Welcome to Hello from Marv Newsletter #8

Reflecting on a decade in Ethereum, Toronto's crypto milestone moments, and media that's got me thinking


Hello hello! Welcome new folks and returning subscribers alike! It's been a while and I've got a ton of stuff from the tech thought train for you! Think I should start this newsletter with a personal note, an anniversary announcement! June 24th marked my first completed year in Canada! Toronto, thank you for the truly exceptional welcome. I love this city already, and I'm still stoked that there's EVERYTHING still left to experience. With summer's arrival, the best quarter of the year is officially here! Got 2 new pairs of sunglasses because I'll be exploring every nook and cranny that this city has to offer.



Breadchain Popup in Berlin

Breadchain held our annual gathering in Berlin, and it was everything we hoped it would be. Unfortunately I couldn't make it across the pond for this :( But I was there in spirit, tweeting during the event to transmit the abundance of energy on show over there. It was a 2 day celebration of the sort of human-driven crypto initiatives that I really want to see more of.

The official Breadchain Event Retrospective is now live! Read the full recap here.

Celebrating 10 Years of Ethereum

We've officially wrapped up the 10 Years of Ethereum project after 12 episodes, and it's time for a bit of reflection. Check out the full archive here

The concept was ambitious - cover everything happening on Ethereum over 10 weeks with daily shows. In practice, it turned out to be a little more taxing than I anticipated to get the output I was really looking for. But honestly? No ragrets.

The learning experience was invaluable, and I got to talk to some absolutely incredible people who've been building in this space since the early days. Sometimes the most interesting projects are the ones that teach you as much about your own processes as they do about the subject matter.

It was a fun experiment in intensive content creation, even if the daily format proved more challenging than expected. The conversations we captured are still valuable, and I'll be mining some of that material for future content.

Is This The New Internet Podcast

The podcast is still on hiatus, but I'm reaching out to my next cohort of guests. If you're working on something that you believe contributes to the betterment of the internet, I'd love to have you on! Drop me a message through my website contact form. Or if you've received this via email, just shoot me a reply.

Short Form Video

I love the podcast format because it really lets me get to the motivations that drive my guests. The extended chat, while being immersive, requires commitment that I don't want to really impose on people. Take little doses of common-sense tech talk, and work your way up to the long-form. I think vertical video is an incredible opportunity, especially looking at the (abhorrent) quality of crypto media on Tiktok.

Everything for beginners seems to be an attempt to tap into greed. Outsiders solely see crypto as a means of enrichment despite the charts of every asset but bitcoin proving otherwise. Our space is seen as a murky zone inhabited by scammers, thieves and unsavoury individuals. The culture is quite frankly repulsive to those looking from the outside-in, just spend 20 minutes on crypto twitter if you don't believe me. All our marketing efforts exist in an echo chamber, where we clamour to reach the same 2 million users who flutter from one hyped new launch to the next.

As a marketer, this is the literal opposite of our desired outcome. We're branching off on our own evolutionary path like Australian animals; minus the cuteness and bearing ever-less resemblance to the wider tech space. And we absolutely do NOT have the numbers to justify this.

11 million daily active users for activities; but if we knock off trading this number plummets. How low, however, is debatable and our ability to quantify this isn't great. 11 million is 8% of spotify DAUs, and less than 3% of youtube. Yes, those platforms are much more general purpose, but we're being sold on crypto being this layer that elevates all life on the internet, a new paradigm of money that is interwoven with our online lives.

This vision seems pretty far removed from our current reality, and I created a video on Tiktok talking about this from the perspective of Stripe's acquisition of Privy. I'll be dropping more of these on Tiktok (sorry Indian subscribers), Instagram (sorry anti-meta folks) and Farcaster (all 3 of you on there will have a great time I guess). Twitter too! You can follow all my socials via my Linktree.

Toronto Crypto Events


I actually haven't attended nearly as many events as I'd have liked in the last month. We can potentially blame the glut of activities during Consensus and after, my social battery really took some damage. But also, the focus shifted almost entirely to family time, with a daisy-chain of birthdays, anniversaries and celebrations. It's our very own mini-festive period. That means this section is a little lighter than I'd liked, but we'll compensate in the media section. That didn't mean I stayed home the whole time, no no. I was a part of the first Wuddies Weekend gathering on Bloor!


Weekend Wuddies Polkadot Event

The Weekend Wuddies was the first of what's hopefully going to be a long string of chances to hang out with crypto folks beyond the usual meetup settings. We attended public jazz performances on Bloor, had some drinks and then trotted over to the Pilot bar for some food. Great time all round, here's a photo. We missed having Jay around but Natti and Michael brought the vibes!

Media Recommendations

Streaming: The Expanse (Season 3)

I'm rewatching this series for the first time since it finished airing. I'm currently on season 3, and I see eerie parallels to current tensions in the Middle East. Space conflict between Earth and Mars in the show mirrors real-world escalation, with the fog of war, pre-emptive strikes and the manufacturing of consent among all parties. All while the most vulnerable are the ones who are caught in the crossfire. This actual conflict is far beyond my expertise, I'm sure there are other crypto KOLs who have a much more nuanced take (that was sarcastic, please don't get any news from NFT profile picture accounts). But also please be hesitant about taking in any media discussing these developments, and don't take anything face value. People will change opinions on a dime, claiming that they were always pro regime change after years of tweets on anti-war stances. It turns out that the crypto mantra of "don't trust, verify" applies to news consumption too. This series is paywalled on Amazon Prime but I think the manner in which the intricacies of information warfare is handled makes it a worthy inclusion.

Video: How Private Equity is Buying Up the Trades (Morning Brew)

In the west, we've seen attitudes that are prevalent in the tech infiltrate traditional industries. Gig work is now a meaningful part of the global economy, and sights are set on the trades. Independent contractors employed by small businesses are now seen as assets to optimise and flip rather than as operators with skills to hone, and methods to preserve. It's happening in the US and Canada now, it's inevitable that the world will follow. Morning Brew has a fun take on this phenomenon, but the seriousness of the trend should not be overlooked. Building sustainably is pitted against extractive forces, yet again.

Article: Is AI Making Us Dumb? (Medium)

Medium sort of fell off my daily reading diet; thank god for their weekly emails because I would not have noticed this gem. It's a vital topic that deserves a deep dive, where we look at AI's emergence as a crutch rather than a tool. You know about how easy its becoming to just ask AI about something rather than Googling it. Or even thinking hard about something. This article is an examination of how over-reliance on AI might be causing cognitive atrophy rather than augmenting our thinking skills. The author dropped a right doozy by calling this phenomenon a "subtle erosion of personal agency." First we outsourced curation to algos, with follow buttons becoming less important than time spent on an application. Oh you watched that video with a guy power washing his driveway? Here's 8 more. Now we are sort of ceding the step where we search for the power washing videos altogether, and letting AI serve us up with the big thoughts for the day. It was one of those articles that kept me up at night.

Video: AI as Enhancement vs. Replacement

Now, something positive about AI because I do think this boiling of oceans can have somewhat useful outcomes. I see this final recco as almost a Marvel post-credit scene, where I'm laying up my future newsletters and the main vibe-coding project I'll be undertaking.

It's my first experience with Tina Huang's work, and I'm hooked. Watching this video, I'm realising how much of my leisure gaming time has been priming me for a life of vibe-coding. See for yourself; what do the following have in common?

Other than many hours that just evaporate in front of a screen? It's the process of forcing me to think about systems, and the wider architecture in which they sit.

While I've got the ball rolling here, I'd ideally like some more concrete progress before letting you in on what's up. But it's niche, and it's ambitious for a first project. But it's absolutely driven by need, while serving a purpose the market has deemed to be obsolete. Hope I've whet your appetite for what's to come :D

And that's the round-up for this edition!

Thanks so much for reading. If you're here on the website, please subscribe! Fill out your email in that big, beautiful bar below. I'd love to have you as part of the community. Promise not to spam you 😊

Take care, and see you on the next one!

Cheers, Marv