gm,

if you're a newcomer to our Daily Discussion thread, this is a place where we discuss all Ethereum topics, news, events. And sometimes even things that are not directly Ethereum-related.

Today, I gotta say, I‘m exhausted from the pain inflicted by the market. And I‘m also fearful that this might have, indeed, been it.

I’m hodling, and I have no plan to exit either. I‘m quite bearish on Ethereum‘s technology choices and I also don‘t like the team‘s decisions. And I‘m finding myself as the head of leading an Ethereum community, and a lot of my wealth is stored in it.

At the same time my plan to exit is just using my crypto as a buffer to keep building Kiwi.

It is somehow a great irony that I‘ve started building this app with lots of enthusiasm on Ethereum, and now I‘ve become quite disillusioned. Is this natural? Or Am I uniquely cooked here?

I‘m also not sure how wise this is from a wealth management perspective. Holding Ether. Building a product, all in, in Ethereum.

That said, the Kiwi product is definitely maturing and we are growing as people. AI is becoming better and so we‘re faster too. But the question, as an investor, will be how we can exit from this position. Or if we can seek some rent.

For my crypto investments, I feel like my money, my wealth, is the playball of some giant institutions. Trump says something, or he does something, or someone else does something and it all goes down the drain, or up, or sideways. Then there‘s the EF etc. And there are no ways of having influence. It‘s all jugging along.

So it is nice to have some agency in all of this nonsense. At least I have my own turf when I‘m annoyed about them again.

Everybody wanted to onboard retail, instead we got politics and institutions ;-) "Normalisation of crypto" in a certain way

While the ETH performance in the current market is disappointing, its combination of high protocol security and actual usability (applications) might become more valued when economic attacks increase due to the rising tension levels.

The Bybit attack seems to point in a different direction, but that was on the app/process level.

Everybody wanted to onboard retail, instead we got politics and institutions ;-) "Normalisation of crypto" in a certain way

It's true. I would have never thought that my parents would be exposed to hearing the word "Doge" multiple times a day just by consuming normie television, but here we are actually

We actually had very low engagement on Kiwi for the last few days, while viewership was still pretty high.

This is probably the ETHDenver hangover.

But it also makes me wonder how much LLMs are a substitute for engaging with other humans on the Internet. And maybe there will be an engagement crisis on the Internet. Because basically, you can already engage 24-7 with a human-like LLM. And you don't have to give up your privacy when wanting to ask a question or your intentions.

I'm more bullish on ETH than ever because I have more faith in Ethereum still existing 10 years from now than I do the US Dollar. The markets are thrashing because the institutions are failing and retail is deepin crypto because there is nowhere else for them to be. This is the long now.

More practically when price action has you down, take a look at the price of NVDA and you'll realize it's not just us.

Many of us went for the bull market headfake and were sold a fake bill of goods from POTUS, it's time to recalibrate and build for the future again.

Many of us went for the bull market headfake and were sold a fake bill of goods from POTUS, it's time to recalibrate and build for the future again.

Why you say fake?

I think we were sold pro-market runaway economic growth and what we received was a market thrashing and trying to believe but held down by anxiety around tariffs and war, neither which seem to have a real plan. You can keep your cards close with The Art of the Deal but if you can't make the market believe then it's a financial bloodbath.

Surprised you think this way about the presidency!

I actually think he's still doing really well in regards to election promises, e.g., a ceasefire for the war in Ukraine has a 70% chance of happening [1].

I also think the mineral deal, which is going to happen with an 80% chance [2], is actually really good for Ukraine. The demented main stream media is reporting on this as something horribly bad where they powerful guys are extracting based on Ukraine's bad cards. I see it as beautifully playing a hand of cards because IMO if the USA has now suddenly a shared interest in Ukrainian land being in Ukrainian hand so that they can extract minerals, then they're also locked in on defending this land from an aggressor in the future. Idk why this isn't considered to be a really good security guarantee. Maybe it's just TDS everywhere in the press.

Tariffs: I liked this view, https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/KISS-of-Death?index=0x67c638f6708be9929faa3b5fa5b21212f58900807fb1201bcc29a3a1c1df384221415207

DOGE: I actually think it's amazing what Elon is doing. I wish we could have a DOGE in Germany too. I hate grifters and no government workers are not the last resistance before fascism. They are just employees.

Crypto: Good developments throughout from what I can tell. They'll get a reserve. Many positive court rulings, positive changes at the SEC etc.

- 1: https://polymarket.com/event/russia-x-ukraine-ceasefire-in-2025?tid=1741180909808

- 2: https://polymarket.com/event/ukraine-agrees-to-give-trump-rare-earth-metals-before-april?tid=1741180935019