BlockchainGandalf

A couple of years ago I released a short episode on how to get into blockchain programming, covering a few general points that needed to be considered.

In this post, I talk more specifically about how to get into Ethereum programming, which splits into two categories - writing and deploying (and testing!) smart contracts, and producing websites that interface with such contracts (also known as web3 programming).

Jamie Dimon asked the question the other day, "How do you know it ends at 21 million?" followed with a few questions that had a scornful tone about the reading of code.  It's understandable that he doesn't read code - most people don't know where to begin.  I don't know if viruses, DNA, or black holes actually exist. So I rely on biologists or physicists to confirm or deny their existence.  I thought I would do Jamie Dimon a favour, look up the relevant code, and then explain it. He's a banker, so he should understand the numbers I talk about. The rest of you will have to trust me - I'm a mathematician.  I then go on to talk about the one scenario in which there isn't a 21 million cap, and explain why it is highly unlikely that it would come to pass.

The reason for web 3.0 is so obvious to people working in the space that they often forget to draw attention to it when explaining it to other people.  I failed to mention it explicitly in my video series on the topic of Web 3.0.  And it's the number one user error that I encountered after launching my SOULS.fi NFT token website.  Fortunately, Thomas Lukasik pointed out to me that I really should make a video about it.  And so I have.

In trading, a blow-up describes the "complete and abject failure" of an individual, company, or hedge fund. When an individual trader "blows up", it's game over for them, and they move on to being an Uber driver or something like that.  But banks are bailed out when they manage to work around the regulations designed to protect them and then trigger a financial crisis.  This is because they provide the infrastructure and mechanisms for trade, investment, and ... just everyday living. Our society runs on the rails that they provide.  You've got to wonder why we've built a financial system where, apparently, the only way to prevent our major players from blowing themselves up is to regulate their behaviour and then bail them out if they find a way around the regulation.  But what if we could build automated "rails" for finance, that continued to function even if individual participants mismanaged themselves and went bankrupt?  I wonder what such a system could be based on...

Saying you're looking to recruit a blockchain developer is like saying you're looking for a lawyer.

Specifics matter - just as you don't want a patent attorney defending you against criminal charges, you don't want a web3 interface designer writing smart contract implementations of financial instruments.  You need to be specific. Mind you, traditional software developer recruiting agencies are often clueless about the underlying skill requirements for the roles they are looking to fill. It's just that in blockchain it's ten times worse, because it's a relatively new field. More on that in this episode.

Did Van Gogh die in vain?

Wouldn't it be nice if non-fungible token art carried with it an automatic royalty, so that every time the artwork was sold, the artist would receive a percentage of the sale price? Kind of like what happens in some jurisdictions when artworks are sold through auction houses?  In this video, I explain why this isn't going to work, and why NFTs aren't magic bullets that can ensure artists who become successful get a guaranteed share of the profits from the subsequent increase in their artwork. 

As for my question about Van Gogh - no, he didn't die in vain. Tragic though his suicide was, it has become part of the whole narrative behind his life and art. But that doesn't change the fact that he did die in poverty.

It's a known problem in the hiring world that assessing the competence and skill of a potential candidate for a role is difficult.  It's even worse if you're hiring in a space that you're unfamiliar with, because it's easier for the candidate to pretend they know more than they do, or are less experienced than they present themselves.  And blockchain is an unfamiliar space for most recruiters and hiring companies.  In this video I discuss the problem, and some of the solutions.

The best, most experienced blockchain developers with years of experience usually have a different background to your average applicant for a software development role.  They're likely to fall into several of the categories below:  

📀 they get obsessed with technology early on and like to work on new things  

😠 they have strong opinions about traditional finance, and those opinions may transfer over into other areas  

😵‍💫 they're risk takers - after all they sank hours of their time into a technology well before its worth became globally apparent  

🤑 they've got a bit more spare capital sitting around than the usual candidate, so they're not (as) desperate for a job.  

🤐 they're concerned about security and privacy 

And there are plenty of wacky or unusual projects out there to catch their attention.  So if you put them through the usual corporate bullsh*t of grueling condescending interviews and pointless "do this at home" tasks, or ask them to copy/paste the resume they sent you (if they even bothered with that) into yet another recruitment portal, they'll walk away.  In other words, it's a seller's market, you're the buyer, and you're going to have to rethink your strategy.

The blockchain space has sure hotted up since the cryptowinter of 2018.  As a result, blockchain engineers and smart contract developers are in more demand than ever.  Entrepreneurs and companies are seeing vast sums of money pouring into DeFi and payment remittance project, and want in on the action.  What they don't want to do is pay for the back-end work that needs to be done to design, build, and run such project.  if you want to hire someone suitable, you're going to have to compromise. At the bare minimum you'll need to offer:  

✅ Rates well above the software development average,

✅ Remote working as standard, 

✅ Part-time as an option, 

✅ An efficient non-toxic, non-bureaucratic work community.  

Don't like it? Sorry - that's how free markets work in a capitalist society.

If ever there was a misused word, it's the word "intrinsic". Even some of the dictionary definitions are suspect.

Attach it to the word "value" and you enter a philosophical minefield. Now we have an incompletely understood word modifying another incompletely understood word.

And this is all very well if we are just engaged in philosophical word games, but the problem is that the term "intrinsic value" is often used by people in authority to dismiss things that go against their agenda.

And then other people parrot the words without understanding the meaning, or knowing what the original agenda stands for, often to their own detriment.

And then I get annoyed and make videos like this one.