probe's comments

have you looked into world.org? They're scanning eyes and giving robust human identities. Before immediately dismissing, I'd check out the video -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXnwoMxKHV8

I think atproto + worldid can one day be very interesting

The last lecture especially gives a sense of how he's thinking through things.

Imo smart contract engineering has much more in common with firmware, hardware, etc. than the mindset a typical React/web2 engineer might have (i.e. try things and iterate). I think that point is not talked about enough.

But that's starting to change (https://centrifuge.io/) - still a long way to go ofc. I also know people who have done non-crypto collateral or just completely unsecured lending, but it does involve trust that is off-chain (legal contract, know the person, etc). I think that's a fine stepping stone (and may end up being necessary) as people figure out how to do everything on-chain and in decentralized ways (ex. using on-chain reputation)

But I agree that if it's always overcollateralized then there is obviously much less utility created (though definitely some - similar to how you can get a loan against your home).

The project mentioned, Goldfinch, has already distributed 4.5M in uncollateralized loans to emerging markets using DeFi rails and liquidity already (https://medium.com/goldfinch-fi/goldfinch-raises-11m-from-an...). My 2c is that it's a sign of what's to come.

I loved the ending. The essay was primarily for him. It seems that some of the best writing, similarly to the best products, is when you yourself are the recipient.

I actually buy the reasoning behind it - but putting out a corporate speak like this instead of trying to emotionally relate to upset users? Smh

They're taking the same bet (i.e. CV + ML advances on a large and high quality enough data set are enough). After listening to Hoetz on podcasts, I wouldn't underestimate this approach. People trying orthogonal technical approaches win surprisingly often.

Just because I can ride a bike doesn't mean I shouldn't wear a helmet

Two big takeaways for his success -

1) He was pretty early, and quite contrarian, in betting on computer and quant strategies and thus took the “low hanging fruit” early on (def wasn’t low hanging back then when no one knew or believed in computer trades strategies)

2) From the book, Rentech’s main strategy was based on “reversion to the mean” - I.e “We make money from the reactions people have to price moves”. Trading on how you think OTHERS will trade and systemizing it (ex vol and momentum) is powerful but clearly doesn’t scale when you become the market yourself

And a bonus one - despite being a math genius, he basically was failing till he brought on others. He hired the right people (ie those interested in math not finance), created the right environment, took care of logistics, and pushed on a key insight (model to trade). He couldn’t have done it by himself.

In our beta we have casual users sharing with friends & family to keep them updated, new traders sharing on their social media to build an audience, and existing traders more deeply connecting with their loyal followers through text. We even have someone using it as a faster way to see their portfolio holdings over Robinhood.

Would love to get some feedback from HN! What do you like/dislike? What features should we add?

See Sequoia walking away AFTER giving $21M funding b/c of a conflict of interest with Stripe - https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/09/sequoia-is-giving-away-21-...