Brendan Sharp

sometimes i get very sad that i spent the last four years of my life full time in crypto. i read papers from other tech sectors all the time—one friend is working on a soft magnets start up, another stayed up all night with me talking about lithography machines a meta engineer told me they’re working on an agent framework that specifically handles llama models and i know anything that comes out of crypto will soon look like a toy in comparison i have this general sense that ive fallen vastly behind my friends who have been on the forefront of biotech research for the past three years, the senior i looked up to most when i was in college took her research on quantum computing research and turned it into a public company there really are only two or three companies doing genuinely cool things in crypto, otherwise you kind of just get stuck selling a token for outdated tech to an easily awed audience. it feels really shitty and i take what i make from crypto and rotate it to tech sectors that genuinely excite me—for the past two months I’ve been buying dips on nuclear energy stocks because it forces me to challenge my sluggish ‘nothing ever changes’ crypto brain and engage with something that will change the world in the 1-3 year timeframe im really sad because it feels like my understanding of the world and my ability to think critically about science / tech have atrophied because i spent the past few years understanding blockchains that will be radically commoditized and face a steep adoption curve when i may have been better off reading deeply about another field i think a lot of smart people in crypto get burdened with a social weight to stay in crypto and all of a sudden their mental energy is sapped into silly meaningless twitter drama and fights, wrapped into inane bureaucracy of man children that can’t handle the objective fact and criticism, they’re stuck building silly toys for degens, how much of that intellect and sheer will could have gone to something more substantive back in the real world because how can you have a serious product and a token, ever it’s hard to say if id be financially better off had i invested my time elsewhere, but im fortunate to be a part of this group of people that don’t really care about material wealth, just find meaning through challenging work. the only way my life has changed is my clothes are marginally nicer and i actually say yes to ski trips now the world must be explored