Near Protocol price

EGLD's fall from grace: Going from a capped supply to a yearly inflation of 8.75% is reckless What is even worse is that 40% of that is being funneled directly to a "fake DAO" While they plan to mint an additional $250M worth of EGLD to GIVE directly to private companies! 🧵 Including "MvX Labs US LLC," which is owned by EGLD's leadership; clearly a massive conflict of interest! A real shame, as they have some of the best sharding tech; however, none of that matters if they wreck the economic model in this way Inflation Is Not Growth: Within the context of blockchain token economic design, inflation should be seen as a cost that is paid by the investors That means when you mint new tokens to GIVE to private parties. What you are really doing is redistributing wealth, from everyone, to these private parties... That is why what is being proposed here is not just terrible from a blockchain design & economics perspective but also from a moral one. It is, in other words, a type of "hidden tax"; a trick governments have played on the public for centuries Something that crypto should move away from, not return to... It would not be so bad if all this new inflation were used to secure the network (paying validators) & other decentralized L1 purposes (like a L1 DAO treasury). However, that is unfortunately not the case here That is also how this proposal inevitably introduces corruption by combining potentially massive payouts with centralized decision-making: Fake DAO: DAOs are supposed to be governed through stakeholder voting. That is not the case here; that is what makes this a "Fake DAO" The stakeholders will only get 40% of the vote! While the foundation gets 30% & xAlliance (funded by the foundation) gets the last 30%... That is not a DAO, as it is not decentralized or autonomous! Builder "Growth" Fund (20% of Inflation): Governed in a centralized manner. As I just described, this fund will pay out applications. Again, opening up countless more opportunities for corruption. As they will whitelist projects that get paid, creating an unfair competitive environment Whitelists are never justified in a decentralized context, as it always implies a type of permissioned gatekeeping. Whitelists & blacklists for that matter are something we would usually associate with centralized systems instead... User "Growth" Fund (20% of Inflation): This is basically an incentive program for EGLD DeFi. Something we have seen many times before. However, there is a big difference between a foundation spending its initially agreed-upon capital vs allocating new emissions after the fact... This will again impoverish investors in favor of DeFi traders, who tend to be highly mercenary, jumping from chain to chain chasing such incentive programs. Another crooked game that is unlikely to create lasting growth for EGLD; quite the opposite: As it will create even more downward pressure on price as mercenary traders sell all these tokens back into the market... Protocol "Sustainability" (10% of Inflation): Looks like this bucket will be paid directly to the Core team (the authors of this proposal) I have opposed this style of Core dev funding for many years, as it is basically a "blank check". There should instead be a decentralized treasury that is voted on through governance proposals (competition). Not a hardcoded address that goes directly to the Core team... The document itself does not describe the exact implementation of this bucket, but I suspect it will be as I just described, which is again terrible. This feels especially greedy as the same leadership is also planning to give itself an additional $100M worth of EGLD by GIVING it to their own private for-profit company: Conflict of interests ($100M): MvX Labs US LLC will be a private for-profit company, presumably owned by EGLD's leadership. Just like its Romanian counterpart I only say presumably here, as the company does not even exist (based on the US company registry). Yet in the screenshot below (from the official docs), they propose GIVING this company $100M in EGLD! This is the most insane aspect of this entire plan. As it breaks multiple "sacred" rules of blockchain design. Breaking the social contract & all future trust in the process As this sets a precedent that big "one off" emission events can occur under EGLD's leadership & governance. Destroying any & all scarcity guarantees that investors usually look for when doing fundamental analysis Emissions (inflation) should only ever be used by an L1 for itself, not to pay off private companies! DAT & ETF deals ($150M): I keep repeating that they are "GIVING" these newly minted tokens away, because unlike BTC, ETH, & SOL, DATs & ETFs. Who have to buy these tokens on the open market based on the demand for these products, thereby creating positive price pressure These organizations will be "gifted" these tokens instead of needing to buy them. This is another area where there should be massive corruption concerns This means that EGLD's leadership is now in a position to appoint people to extremely lucrative positions. Even giving them shares worth many millions of dollars, the possibilities for bribes & favoritism are endless... This is another reason why an L1 should have nothing to do with such matters, thereby maintaining credible neutrality! DATs & ETFs should instead evolve organically based on the merit of the project, as happened with BTC, ETH & SOL; those L1s had nothing to do with setting up these companies, let alone directly GIVING them freshly minted tokens! Builder Revenue Share (90% of Fees) Another terrible design decision; as builders can always allocate more of the application fees to themselves via the smart contract. The reason why they do not do so in most ecosystems is that it makes the application way less competitive! The total fees are based on what the validator is willing to accept, by arbitrarily returning 90% of the fees back to the smart contract developer. It forces validators to raise gas prices to meet their costs In effect, this will make all applications on EGLD 10x more expensive. In reality, most competitively minded devs will program this revenue share out; however, that also creates massive inefficiencies in the smart contract itself... I never liked the initial 30% revenue share, which means I obviously dislike a 90% revenue share even more! Economic Design EGLD's major competitors, such as ETH & SOL, both have a low long-term inflation rate combined with a 50% fee burn That EGLD is introducing a high inflation rate, combined with a 10% burn, makes it massively inferior from an economic perspective. As the goal with these designs is to have the burn exceed the inflation rate... However, given how much worse these figures are, for EGLD to achieve the same level of deflation (price appreciation based on burn), it would need at least 10x the economic activity... As this plan will give EGLD 5x the inflation with 1/5 the burn! That is what makes this design so objectively bad when compared to ETH & SOL The fact that EGLD's leadership has repeatedly stated that EGLD's burn will exceed inflation when this plan is implemented is also incredibly irresponsible. As that is not even the case with ETH & SOL now, which have a far better economic model & orders of magnitude more usage... The latest trend for big chains is to reduce their inflation rates, as ETH & NEAR did, or as SOL attempted to do, since most are still overpaying for security. The fact that EGLD is going in the complete opposite direction tells us how disconnected they are from established industry blockchain design principles Political Blunder This was also very badly handled from a political perspective. It is almost as if the leadership has ZERO knowledge of the last decade in crypto governance developments, or even basic political common sense... Attempting so many changes all at once was a terrible decision for multiple reasons: As it allows critics such as myself to focus on the worst parts of the plan, while also making it trivial for the Core team to control the narrative through sleight of hand As they can, for example, focus on discussing inflation rates while avoiding the topic of them minting new tokens that they plan to GIVE to private companies, including their own... It is not dissimilar to what happens in US politics, where many unrelated issues are pushed into a single massive bill. Forcing politicians to make massive compromises, as passing something they want will also imply passing something they do not want that the bill's creators might have snuck in! That is what makes these current discussions so unhealthy, as it quickly becomes a chaotic mess. What they should have done was introduce these new concepts one at a time, so the community can focus on that issue without additional & unnecessary noise Another major mistake was releasing a "half-baked" proposal where so much still remains unspecified, critical details where many devils can hide. As it muddies the conversation even more! Yet the core team is still actively promoting this & gathering consensus, while critics like me are not supposed to critique because it is unfinished... A ridiculous political situation, that comes across as if the Core team is attempting to dominate the narrative & discussion through manipulative tactics Chasing imaginary demons I noticed a lot of EGLD community members & leadership pointing to SOL as a justification for these changes Basically saying if SOL can do such evil & corrupt things that EGLD also has to do those things to compete... (two wrongs do not make a right) What is even crazier about that is that SOL never did anything even approaching the level of controversy these changes represent: SOL never increased its inflation rate, never paid private companies from new token emissions, & never paid its own leadership from new token emissions As a matter of fact, all of SOL's "ecosystem funding" comes from the foundation (non-profit). Which got all of its funds from the initial token allocation. That is entirely different from what is being proposed here... The Alternative Solution: The real technical solution is incredibly simple & has been done many times before: A decentralized L1 treasury governed by the L1 stakeholders Similar to what governance innovators like DASH, XTZ & DCR have done. Modern examples also exist, such as APT & SEI! For that purpose, I would propose an inflation rate of 2% which is more economically sound. Which should be split as such: 45% to the validators 45% to the burn 10% to the treasury These numbers are well established within the broader crypto research community In truth, this entire proposal is far more complex than it needs to be. In fact, the entire proposal could be replaced with a single-page document, which would also be far better at achieving the stated goals As a single L1 native DAO can easily fund anything imaginable, while doing it in a fully decentralized, transparent & credibly neutral way The difference is that in such a design, power & authority flow directly from the stakeholders rather than from the centralized leadership, as is the case in the current proposal There are more details & nuances we could discuss as part of this ideal design, such as weighting based on time-locked, native delegation, on-chain proposals systems, & additional checks & balances. However, these are all minor details in comparison with the grander ideal design, which is elegant in its simplicity The Future of EGLD: The leadership will get its way, that much seems clear to me, as they have ZERO genuine interest in real feedback & debate. Literally refusing to debate me, or even engaging with these topics & opting for ad hominem attacks instead... The community calls are a joke, a form of theatre, as I am not welcome, considering they muted me after speaking for less than a minute... They will continue to compromise on some of these decisions & likely meet the critics halfway. However, it would not surprise me at all if that was always the plan. Even if the figures are cut in half, this is still a terrible plan EGLD is dead to me. I cannot support a project with such atrocious token economics & a leadership that shuts down debate with character assassination Perpetual Motion Machine: It is funny to me that the document itself refers to this plan as a "perpetual motion machine". A machine that cannot exist as it breaks the laws of thermodynamics A concept that has a long history with scammers promising people the moon, only for them to lose everything in the end The analogy is kind of perfect in the economic sense, even though that is clearly not how the author meant it Refusal To Debate: My challenge for a debate to the founders remains open! So far they have refused my challenge & even refuse to engage me on these topics, instead they are attempting to destroy my credibility through constant ad hominem attacks. Calling me a liar & a scammer, even from the founders themselves, setting the example for what is remaining of that community... Even if I was a liar & scammer, which I am most certainly not, the best way to shut me down would be a debate. As that would allow reason & logic to triumph That is why it is the side unwilling to debate that is the least likely to have truth on its side... An incredibly weak response considering that I might just be their most prominent critic! As I am open to have a productive discussion with the leadership about these points, they clearly are not Conclusion: I am sad to see another great cryptocurrency fall, especially one that had so much positive potential As again its sharding implementation is one of the best we have ever seen, so I have no doubt about the technical proficiency of the team Unfortunately, as is often the case in crypto, these same engineers also think they can design economic & governance systems... Which in reality requires an entirely different area of expertise. Explaining how I am so easily able to tear their plan apart, as that is in fact my own area of expertise What bothers me the most is how they are promising people growth, when in reality all they are bringing to the table is dilution... That is part of the reason why I have completely lost faith in the team. As they are promising massive growth as part of this plan, yet all they will do in reality is impoverish investors & enrich themselves more in the process That is not the crypto dream; it is a nightmare! It always hurts to see our communities, our favorite chain go up in smoke. It takes strength & bravery to admit we were wrong & move on Please do not be one of those bag holders who becomes more extreme as the price continues to crash, diversify your portfolio & your mind now! Escape the cult! I was not even able to cover everything that was wrong with the proposal in what has now become a massive critique... This might be one of the worst governance proposals I have ever seen in over a decade of full-time research into cryptocurrency That is how I went from EGLD supporter to critic overnight when this proposal dropped. That is why I needed to deploy harsh rhetoric quickly. As we, especially as influencers have a responsibility to warn people of irresponsible behavior within the crypto sphere, especially if we have also promoted the project in the past If you also once supported EGLD, then the healthiest response is to view this debacle as an expensive but incredibly valuable lesson, that we can carry with us towards whatever chains we choose to support next That is how we grow as people, as an industry & as a community. Breaking the cult-like cycle of toxicity. By replacing it with true intellectual honesty, logic, reason & love! ❤️

After a year of tracking crypto x AI, here's a braindump of things I've been seeing/thinking (tldr is we're waiting for a spark to send our tokies parabolic): 1. Most crypto x AI tokens are down 60-80% from their January peaks, with only a handful of newer projects showing sustained gains. Projects with defined use cases (i.e. $BNKR) are thriving (screw the X ban) while pure narrative plays (i.e. $GOAT) aren't. 2. AI Social Agents: The social AI agent boom has largely failed. Most "agents" are glorified chatbots flooding social media with low-quality content. The few exceptions (like Grok's contextual Q&A) succeed because they're transparently AI tools rather than human impersonators. The lesson: AI should augment human capabilities, not replace human authenticity. Either that, or LLMs get better at surfacing novel insights from the X firehose. 3. Agentic finance: Agentic portfolio managers on the other hand show genuine promise because they’re solving measurable problems: 24/7 monitoring, emotion-free execution, and strategy backtesting at scale. Projects like @Almanak__ (one we’re working w closely at Labs) are gaining traction not through hype but via yield. Tangential thought experiment: if AI eventually outperforms human traders, what happens to individual trading as a skill or profession? Edge gets eroded and it becomes -ev to be an unaugmented trader. There are also some interesting plays in the AI data space, but revenue is volatile and often obfuscated. We really need a decentralized data marketplace to democratize the playing field. 4. Development Tools: "Cursor for crypto" tools like @devfunpump represent genuine innovation. They’re lowering barriers to dApp creation and that could democratize crypto development. We're still waiting for the breakout vibe-coded crypto app that proves this thesis (I suspect it’s coming soon). 5. Funding Disconnect: The most compelling AI x crypto companies are raising private capital rather than issuing tokens. This creates a liquidity problem where retail investors chase low-quality tokenized projects while institutional money flows to higher-quality private deals. Until high-quality projects go public via tokens, broad repricing will be difficult. 6. Missing Catalysts: Someday, OpenAI will integrate Worldchain. Wish they’d just go for it now. I imagine there’s a lot of regulatory murk in the way, though. More realistic catalysts include: federal AI safety regulations that favor decentralized solutions (unlikely imo), major DeFi protocols or CEXes successfully integrating AI trading, or breakthrough improvements in on-chain inference capabilities. 7. Upcoming Unlocks: Decentralized AI models are rapidly improving and could unlock lots of use-cases we can’t yet see. Some Bittensor subnets are starting to generate actual revenue. x402 (shoutout to the @questflow team, which helped develop it) seems to be gaining steam as a leading agentic payments protocol. Near Intents showing promise. And I’ve been talking with the @ritualnet team, which is nearing public testnet. It uses “heterogeneous compute” (ie a mix of any form of compute rather than the simplified VMs most chains use) to let devs bring AI and offchain data onchain so smart contracts can utilize it/trigger actions. We need more flexible, futureproof platforms like this as innovation goes parabolic. 7. When to flip bullish: (1) OpenAI adds a Worldcoin integration or launches a social network with AI + payments integration, (2) clear evidence that on-chain AI inference can compete with centralized alternatives on cost/speed, (3) massive spike in assets under autonomous management and/or AI+CEX integrations, (4) some new unlock in capabilities. All the ingredients are here. We’re just missing the inevitable spark. When it arrives, it’s going to be epic.