When I start to write my year in review I start by going through my calendar and photo album – using that to write down my personal and professional highlights of the year. I find it to be a really gratifying exercise to remember all of the adventures of the past year.
This year I shook it up and leveraged some AI to help me evaluate my year. Using Notebook LLM, I had an AI ingest all of my past yearly reviews and had it summarize any trends and then had it give me some prompts for what my friends might want to hear more about. It was a really useful exercise for self reflection and I appreciated using an AI agent that was only referencing my inputs.
Now that another year is behind me, it’s clear that the theme of continuous change remains a constant in both my personal and professional life. If there is one thing that I have learned from the past several years, it is that the world is constantly evolving and we must learn to adapt to the changes around us.
American Political Realities
The political landscape has shifted rapidly. And it’s clear that there is no going back to Pre-Trump times. It is sort of hard to address the year without looking at this – the political landscape is impacting just about every aspect of our daily lives. I realize I was struggling to write this letter in part because I did not want to address the rise of populism.
In many ways the ‘24 election was a reactionary event – against establishments, wokeism, inflation, and more. It is clear that trust in our institutions has reached all time lows – with half the country voting to elect a convicted felon because they so distrust the deep state.
The Dems had some serious errors in their strategy – not having an open primary was clearly a mistake. I also don’t think the country was ready to elect a woman to the presidency, let alone one of color. The undercurrent of racism in America is becoming more pervasive – and our elected and unelected leaders are moving the Overton Window to make radical views more acceptable. See the billion dollars spent in swing states on anti-trans advertising, which was designed to stoke fear and ostracize one of the most vulnerable minority groups in America.
The framing of Making America Great Again offered hope, in stark contrast to the Biden-Harris message of stability and continuity. The promise of safety and economic progress was positioned against a “corrupt” state that wanted to punish white men.
History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. And the patterns of the 2024 election are deeply reminiscent of every populist-facist regime in history. A society embracing a cult of personality and trusting their voice over established institutions provides a mandate that clears the way for one individual to take control of much of the government apparatus.
The political currents are clearly moving in a dangerous fashion. But just like being caught in a rip tide, you can’t swim against the current. I am spending a lot of my spare cycles thinking about how to swim perpendicularly to the current until we’re clear of it. I am a believer in liberal democracy and will be fiercely critical of our felon-in-chief.
Career and Industry Updates:
Working in crypto under the Biden administration was incredibly difficult. And it can be difficult to fully convey just how constrained the industry had been in America. The challenges ranged from being cut off to the banking industry (see Silvergate, a NYC bank that was shut down because they were too crypto friendly) to having many of the major crypto projects declare bans on working with any US based individual or company. The hostile regulatory regime has been holding back our industry both locally and globally.
It is no surprise that the crypto lobby was the largest source of funding for ‘24 election cycle – the threat of four more years under a Gensler-Warren crypto regulatory regime would have killed adoption for another four years.
The post election rally was a clear signal that crypto markets would be accessible to Wall Street – largely for the first time ever.
I’m a firm believer that bitcoin–the blockchain– is more interesting than Bitcoin–the asset. And this year saw notable adoption of crypto technology, even ahead of the election. Stablecoins have been quietly eating the world – settling more than the Visa and Mastercard networks for the past few years.
Our modern ACH/Wire systems have been largely static since they were developed in the 70s. And stablecoins are rapidly being adopted by institutions and businesses because they settle nearly instantly for a fraction of a penny in fees. For those not paying attention, Tether is the most profitable company in the world on a per employee basis.
And the pace of innovation is only going to pick up from here. Under the Biden administration, crypto was relegated to the fringes of our financial institutions. JP Morgan has been running its own private blockchain for years, but has not been able to bank crypto clients or touch digital currencies. That is rapidly changing as banks are moving to risk on and getting regulatory go-signals from the SEC, Treasury, and more.
For outsiders it can be hard to keep track of all the innovations in crypto – and especially hard to separate the signal from the noise (or, more accurately the scams from the legitimate innovations). I’ll let you in on a secret – it can be difficult to keep up even for people who work in the space full time.
As I look back on some of my projects from the early days of the cycle, I am proud of the bets I’ve made. Cellarius, the decentralized scifi universe we incubated in 2017 was a novel bet – but was too early and now we’ve seen other projects pick up where we left off. The Spencer Dinwiddie security token was also ahead of its time – launching in 2019 – but the debt instrument successfully ran its course and we avoided the deal blowing up in the 2020 crash due to counterparty risk. I highlight the first because the right idea at the wrong time is a recipe for failure. And I highlight the second because part of the struggle of an emerging technology landscape is playing long term games and defaulting to staying alive.
I often think about the lessons that Munger and Buffet have shared over the years of building Berkshire. Munger has made the comment that imagine you had a punch card and could only make a dozen investments over your life – you’d p[robably diligence the hell out of them and proceed very carefully. You’d certainly avoid memecoins and other short term instruments. Buffet has made a comment that one of his models for evaluating a security is whether or not he would buy it if he knew the stock markets would close for a decade.
Now I understand the irony of quoting these two when thinking about crypto markets given their skepticism of the technology. But as I think about my portfolio it is clear that I could have gotten better returns by being more aggressive in trading – but I also could have lost my bag by rushing into projects that don’t have long term value.
Blocknative
At Blocknative this last year was another one full of change. I am six years into my journey here and still having fun and developing professionally. This past year I formally took on the role of COO and am working with our team to go aggressively onchain.
Any crypto infra provider that has survived for 6+ years will have seen dramatic change. It’s been no different for Blocknative. What started as an infra provider working to improve the transaction UX experience moved into one of the leading MEV infra providers – at one point we were producing ~15% of the blocks on Ethereum every day. We have built impactful, deep technology and managed to stay relevant amid one of the most rapidly changing technology landscapes in history.
This past year we made the decision to double down on gas estimation. Our API has been one of the most widely used and trusted in Ethereum for years – serving over 600 requests every second and counting over 50k MAUs of our browser extension in the bear market. At our offsite in Amsterdam in the fall we rallied the team to go aggressively multichain and onchain. Now our API supports 40+ blockchain networks and we are decentralizing this critical piece of infrastructure via onchain oracles and an associated appchain. As onchain oracles Gas Network can drive new experiences for interoperability and smart contract development.
Graph Paper Capital
I love the zero to one stage. I love working with incredible founders to help them find their path to product market fit. And I have loved working with Graph Paper Capital – a network early stage crypto accelerator. This past year I took on more of a role with GPC and joined as a Group Partner for the summer cohort.
We selected a cohort (S24) of great founders to run through a 13 week program, which kicked off at a castle outside of Hamburg at the Protocol Labs Founders Summit. Working closely with these founders over the summer we prepared them for Demo day and have been assisting post-accelerator to help drive their projects forward.
My main lessons from investing and advising at the earliest stages are:
- Optimize for founder-market-fit over product-market-fit when making bets
- Drive founders to make contact with the market as quickly as possible
- Focus on the distribution trick
LGBTQ+ Rights In America
Given the political realities of the Trump administration, its hard not to be bearish on LGBTQ+ rights in America. The reality is I have less freedoms and protections than I did a year ago.
For those not paying attention, let me call out some of the major headlines:
- Obergefell – in overturning Roe, the Supreme Court made it clear that Obergefell, the lawsuit which requires states to recognize same sex marriage, was next. Justice Thomas said he the court has “a duty to ‘correct the error’ established”
- Good Bye Pride Flags – Pride flags have been banned from every federal agency, both domestic and abroad. And some states (Utah) are putting forth bills that would allow the Nazi and Confederate flag to be flown but ban the Pride flag in schools.
- LGB
TQ+– the Trump White House has removed any and all reference to Trans and Queer/Questioning. This went as far as removing references to Trans people at Stonewall, where they literally started the Pride movement. - AIDS Prevention – all of America’s global HIV prevention work has stopped. And there are a few bills / lawsuits that are targeting PrEP (HIV prevention medication). RFK Jr. has a track record of AIDS denialism and conspiracy theories.
- Trans Rights – almost all federal trans rights have evaporated. This ranges from dishonorable discharges from the military to trans people being denied passports renewals if there is a “gender mismatch”.
- Federal Workplace Protections – these have been removed for all minority groups, including the LGBTQ+ community.
It is clear that the new administration is targeting the Trans community the hardest at the moment, but I believe that is just because they are the smallest and most vulnerable minority. I expect the next few years to be rocky for LGTBQ+ rights in America, to say the least.
I know many in the community are having the “fight or flee” conversation. And I would not be surprised if Europe or Canada begins to offer asylum for the American Trans community.
Personal Growth and Wellbeing:
Skiing
Last year I got on skis for the first time ever after years of snowboarding. Skiing is such a different sport – and I’ve really enjoyed exploring mountains in a new way. Switching took almost a full season to get back to my baseline snowboarding ability. One of the things I love about skiing is it is such a growth sport – every time you’re on the mountain is an opportunity to practice a new skill or push a new edge.
Denver living
Denver has been a great place to call home, but I am feeling a bit stagnant in the suburbs. American city design is just so car dependent and isolating. We are in deep need of building code reform – and Gov Polis of CO has been at the forefront of helping to drive change at a state level. I think most of us just want an affordable place to live where we can walk to friends and family.
I’ll call out a few of my favorite reads from the last year, and please share any you think I might like. In no particular order:
Reading
- Read Write Own – A great primer on crypto by Chris Dixon, a venture partner at a16z
- Blizted – The story of drugs in Nazi Germany. This is a fascinating lens with which to view World War 2 and the Holocaust
- Scaling People – a good tactical guide for people building
Travel
2024 was a great year for exploring the world.
Work took me all over — from Board meetings in San Francisco to conferences and off-sites in New York, Düsseldorf, Brussels, and Amsterdam. I am fortunate to have a job where I get the opportunity to travel to some great cities across the world – and I usually try to tack on a day for some sight seeing on my own.
Kaleb and I had some great trips too – though we mostly stayed domestic. From Austin, to Breckenridge, to Chicago, to Park City, to Wildwood – it has been fun to explore the country.
Closing Thoughts
That’s about all I have in reflecting on the last year. I’m looking forward to making a dent in the universe this year.
-Sean
p.s. how has your year been? shoot me an email, it would be great to catch up.
p.p.s. Check out past years in review: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023
If you made it this far… enjoy a gratuitous picture of Gizmo.
