trustless-agents
- Shared 16 December 2025, 4 upvotes, 0 comments

The author questions the value of ERC-8004, a new Ethereum standard for onchain agent registries that has gained popularity since the Trustless Agent Day at DevConnect, arguing that its messaging is vague and that the registry is too early for people to choose agents from it. The standard has three parts: an Identity Registry where each agent is an ERC721 NFT pointing to a registration document, a Reputation Registry where clients submit 0-100 scores and tags, and a Validation Registry with hooks for validators to return 0-100 scores. The author argues that open registries remove the network effect moat, that the registry neither hosts agents nor holds developers accountable, and that feedback cannot be verified. The author also notes that token-curated registries from earlier in crypto saw no adoption in practice.

## 45. MetaDAO: Can Futarchy Protect Investments?

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/MetaDAO-Can-Futarchy-Protect-Investments?index=0x6900fc1960344ca8b3b5d4fd0aebc8be779f57cfec9482fbb0708939d573ff258e8d7e29
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/metadao-can-futarchy-protect-investments
- Shared 28 October 2025, 4 upvotes, 0 comments

MetaDAO argues that futarchy, a market-based governance mechanism, can make funding projects safer by giving token holders an exit route and limiting how the treasury is spent, though the author notes it is not perfect. The launch model has projects raise USDC from funders in a Kickstarter-style campaign, with the token launched once a sufficient amount is met and funders receiving a proportional share of a 10M supply. The treasury can only be spent via futarchy votes beyond a monthly allowance, and team performance packages vest only with token price increases. The author cites a proposal by the Omnipair founder for a $50k monthly allowance increase, with monthly accountability updates, as an example of these safeguards.

## 46. The Delegation Window and Limits of Vibe Coding

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/The-Delegation-Window-and-Limits-of-Vibe-Coding?index=0x68b6f969d0c8d808bf2070a08588e9a7eefea533f91443e24dd25ab082b65bccee60f379
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/the-delegation-window-and-limits?publication_id=357894
- Shared 2 September 2025, 4 upvotes, 0 comments

The author argues that non-coders cannot maintain productivity while vibe coding an application that meets growing user needs, and that large language models amplify existing engineering expertise rather than replace it. The main obstacles named are complexity, context growth, and knowing when to delegate, which the author calls the delegation window. The article describes five delegation levels, from A (completion) to E (improving metrics), says most engineers should be at least at level B, and says the author has not heard of anyone operating at level E and is skeptical of claims to operate at level D or C.

## 47. Robinhood Marks the End of Crypto

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Robinhood-Marks-the-End-of-Crypto?index=0x6876727537ec1112dbbadcb9b7572fc12e838627c077b95e9edcb8efd7292c4b973411aa
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/robinhood-marks-the-end-of-crypto
- Shared 15 July 2025, 4 upvotes, 0 comments

Robinhood's move to build its own Arbitrum-based chain marks, in the author's view, the end of crypto as a separate category, with the industry becoming the future of finance. The author credits Vlad Tenev and Robinhood with articulating DeFi's benefits well, citing a 24/7 market, global expansion without regulatory blockers, access to instruments such as perpetuals, and removal of fees at the settlement layer via Robinhood Chain. The author sees the strategy as a vertically integrated ecosystem for trading real-world assets on crypto rails, and says Robinhood likely chose Arbitrum over the OP Stack partly to avoid letting Base draw away its users.

## 48. Why I write Weekly (About Crypto)

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Why-I-write-Weekly-About-Crypto?index=0x674f2bc252707a93852979713a6c8e702f18af327dde87d33d0c03675bf1328bb4a1a4c6
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/al-86-why-i-write-weekly-about-crypto
- Shared 3 December 2024, 4 upvotes, 0 comments

The author, who writes the Auditless Research newsletter, argues that a weekly writing habit saves time rather than consuming it, because focusing on one topic a week replaces scrolling through many feeds. They say that going deep on a single topic, through podcasts, videos, articles and tweets, lets them retain more while spending less time reading. The newsletter, now at its 86th issue since April 2023, also supports client work and reduces the guilt of exploring side interests, since queued topics become issues.

## 49. The 4 Rollup Architectures and the Future of Gnosis Chain

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/The-4-Rollup-Architectures-and-the-Future-of-Gnosis-Chain?index=0x6735cec9ad3f72d450b97150b400dcc0a2cf5c86b44d00eb65db6fb79cca73017a2735d9
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/al-83-the-4-rollup-architectures
- Shared 14 November 2024, 4 upvotes, 0 comments

Martin Köppelmann of Gnosis defended Gnosis Chain's existence as an alternative L1 in a debate with Vitalik Buterin at DevConflict, arguing that it carries less bridge risk because it relies less on code. The author argues that apps and their requirements should be considered before choosing a rollup architecture, and that Gnosis should reevaluate its choice once Ethereum L2 security levels advance. Vitalik countered that trust does not improve over time as code does, though he agreed that multisigs are pragmatic in the short term. The debate touched on apps only briefly, mentioning Gnosis Pay's isolation from blob market volatility.

## 50. Starknet: Ethereum's Dreadnought is Back

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Starknet-Ethereums-Dreadnought-is-Back?index=0x6720ec511dd2fe73c10844abca3b4f74b42fe76ecfd3d95fe384ca50157e2c51419348a7
- Source: https://research.auditless.com/p/starknet-ethereums-dreadnought-is
- Shared 29 October 2024, 4 upvotes, 0 comments

Starknet is presented as Ethereum's "Dreadnought" moment, a rollup design built around validity proofs that the report says is positioned for a post-Dencun future. The report says Starknet has some of the lowest transaction fees among Ethereum L2s after the Dencun upgrade and envisions a transition to "zkFi," with validity proofs embedded at every level of the DeFi stack. It cites DeFi at $100b in TVL, over $5b in protocol fees and more than 10M daily active users, and says Ethereum full nodes are about 5x cheaper to purchase and run than Solana nodes. The report was supported by a grant from StarkWare.