Meet – Earlybirds Invest https://earlybirdsinvest.com Latest Crypto News Tue, 02 Sep 2025 13:25:25 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.7 https://i0.wp.com/earlybirdsinvest.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/cropped-New-Project-2024-12-17T235703.455.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 Meet – Earlybirds Invest https://earlybirdsinvest.com 32 32 240146708 Meet the 5 most powerful people in crypto right now and what they’re planning next https://earlybirdsinvest.com/meet-the-5-most-powerful-people-in-crypto-right-now-and-what-theyre-planning-next/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/meet-the-5-most-powerful-people-in-crypto-right-now-and-what-theyre-planning-next/#respond Tue, 02 Sep 2025 13:25:25 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/meet-the-5-most-powerful-people-in-crypto-right-now-and-what-theyre-planning-next/

Key takeaways: 

  • Power in crypto has shifted from traditional players to five forces driving onchain finance and control.

  • These forces are stablecoins, ETFs, base-layer upgrades, blockspace security and high-throughput execution.

  • Traditional gatekeepers like exchanges and regulators now play a lesser role.

Power in crypto today revolves around five levers: dollar liquidity (stablecoins), capital markets (ETFs and tokenization), base-layer roadmaps, blockspace security markets and high-throughput execution.

Since 2024, the balance of influence has shifted away from the old “exchanges vs. regulators” dynamic to a new center of gravity.

Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) now funnel mainstream capital at scale. For example, IBIT by BlackRock alone holds about $85 billion in assets under management (AUM). 

Stablecoins, meanwhile, have become the fastest dollar settlement rail and, after the introduction of the GENIUS Act, now operate under a federal framework in the US. 

On the tech side, Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade (with Ethereum Improvement Proposal 7702) is reshaping wallet UX, Solana’s Firedancer client is approaching rollout, and EigenLayer has transformed staked Ether (ETH) into a rentable security market with live slashing. You can expect visible moves on each of these fronts in the months ahead.

How we defined “power” in our top five 

  • Direct control over capital flows or block space

  • Ability to set and ship roadmaps others must follow

  • Credible and announced next steps landing in the next few quarters.

1. Larry Fink (BlackRock)

BlackRock now controls the largest spot Bitcoin ETF and the most prominent institutional tokenized cash fund. IBIT leads the ETF pack by assets, while BUIDL turned tokenized Treasuries into a mainstream product for qualified investors, and it’s no longer tied to a single chain. 

BlackRock has also signaled interest in broadening its crypto ETF lineup beyond BTC and ETH.

Power in practice

  • IBIT: Around $85.4 billion in net assets (Aug. 20, 2025) — the de facto TradFi on-ramp that sets flows and fees across the segment.

  • BUIDL: >$1 billion AUM (March 2025). No longer Ether-only — BlackRock and Securitize have rolled out new share classes, including on Solana (SOL), to expand distribution and composability.

What Larry Fink is planning next

  • More crypto ETFs: BlackRock is weighing additional listings, subject to demand and regulatory approval.

  • Deeper tokenization plumbing: Expect BUIDL and successors to integrate further with BlackRock’s Aladdin system (its portfolio and ops backbone) and push multichain access where counterparties need it.

One player at the center of ETF flows and tokenized cash can direct where liquidity concentrates and who captures the revenue on- and offchain.

Did you know? IBIT was the fastest ETF in history to hit $10 billion, reaching the mark in just 34 trading days after launch.

2. Paolo Ardoino (Tether) 

Tether’s USDt (USDT) is the digital dollar that underpins most of crypto, powering centralized crypto exchanges, onchain markets and cross-border payments. 

Tether’s scale gives Ardoino direct influence over the price and availability of dollar liquidity.

He has also been redeploying profits into hard infrastructure (Bitcoin mining, energy and privacy-focused AI), positioning Tether as a critical operator in the stack.

Power in practice

  • USDT market cap: Around $167 billion (Aug. 21, 2025), the largest in crypto and the benchmark for onchain dollar liquidity.

  • Energy and mining build-out: New Bitcoin mining data centers are underway, including a Brazil biogas project.

  • US strategy push: Tether hired Bo Hines, formerly tied to the White House’s crypto advisory group, to shape its US posture.

What Paolo Ardoino is planning next

  • Expanding its hard-asset footprint in energy and mining, plus building an AI/edge-compute stack for privacy-preserving services.

  • Deepening payments and remittance flows, with a focus on emerging-market USD corridors where stablecoins already dominate.

When a single issuer controls most of the crypto-dollar supply, its reserve choices, compliance stance and infrastructure spending can move the whole market. 

That shifts spreads, settlement times and which chains gain users. With new US stablecoin rules, scrutiny will rise even as demand for dollar stablecoins grows.

Did you know? In 2024, Tether was the seventh-largest net buyer of the US Treasurys, ahead of several countries.

3. Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum) 

Ethereum’s May 2025 Pectra upgrade (now live) shipped EIP-7702, which lets regular externally owned accounts (EOAs) act like smart-contract accounts. This account-abstraction step cascades into wallets, layer 2s (L2s) and payments.

Pectra also raised validator limits, altering staking economics and node operations. Buterin’s influence (through writing, research and core-dev work) continues to shape what gets “enshrined” next.

Power in practice

  • Pectra live: EIP-7702 allows EOAs to temporarily execute code (session keys, social recovery, batched actions) while staying compatible with ERC-4337, unlocking a smoother wallet UX.

  • Validator/staking updates: The maximum effective balance per validator jumped from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH, consolidating stake and lowering consensus overhead.

What Vitalik Buterin is planning next 

  • History expiry (EIP-4444): Partial expiry rolled out in July 2025, shrinking disk requirements and paving the way for lighter nodes. Further iterations are expected.

  • Verkle trees and statelessness: Ongoing research aims to shift Ethereum to a Verkle-based state, enabling stateless clients and reducing hardware barriers.

  • Enshrined PBS (ePBS): Active work continues on embedding proposer-builder separation to harden censorship resistance and streamline maximal extractable value (MEV) flows.

Ethereum still sets norms for L2s, wallets and onchain finance. Buterin’s roadmap will directly influence costs, performance and the developer experience across the wider ecosystem.

Did you know? Buterin’s Balvi fund has funneled multimillion-dollar gifts into air disinfection and pandemic prevention research — $9.4 million USDC (USDC) to the University of Maryland and around $5.3 million to UNSW’s EPIWATCH.

4. Anatoly Yakovenko (Solana) 

Solana’s mix of high throughput and low fees has made it a hub for consumer-facing apps and fast USD settlement. Stablecoin activity has surged on the network in 2025. 

Yakovenko’s biggest swing is Firedancer (an independent validator client built by Jump to boost resilience and capacity). If successful, it would end Solana’s reliance on a single dominant client and lock in true client diversity.

Power in practice

  • Firedancer progress: Testing accelerated in 2025. Early “Frankendancer” hybrids shipped, while the full client has replayed mainnet blocks and hit seven-figure transactions per second (TPS) in controlled tests — a major milestone toward production.

  • Stablecoin scale: By H1 2025, Solana’s daily active stablecoin addresses consistently topped the multimillion mark, with float rising rapidly.

What Anatoly Yakovenko is planning next 

  • Phased Firedancer rollout: Watch validator diversity metrics as Jump moves from test performance to production hardening through late 2025.

  • Payments and decentralized physical infrastructure network focus: Expect continued emphasis on payments UX and real-world networks (e.g., Helium’s business-onboarding model), as Solana competes directly with Ethereum L2s on speed and cost.

If Firedancer delivers, Solana’s execution economics and resilience will shift dramatically: reduced tail risk from client bugs, higher capacity for throughput-heavy apps and a sturdier base for global USD flows. 

That combination gives Yakovenko significant influence over where the next wave of consumer payments settles.

Did you know? Yakovenko has said the proof-of-history idea arrived during a late-night coffee binge, leading to the 2018 white paper.

5. Sreeram Kannan (EigenLayer) 

EigenLayer transformed Ethereum’s stake into a marketplace for security. Actively validated services (AVSs) can now “rent” Ethereum’s trust instead of building their own validator sets. 

With slashing live and a new multichain verification feature that allows AVSs to run on L2s while still anchoring to Ethereum’s security, Kannan effectively coordinates an emerging layer that many projects already depend on.

Power in practice

  • Slashing shipped (April 17, 2025): Misbehavior can now be penalized, completing EigenLayer’s original design. At launch, billions in restaked assets and dozens of AVSs were already participating.

  • AVSs on L2s: Multichain verification lets services execute on L2s while verifying against Ethereum, providing scalability without sacrificing trust.

What Sreeram Kannan is planning next

  • Institutionalizing risk: Expect movement toward standardized AVS risk models, insurance and coverage tools and operational frameworks that can meet institutional requirements. Analysts note these are essential for wider adoption.

  • Broader verification footprint: Continued expansion of L2-native verification and cross-domain services, plus developer tooling such as EigenCloud to make “verifiability-as-a-service” more accessible.

If more of crypto’s infrastructure rents security through EigenLayer rather than launching its own token and validator set, Kannan’s roadmap will influence who gets secured, how risk is priced and where developers choose to deploy. 

The ripple effects extend to L2 design, miner extractable value (MEV) markets and institutional participation.

Did you know? A16z bought around $70 million of EigenLayer (EIGEN) tokens to back the EigenCloud launch, a notable VC show of confidence in “verifiability-as-a-service.”

Cross-currents: Why not regulators or exchange CEOs?

Regulators and exchange leaders still matter, but 2025’s decisive levers are elsewhere. Richard Teng (Binance) channels large liquidity flows and listings; Jeremy Allaire (Circle) secured a fully regulated Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) track for USDC in the EU. 

Yet compared to Tether’s dominance of crypto-dollar supply, BlackRock’s ETF and tokenization pipelines, base-layer roadmaps (Ethereum and Solana) and EigenLayer’s new security market, their reach looks narrower this cycle.

For a broader anchor, look to derivatives: Perpetual futures accounted for around 68% of BTC trading volume YTD 2025. This demonstrates that the real tone-setters are those who control flows (ETFs, stablecoins, execution layers and now restaking).

What to watch next

  • Tokenization pace: BUIDL has more than $1 billion in AUM, now with a Solana share class, and is accepted as collateral across multiple venues, signaling where onchain cash will actually settle.

  • Stablecoin infrastructure: With the US GENIUS Act live, Treasury rulemaking and bankruptcy-priority rules could reshape issuer banking access and risk.

  • Ethereum post-Pectra: EIP-7702 is live, and partial history expiry is rolling out. The next flashpoint: enshrined PBS.

  • Solana execution: Firedancer’s rollout and payments integrations will show how much headroom Solana gains on throughput and resilience.

  • Restaking maturation: After slashing and multichain verification, the next milestones are standardized AVS risk models and procurement frameworks for institutional adoption.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

]]> https://earlybirdsinvest.com/meet-the-5-most-powerful-people-in-crypto-right-now-and-what-theyre-planning-next/feed/ 0 56387 Meet the Magnificent "Ten Titans" Growth Stock With a 7.5% Weighting in the S&P 500 That Could Single-Handedly Move the Stock Market on Aug. 28 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/meet-the-magnificent-ten-titans-growth-stock-with-a-7-5-weighting-in-the-sp-500-that-could-single-handedly-move-the-stock-market-on-aug-28/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/meet-the-magnificent-ten-titans-growth-stock-with-a-7-5-weighting-in-the-sp-500-that-could-single-handedly-move-the-stock-market-on-aug-28/#respond Tue, 26 Aug 2025 21:01:18 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/meet-the-magnificent-ten-titans-growth-stock-with-a-7-5-weighting-in-the-sp-500-that-could-single-handedly-move-the-stock-market-on-aug-28/ In just a few years, Nvidia has become the most valuable company in the world, and also one of the most profitable.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite are hovering around all-time highs. A big part of the rally is investor excitement for sustained artificial intelligence (AI)-driven growth and adjustments to Federal Reserve policy that open the door to interest rate cuts.

While investor sentiment and macroeconomic factors undoubtedly influence short-term price action, the stock market’s long-term performance ultimately boils down to earnings.

Nvidia (NVDA 1.10%) will report its second-quarter fiscal 2026 earnings on Aug. 27 after market close. Here’s why expectations are high, and why the “Ten Titans” stock could single-handedly move the S&P 500.

A person tipping a scale that holds coins on one side and nothing on the other.

Image source: Getty Images.

Nvidia’s profound impact on the S&P 500

The Ten Titans are the largest growth stocks by market cap — making up a staggering 38% of the S&P 500.

Nvidia is the largest — with a 7.5% weighting in the index.

The other Titans are Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta Platforms, Broadcom, Tesla, Oracle, and Netflix.

Aside from its value, Nvidia is also a major contributor to S&P 500 earnings growth.

NVDA Market Cap Chart

NVDA Market Cap data by YCharts

Megacap tech companies influence the value of the S&P 500 and its earnings. And since many of the top earners are growing quickly, the market arguably deserves to have a premium valuation.

Since the start of 2023, Nvidia added roughly $4 trillion in market cap to the S&P 500. But it also added over $70 billion in net income — as its trailing-12-month earnings went from just $5.96 billion at the end of 2022 to $76.8 billion today. That’s like creating the combined earnings contribution of Bank of America, Walmart, Coca-Cola, and Costco Wholesale in the span of less than three years.

Nvidia’s value creation for its shareholders, and the scale of just how big the business is from an earnings standpoint, is unlike anything the market has ever seen. But investors care more about where a company is going than where it has been.

Nvidia’s unprecedented profit growth

Expectations are high for Nvidia to continue blowing expectations out of the water. Over the last three years, Nvidia’s stock price rose after its quarterly earnings report 75% of the time. Analysts have spent the last few years flat-footed and scrambling to raise their price targets as Nvidia keeps raising the bar. It looks like they aren’t making that mistake any longer — as near-term forecasts are incredibly ambitious.

As mentioned, Nvidia’s trailing-12-month net income is $76.8 billion, which translates to $3.10 in diluted earnings per share (EPS). Consensus analyst estimates have Nvidia bringing in $1 per share in earnings for the quarter it reports on Wednesday and $4.35 for fiscal 2026. Going out further, analyst consensus estimates call for 37.8% in earnings growth in fiscal 2027, which would bring Nvidia’s diluted EPS to $6 per share.

NVDA Net Income (TTM) Chart

NVDA Net Income (TTM) data by YCharts

Based on Nvidia’s current outstanding share count, that would translate to net income of $107.7 billion in fiscal 2026 and $148.5 billion in fiscal 2027. Unless other leaders like Alphabet, Microsoft, or Apple accelerate their earnings growth rates, Nvidia could become the most profitable U.S. company by the time it closes out fiscal 2027 in January of calendar year 2027. These projections strike at the core of why some investors are willing to pay so much for shares in the business today.

The key to Nvidia’s lasting success

Nvidia can single-handedly move the stock market due to its high weighting in the S&P 500. However, its influence goes beyond its own stock, as strong earnings from Nvidia could also be a boon for other semiconductor stocks, like Broadcom. But the ripple effect is even more impactful.

In Nvidia’s first quarter of fiscal 2026, four customers made up 54% of total revenue. Although not directly named by Nvidia, those four customers are almost certainly Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta Platforms. So strong earnings from Nvidia would basically mean that these hyperscalers continue to spend big on AI — a positive sign for the overall AI investment thesis.

However, Nvidia’s long-term growth and the stickiness of its earnings ultimately depend on its customers translating AI capital expenditures (capex) into earnings — which hasn’t really happened yet.

ORCL CAPEX To Revenue (TTM) Chart

ORCL CAPEX To Revenue (TTM) data by YCharts

Cloud computing hyperscalers are spending a lot on capital expenditures (capex) as a percentage of revenue — showcasing accelerated investment in AI. But eventually, the ratio should decrease if investments translate to higher revenue.

Investors may want to keep an eye on the capex-to-revenue metric because it provides a reading on where we are in the AI spending cycle. Today, it’s all about expansion. But soon, the page will turn, and investors will pressure companies to prove that the outsize spending was worth it.

The right way to approach Nvidia

Almost all of Nvidia’s revenue comes from selling graphics processing units, software, and associated infrastructure to data centers. And most of that revenue comes from just a handful of customers. It doesn’t take a lot to connect the dots and figure out just how dependent Nvidia is on sustained AI investment.

If the investments pay off, the Ten Titans could continue making up a larger share of the S&P 500, both in terms of market cap and earnings. But if there’s a cooldown in spending, a downturn in the business cycle, or increased competition, Nvidia could also sell off considerably. So it’s best only to approach Nvidia with a long-term investment time horizon, so you aren’t banking on everything going right over the next year and a half.

All told, investors should be aware of potentially market-moving events but not overhaul their portfolio or make emotional decisions based on quarterly earnings.

Bank of America is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Daniel Foelber has positions in Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Costco Wholesale, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Netflix, Nvidia, Oracle, Tesla, and Walmart. The Motley Fool recommends Broadcom and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

]]> https://earlybirdsinvest.com/meet-the-magnificent-ten-titans-growth-stock-with-a-7-5-weighting-in-the-sp-500-that-could-single-handedly-move-the-stock-market-on-aug-28/feed/ 0 55264 Meet the Monster Stock That Continues to Crush the Market https://earlybirdsinvest.com/meet-the-monster-stock-that-continues-to-crush-the-market/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/meet-the-monster-stock-that-continues-to-crush-the-market/#respond Tue, 19 Aug 2025 18:42:58 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/meet-the-monster-stock-that-continues-to-crush-the-market/ It will likely pay for American investors to familiarize themselves with Southeast Asian tech giant Sea Limited.

As the largest e-commerce and fintech company in Southeast Asia, Sea Limited (SE 1.32%) may not be on the radar of most U.S. investors. That’s understandable, as most of its business takes place in seven Southeast Asian countries and Brazil. Even though investors may know its popular mobile game Free Fire, they may not associate it with this company.

That could change as they become aware of the stock’s 130% price gain over the last year. With the struggles of two of its business segments mostly behind the company, it might be a good time to consider buying Sea Limited shares as it continues to move higher.

Customer shopping at home on laptop.

Image source: Getty Images.

What is Sea Limited?

Sea Limited is a tech conglomerate made up of three business segments. Its original business, gaming company Garena, develops online games and organizes and hosts esports events. Although most of its business takes place in Southeast Asia, its games are available worldwide.

Its two other segments, e-commerce company Shopee and fintech enterprise Monee, work in conjunction with one another and separately. Shopee is the leading e-commerce company in Southeast Asia, while Monee is a major player in Southeast Asian fintech. Along with helping customers buy on Shopee, Monee provides mobile wallet, payment processing, credit, banking, and Insurtech services in Shopee’s major markets.

These three businesses drove massive stock gains during the pandemic’s height. Although Monee’s business has remained solid, the pandemic’s wind-down contributed to the failure of Shopee’s European and Latin American expansion efforts. Consequently, it mostly pulled out of all of these markets, except for Brazil. Shopee has since taken cues from Amazon and MercadoLibre, investing in logistics to bolster its competitive advantage.

The end of the pandemic’s height also led to fewer people playing Garena games, and a ban on Free Fire in India worsened its slump. Fortunately, the company has revived the popularity of Free Fire, particularly in India, where the country’s government recently lifted the ban on Free Fire. Consequently, the Garena segment has returned to growth.

Sea Limited’s financials

Now that all three segments are back in growth mode, the company’s financials and stock are moving in the right direction.

In the first half of 2024, revenue of $10 billion grew by 34% compared to the same period last year. In comparison, expenses rose 24%. That led to a net income attributable to shareholders of $809 million in the first two quarters of 2025, up from just $58 million for the year-ago period.

The company did not mention explicit revenue guidance, though analysts forecast 29% revenue growth for 2025, indicating a modest growth slowdown if the company meets those expectations.

Admittedly, its struggles are not entirely over. When compared to its closing high of around $367 per share in October 2021, Sea Limited still sells at a 52% discount to its all-time high.

Failure to turn a profit in prior quarters also led to no trailing price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio. Still, investors may perceive its 45 forward P/E ratio as reasonable considering the company’s robust revenue growth and rising profits. Ultimately, such conditions indicate that Sea Limited could stay on a growth path for years to come.

Sea Limited is not done growing

Despite considerable gains over the last year, Sea Limited’s stock should continue to move higher.

Indeed, the company’s pandemic missteps and the corresponding stock price decline may deter investors. Nonetheless, Sea Limited’s strategic pivots indicate it has learned from its past mistakes. As a result, the stock is again showing how it can rise when all three segments perform well.

As the company’s games expand their reach and cement its e-commerce and fintech leadership in Southeast Asia, the stock should remain on a long-term growth trajectory for a long time to come.

Will Healy has positions in MercadoLibre and Sea Limited. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, MercadoLibre, and Sea Limited. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

]]> https://earlybirdsinvest.com/meet-the-monster-stock-that-continues-to-crush-the-market/feed/ 0 54050 Gaza, Iran, and a Nobel Prize: Trump and Netanyahu meet in Washington https://earlybirdsinvest.com/gaza-iran-and-a-nobel-prize-trump-and-netanyahu-meet-in-washington/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/gaza-iran-and-a-nobel-prize-trump-and-netanyahu-meet-in-washington/#respond Wed, 09 Jul 2025 21:09:46 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/gaza-iran-and-a-nobel-prize-trump-and-netanyahu-meet-in-washington/

President Donald Trump sounded confident on Sunday when he told a reporter that a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas could be reached by the end of the week.

Israel has reportedly proposed a 60-day ceasefire and the return of 10 living and 18 deceased hostages, out of approximately 50 remaining Israeli hostages, of whom 20 are believed to be alive. Hamas continues to push for a permanent end to the conflict.

Negotiations between the two sides are being conducted indirectly, with Qatar and Egypt leading the talks. The calculus on the part of the US and Israel appears to be that, with Iran and its proxy forces in the region significantly weakened, Hamas will be ready to make more concessions.

These talks are taking place against the backdrop of a worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, with daily reports of Israeli troops displacing Palestinians and firing on hungry, desperate people trying to get food as Palestinian children struggle with starvation, malnutrition, and disease. Israeli soldiers have also been killed in recent fighting.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is making the rounds in Washington, DC, this week. It’s his third visit since Trump returned to office, more than any other foreign leader.

At a dinner at the White House on Monday evening, Netanyahu presented Trump with a copy of a letter nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize. Trump has repeatedly expressed his interest in getting the peace prize — an accolade that President Barack Obama received early in his presidency — and has cited his “peacekeeping” efforts in the Middle East, including attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities, as justification.

Ending the war in Gaza, Trump believes, would cement his legacy. But he has to convince Netanyahu to agree to that. To get the latest on where things stand between Trump and Netanyahu, Today, Explained co-host Noel King spoke to Michael Koplow, chief policy officer at Israel Policy Forum.

Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.

Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have run hot and cold on each other since Trump took office in January. Where do things stand between them right now?

Right now, it seems that their relationship is at a high point. But even in the past six months, we’ve seen significant ups and significant downs.

On the one hand, this is now Prime Minister Netanyahu’s third visit to the White House in President Trump’s second term, and that would indicate that these two men have a closer relationship than any other two leaders on the face of the planet. But these visits have not always been so harmonious, and they’ve not always been so great for Prime Minister Netanyahu, particularly the second visit.

On that second visit, Prime Minister Netanyahu seemed to be blindsided in the Oval Office in front of cameras by a number of things that President Trump said. He was blindsided on tariffs when he had come to Washington ostensibly to try to remove any tariffs that President Trump was going to put on Israel. And not only was he not successful in doing so, President Trump sat in front of the cameras and talked about how the United States gives Israel $4 billion a year, and that’s a lot of money and it should get something in return.

He was also blindsided in that meeting on the issue of Iran. President Trump announced in that meeting that the United States was going to enter into direct talks with Iran, something that Prime Minister Netanyahu was certainly opposed to. Now we know how that turned out two months later, but at the time, it was seen as a pretty significant signal that President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu were not on the same page.

In addition to the awkwardness of that second visit — during President Trump’s last visit to the Middle East, he went to Saudi Arabia, he went to Qatar, he went to the UAE. He made a huge production out of those visits, talking about how much he loved the region, but he didn’t go to Israel and many people interpreted that as a snub. Was it?

I don’t think it was a snub. I think that he went to the region because he wanted to come home with high-profile, visible demonstrations of US strength and demonstrate that he could bring deals back home. Ultimately, he thinks of himself as a dealmaker, and there were all sorts of trade deals and promises for investment to be found in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar. Those were not going to be found in Israel.

He took that trip to the Middle East back in May. What’s changed since then?

The biggest thing that has changed is the campaign against Iran, where you had 12 days of Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear and military facilities and personnel, and then you had the very high-profile US strike on the three Iranian nuclear sites at Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan.

In Israel and certainly within the administration — and I share this assessment — that campaign is viewed as being incredibly successful. And unlike when President Trump traveled to the region, this is a case where Israel presents him with a big and visible win and he’s touting it as much as he can.

So Israel gives him a win on Iran, and now, as President Trump is wont, he’s looking for another win. On Sunday, he tells reporters that a deal on Gaza is close. What do you think he’s trying to telegraph and what happens if he’s wrong? Does he take it out on Netanyahu?

There are two things that President Trump has consistently talked about in terms of his vision for the Middle East and what he wants to accomplish. One was preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. And whether that has now been done definitively or not, President Trump is certainly treating it as if this is mission accomplished, and Iran is now not going to get a nuclear weapon.

The second thing that he’s consistently talked about is bringing the fighting in Gaza to an end and expanding the Abraham Accords and bringing other countries into the circle of normalization, all of which I think in his mind is supposed to lead to the Nobel Peace Prize, which really I think is the goal that he seems to put above almost anything else in the realm of foreign policy.

To accomplish that second one, he needs Prime Minister Netanyahu to go along with what he wants because there is no world in which the fighting in Gaza will end unless Prime Minister Netanyahu agrees to do it. If Prime Minister Netanyahu does not go along with it, there may be consequences, and it may be that President Trump eventually moves on.

I think that what we’re seeing right now from Prime Minister Netanyahu is an effort to really extend the clock. The first part of this is a potential 60-day ceasefire in Gaza that will not bring a permanent end to the war, but will give President Trump the opening that he seeks at the moment. And if this negotiation is successful, then it also buys Prime Minister Netanyahu two months to figure out whether he wants to keep it going or whether, at the end of 60 days, the fighting in Gaza will resume.

[Netanyahu] likes extending his options as much as he can, and so buying this time will be important and it will allow him to give the president something that the president is really demanding from him, and that should keep the heat off at least for a little bit.

These two men have different motivations when it comes to the Palestinian people. Netanyahu doesn’t seem to care about Palestinians. He cares about Israel’s security. Trump wants a deal in Gaza because he likes doing deals. Do you think that Donald Trump cares what happens to the Palestinian people?

When President Trump speaks about Palestinians, certainly during this term in office, he tends to do it with a degree of empathy that we don’t always see from him on other issues. It’s pretty consistent when he talks about Gaza for him to talk about the fact that Palestinians are suffering and that they deserve better. We don’t often hear that sort of language from Prime Minister Netanyahu and from many Israeli leaders.

The problem is that for any real resolution to Gaza, you need some sort of political vision. President Trump often talks about how Palestinians deserve better lives and should have better lives. But it’s rare to hear him talk about how he thinks they will get there politically as opposed to this just being a quality of life issue.

We saw it when he announced his “Gaza Riviera” plan during that first Netanyahu trip to Washington, and we saw it again even last night when President Trump got a question about two states, and he didn’t answer it. He punted it to Netanyahu. Netanyahu made it very clear that Israel does not see a Palestinian state as part of the Israeli-Palestinian political future.

Both Trump and Netanyahu need this relationship. Trump needs Netanyahu. Netanyahu needs Trump. Who needs whom more, do you think?

Netanyahu absolutely needs Trump more than Trump needs Netanyahu.

The things that Trump wants right now from Netanyahu are things that would be nice to have. He wants to expand the Abraham Accords. He wants to have better coordination throughout the region. He wants his Nobel Prize. But ultimately, the United States has lots of other issues on its plate. The United States is a global superpower, whereas Israel is not. And the United States can work on all sorts of other things even if the Trump-Netanyahu relationship turns out to be poor and the coordination turns out to not be what President Trump wants.

From Prime Minister Netanyahu’s side, the United States is indispensable, and there are all sorts of things that he wants that he has to have President Trump for. We saw this in practice with Iran, where Israel embarked on airstrikes on its own, but it was clear from the beginning that it needed the United States not only to buy into what Israel was doing but to actually step in and act.

Ultimately, Prime Minister Netanyahu cannot afford to be on President Trump’s bad side, and I think that that’s going to cause him some difficult choices ahead when it comes to Gaza, where there’s no question that President Trump wants that war to end. Prime Minister Netanyahu also may want it to end, but he wants it to end on very specific and narrow terms. And if the two men end up crosswise on that question, Prime Minister Netanyahu really cannot afford to get into a rift with President Trump.

]]> https://earlybirdsinvest.com/gaza-iran-and-a-nobel-prize-trump-and-netanyahu-meet-in-washington/feed/ 0 46712 Meet the Monster Quantum Computing Stock That Continues to Crush the Market https://earlybirdsinvest.com/meet-the-monster-quantum-computing-stock-that-continues-to-crush-the-market/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/meet-the-monster-quantum-computing-stock-that-continues-to-crush-the-market/#respond Tue, 27 May 2025 01:43:05 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/meet-the-monster-quantum-computing-stock-that-continues-to-crush-the-market/ Several companies in the “Magnificent Seven” are investing heavily in quantum computing, but another player in the background boasts a better stock price return over the last year than all of them.

When thinking about quantum computing, names such as Nvidia, Alphabet, Microsoft, or Amazon might come to mind. Each of these companies has developed custom chips and software focused on quantum computing technology — providing them with even more opportunity to dominate the artificial intelligence (AI) landscape.

But what if I told you that over the last year, Nvidia is the only stock in this peer set that has generated a better total return than the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite?

Beyond the megacap technology stocks, IonQ (IONQ -0.26%) has emerged as a budding opportunity in the quantum computing realm. Over the last year, IonQ stock has risen by a staggering 432% — absolutely crushing the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes, which have risen by 11% and 13%, respectively.

Is IonQ stock set up to continue beating the market? Read on to find out.

IonQ stock is scorching hot right now, but…

It’s important to understand that when a new megatrend emerges, individual opportunities underneath the broader umbrella tend to follow. What I mean by that is throughout the AI revolution, investors have (for the most part) been following the same subsectors such as enterprise software, cloud computing infrastructure, and semiconductor chips.

While quantum computing is an enormous market opportunity, it’s not exactly scaling at the same pace as chips or software right now. For this reason, I tend to view quantum computing as more of a trendy, new pocket of the AI realm that appears promising but has little traction to prove it.

IONQ Chart

IONQ data by YCharts

Not even a year ago, IonQ was trading near penny stock levels. Still, despite a nearly sevenfold rise in its share price, IonQ stock is “only” $45. Well, smart investors understand that share price is only one parameter when assessing a company’s valuation.

Let’s dig into IonQ’s financial profile to help assess if the stock is overvalued or trading for a reasonable price.

A quantum computing chip processing data.

Image source: Getty Images.

… does the valuation make any sense?

Over the last year, IonQ generated $43 million in revenue. Sure, the company’s sales trajectory might look encouraging, but look at that cash burn. While raking in tens of millions in revenue, IonQ burned through more than $300 million — and the trend is getting worse!

IONQ Revenue (TTM) Chart

IONQ Revenue (TTM) data by YCharts

Despite this inverse relationship between sales and profits, IonQ’s market cap has continued to soar. At an $11.7 billion market capitalization, IonQ currently trades for a price-to-sales (P/S) multiple of 238. That is almost tenfold the P/S ratio of Nvidia.

Is IonQ stock a buy right now?

I think IonQ is a speculative stock to own and its valuation seems unjustified to me. While the stock has outperformed the broader market over the last year, I suspect much of the rise in the share price has to do with optimistic narratives surrounding quantum computing coupled with investor fatigue in the usual suspects (i.e., the “Magnificent Seven”).

While I’m intrigued by quantum computing, it’s not an area that’s enticed me enough to follow the momentum currently fueling IonQ stock to new highs. Instead, owning stocks such as Nvidia, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, or even IBM can provide investors with exposure to quantum computing while also achieving some level of insulation since you will be diversified in other areas of the broader AI market, too.

I would pass on IonQ stock right now. Given its parabolic rise in such a short time frame, I think it’s more likely the stock will take a breather rather than continue crushing the market.

Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Adam Spatacco has positions in Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, International Business Machines, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

]]> https://earlybirdsinvest.com/meet-the-monster-quantum-computing-stock-that-continues-to-crush-the-market/feed/ 0 38502 Bitcoin Filmfest: When cinemas meet Bitcoin, miracles happen! https://earlybirdsinvest.com/bitcoin-filmfest-when-cinemas-meet-bitcoin-miracles-happen/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/bitcoin-filmfest-when-cinemas-meet-bitcoin-miracles-happen/#respond Tue, 29 Apr 2025 20:44:24 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/bitcoin-filmfest-when-cinemas-meet-bitcoin-miracles-happen/

April 28th Bitcoin Filmfest: When cinemas meet Bitcoin, miracles happen!

Posted on April 28, 2025
In education
By Tammy

Bitcoin – many people still associated with dry financial technology and transactions – have you ever imagined it could be an inspiration for a colorful film festival? This is Bitcoin Filmfest, a groundbreaking independent cultural event in Warsaw, Poland. Since its first held in 2023, the festival has quickly become an ideal convergence between the arts of cinema and the core values ​​of the Bitcoin ecosystem, such as decentralized financial autonomy and the creative spirit of borders.

In 2025, Bitcoin Filmfest will be held at the Kinoteca Theater from May 22nd to 25th. Once a symbol of former Soviet concentration, the building has become a space for discussion of personal freedom, decentralized philosophy, and the platform value of Bitcoin. It sounds paradoxical, but the opposite has created the special features and fascinating charm of this festival!

New highlights at Bitcoin Filmfest 2025.

If you’re wondering what’s special at this year’s festival, this is an opportunity to discover how Bitcoin demonstrates not only financial technology, but cultural and social phenomena. This year’s program includes a variety of documentaries and feature films that reflect the global impact of Bitcoin.

What was your first time hearing about the Bitcoin Film Festival? Think of it as a movie game that combines the spirit of the Bitcoin community. The project originates from Warsaw, Poland, but its impacts are spreading all over the world. In addition to stopping at Warsaw’s main festival, Bitcoin Filmfest also hosts small satellite events called “BFF Mini” in Lisbon, Cape Town, San Salvador and Lugano. (By the way, this is also a place Documentary film Bitfinex“No trust, verification,” his first debut! )

In particular, the main locations – cultural and scientific supplies buildings – were symbols of the power of the Central Soviet Union. Selecting this location as the main stage highlights the message of decentralization and autonomy. The festival creates opportunities to not only stop by filming, but also connect with independent filmmakers, producers and viewers interested in the open currency system. The ultimate goal? Encourage critical dialogue and create new creative spaces at the intersection of digital sovereignty and storytelling art.

More breakthroughs and wider

Mark the calendar! On 22-25/2025, Bitcoin Filmfest will return to a special program that will last for four days in Warsaw. The highlight of this year’s festival is that Bitcoin Discovery films are not only financial technology, but also cultural and social phenomena.

The programme is diverse from documentaries to feature films, bringing audiences from Latin America to Africa, from personal stories to global photography. Bitcoin is the mycelium of money A Bitcoin wallet is like an underground mushroom network, bringing it all together. Bitcoin revolution Take me to Latin America. There, Bitcoin is becoming a tool to help people overcome political instability. still The Zone of Prosperity I used Bitcoin to delve deeper into local economic experiments.

There is no shortage of works with psychological and emotional depth. Find a house Talk about your journey to finding identity in non-Parliamentary financial age. Bank not possible It highlights people abandoned by the traditional financial system and the ways in which Bitcoin brings hope to them.

Don’t forget Hotel Bitcoin – The comedy is kind, but full of satire about the types of people you can meet in the Bitcoin world. All works contribute to clarifying the role of Bitcoin in shaping not only economics, but culture, art and personal identity.

Why are Bitcoin movies so important?

Movies about Bitcoin are more than just movies. This is an example that reflects the complex relationships between technology, finance and people. These films document the stories of individuals and communities that are changing their economic realities and escape traditional frameworks. They bring a different perspective than the financial methods often described on the big screen: dry, abstract, and away from life.

Bitcoin culture on-screen not only educated, but also inspires reflection. In addition to understanding how a value system is built, you ask: Who has the right to shape them? And based on which? This is a continuation of the legacy of the politically economic film series, but is renewed in a post-organised era in which cryptographic technology plays a central role.

The emergence of another Bitcoin film shows a greater cultural transformation, from decentralized narratives to media and participation. These films not only talk about protocols and currencies, but also discover Bitcoin as a symbol of breakthroughs, capabilities and resistance.

in short,: Bitcoin Film Festival Not just the film festival, it is the convergence of art, technology, and living philosophy. If you want to understand Bitcoin from a cultural standpoint, or simply want an interesting cinema experience, this is definitely an event for you. With films ranging from profound documents to entertaining fictional stories, this festival promises to bring a lot of inspiration and contemplation.

So save your day, prepare mentally and enter a world where films meet technology. Who knows, sometimes you will find new meanings about financial freedom and the strength of your community!

Don’t forget to follow the bitfinex Vietnam Community telegram, Twitter & Facebook To update articles, information and events as soon as possible!

]]> https://earlybirdsinvest.com/bitcoin-filmfest-when-cinemas-meet-bitcoin-miracles-happen/feed/ 0 33500 Slice: Make PPLN work to meet demand https://earlybirdsinvest.com/slice-make-ppln-work-to-meet-demand/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/slice-make-ppln-work-to-meet-demand/#respond Sat, 26 Apr 2025 14:35:24 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/slice-make-ppln-work-to-meet-demand/

Bitcoin mining has come a long way since the age of GPU and basement setup. Meanwhile, miners have progressed in countless ways. For example, ASICs are now standard rather than GPUs. Additionally, enterprise-grade players have entered the field, opened new frontiers and brought them scale and institutional awareness to open doors to places that are unreachable for small miners. Today, mining landscapes are where grid services, reduction strategies, and participation in energy markets are no longer edge cases, but core strategies. As the world around it has moved forward, there is one question we are asking from miners. Can PPLN be adapted?

Many miners, especially those who work closely with energy providers or integrate demand response mechanisms, have come to see suspected PPLNs. They are worried about punishing downtime and rewarding only uninterrupted hashrates. This is bad for those who regularly cut down on machines to support the grid or provide other services.

This fear is unfounded. It goes back to pivotal moments in the recent past of mining. This apparently sealed off the PPLNS-style payouts, the deals of many people regarding the fallout between the riots and the Briins pool.

At the time, Bryin used a score payout system. The score, designed by Slush himself in 2011, was designed to solve the problems of pool hopping. Miners jumped through the pool and utilized the reward system. There was also a misconception that scores are PPLNS-style payment systems, but Rosenfeld’s Bible in the pool payment system explains, scores, PPLN are clearly different payout methods. The main difference is that they implemented a rolling window with exponential decay function in which the scores are exponential. This has made the lookback window very shorter. PPLNS, on the other hand, is a family of payout systems with different types of fixed length lookback windows.

As shown on how the score works on this archived website, after 90 minutes you will see that the hashrate is no longer present in the pool. This means that the moment miners begin mining, their share of rewards reaches the fair value of the hashrate fairly quickly. Meanwhile, when miners stop mining, it drops equally fast, as shown in the GIF below.

Mining Payout Analysis

This may have worked well in the days of cowboys and hackers, but it was never designed with today’s complex mining environment in mind. Certainly there is no need to meet demand. Miners will intentionally and profitable machines offline to stabilize the energy grid and bid on the sub-market. To score, such behavior looks like a pool hopper, someone who tries to trick the system.

So when Riot left Braiins citing concerns about how payments work, it sent a shockwave into the mining world. The aforementioned misconceptions have led to flaws in the score system being unfairly projected onto wider categories of payments, PPLNs getting caught in a fight, catching a bullet of straying in the process, and the industry collectively abandoning babies in the bath.

But the world of mining changes and it’s time for Phoenix to rise from his ashes.

Slices: Payment Mechanisms for the 21st Century Grid

input sliceA modern open source layer-V2-compatible payout system created by the DMND team. It’s an improvement and evolution of PPLN, rethinking how miners are paid, whether rewards are calculated and most importantly, how downtime is treated.

Score. While preserving minor rights to build your own block templates in SV2.

At the core, slices are about fairness and transparency. It preserves the basic idea of ​​PPLN paying miners proportionately to their actual contribution to solving blocks, whilst modernizing it for today’s decentralized mining landscape.

A key innovation lies in the way slice structure rewards calculations and in the way the lookback window works. Rather than treating the entire pool as a monolith, slices spend time working on smaller, dynamic “slices” tasks to properly distribute the fee components. These slices represent batches of shares filed over a specific period. It will be a specific period. There, you control Mempool’s fees and compare and acquire different job templates for representative financial value. If a block is found, the slice will distribute block grants and transaction fees separately. Subsidies are allocated proportionally by hashrate, but fees are distributed based on hashrate and financial value.

This is particularly relevant in a world where miners can choose their own set of transactions. Some miners may prioritize luxury MEV style bundles. Others may rule out certain types of transactions for ideological, political, or technical reasons. Within each slice, the slice ensures that miners will be rewarded, depending on both the amount and quality of work, without punishing downtime or strategic energy decisions. For those who want to know more, this article can prove useful.

No penalty demand response

What’s particularly appealing to miners who take part in demand response and reduction programs is that they don’t punish you for being offline.

That’s because just because you take a break, the slice doesn’t break your payments. Your stock will remain as PPLNS window, or a rolling window of recent work that will be subject to payment. In this way, each share is treated independently and the slices use an 8-block rolling window, so we expect to get 8 payouts. This means that no matter how big or small the pool is, you don’t have the terrible luck of eating unlucky days without blocks, cutting off, finding blocks in the pool, or getting paid.

This means miners can supply electricity during peak demand hours, support local grids, and collect fair cuts from blocks found after reopening operations. In other words, even if there is a streak of bad luck in the pool, miners are called to perform a demand response, and the pool finds a block during downtime, the miners will receive their fair distribution throughout everything online. That’s because each share generated during that time will be active and on average receives 8 blocks of payment.

This is not a workaround. This is the feature. Make slices fully compatible with modern energy strategies that require flexibility, whether you’re joining the frequency-regulated market, ramping down in a grid emergency, or simply optimizing off-peak pricing.

For example, let’s say miners are mining in the pool and the pool has not yet found the blocks of the day. This means the pool has not yet found the block. Therefore, the miners have not yet been paid that day. Now miners shut off to provide auxiliary services during peak summer hours and during peak hours. Meanwhile, the pool finds the block. In a score-based pool, miners did not display that single SAT 90 minutes after the damping had a full effect. However, even if the pool found the block after 30 minutes, due to the exponential collapse, the miners saw little. Meanwhile, miners will receive payments on all the shares mined throughout the day, as each share receives an average of eight payments. Therefore, miners benefit at good times and are not punished at bad times.

Payment Transparency and Auditability

Moreover, slices do not only modernize payment fairness. Do so in a way that minimizes trust in pool operators. All slices are fully auditable. Each share is tracked, indexed and published by miners, allowing miners to independently verify their share of block rewards. There’s no black box or “trust me.”

Additionally, if the pool operator attempts to cheat by injecting fake stocks to dilute the payout, the miners can challenge the integrity of the slice. The declarative declaration extension to Stratum V2, which relies on slices, includes mechanisms that expose shared data, validate Merkle Roots validation, and ensure that each share corresponds to the actual computational task.

For miners who are concerned about decentralisation, slices are not just payment schemes, they are accountability tools.

From defense to strategy

The shift from score to slice represents more than a technical upgrade. It’s a mental change. Mining pools no longer need to punish everyone and protect bad actors. Instead, they can build payments in a way that reflects reality. Minors are sophisticated participants working not only in the Bitcoin blockchain but also in the energy ecosystem.

With slices, PPLNS will suspend responsibility and become a strategic advantage. This allows for better revenue capture, greater transparency and auditability, and smoother integration with grid services.

And in a world where uptime is optional, but fairness is unnegotiable, that’s exactly what enterprise-grade miners need, bringing the future today and allowing miners to make more money with the same hardware.

This is a guest post by General Kenobi. The opinions expressed are entirely unique and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

]]> https://earlybirdsinvest.com/slice-make-ppln-work-to-meet-demand/feed/ 0 32929 Did DHS Meet Bitcoin’s Founders? FOIA Lawsuit Seeks Proof https://earlybirdsinvest.com/did-dhs-meet-bitcoins-founders-foia-lawsuit-seeks-proof/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/did-dhs-meet-bitcoins-founders-foia-lawsuit-seeks-proof/#respond Tue, 08 Apr 2025 11:27:19 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/did-dhs-meet-bitcoins-founders-foia-lawsuit-seeks-proof/

James Murphy, an American lawyer, has taken legal steps to learn whether a federal agency once met with people behind the creation of Bitcoin
BTC


$79,272.46

.

Murphy filed a case against the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), asking the agency to release records that might confirm such a meeting took place.

The request is based on a statement made in 2019 by DHS Special Agent Rana Saoud.

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During a talk at the OffshoreAlert Conference North America, Saoud said her team had traveled to California and spoken with four individuals who they believed helped create Bitcoin. She mentioned that they wanted to understand why Bitcoin was made and what the long-term plan behind it was.

Saoud also explained that her team found out the project’s creator was not working alone and that three other people were also involved.

Murphy’s lawsuit, filed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), asks the agency to share any documents, emails, or notes that came from that reported meeting, according to his X’s post on April 7.

He added that if the meeting really happened, there should be a clear record of it. If no such record is found, it may suggest that the agents met with the wrong people or were mistaken about who they spoke to.

Meanwhile, Representative Maxine Waters recently raised concerns about President Donald Trump’s growing ties to cryptocurrency. What did she say? Read the full story.

Aaron S. Editor-In-Chief

Having completed a Master’s degree in Economics, Politics, and Cultures of the East Asia region, Aaron has written scientific papers analyzing the differences between Western and Collective forms of capitalism in the post-World War II era.
With close to a decade of experience in the FinTech industry, Aaron understands all of the biggest issues and struggles that crypto enthusiasts face. He’s a passionate analyst who is concerned with data-driven and fact-based content, as well as that which speaks to both Web3 natives and industry newcomers.
Aaron is the go-to person for everything and anything related to digital currencies. With a huge passion for blockchain & Web3 education, Aaron strives to transform the space as we know it, and make it more approachable to complete beginners.
Aaron has been quoted by multiple established outlets, and is a published author himself. Even during his free time, he enjoys researching the market trends, and looking for the next supernova.

]]> https://earlybirdsinvest.com/did-dhs-meet-bitcoins-founders-foia-lawsuit-seeks-proof/feed/ 0 29670 The Human Stories of Ethereum – Meet the Next Billion Fellows Cohort 3 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/the-human-stories-of-ethereum-meet-the-next-billion-fellows-cohort-3/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/the-human-stories-of-ethereum-meet-the-next-billion-fellows-cohort-3/#respond Mon, 24 Mar 2025 17:55:37 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/the-human-stories-of-ethereum-meet-the-next-billion-fellows-cohort-3/

As we look at our world, it seems that individual humans are increasingly on the edges and in the margins of the big stories that play out on our scrolling screens. The narratives that captivate and resonate with ordinary folks seem to exist at a scale beyond the reach of any one of us — Those big stories about economies, countries, and companies weave a narrative that can seem dire at times, or too big for an individual human to change in a meaningful way. But this is not the true narrative of the world, nor is it the right way to understand our own potential as humans.

Many who read this blog are inclined to believe that the Ethereum protocol will play a role (maybe even a major one) in that big narrative in the sky. If that is so, then we should ask ourselves: Who are the characters in our story?

We seek to understand Ethereum through the lens of the individual humans that use it as a protocol for coordination. By seeking out the context and nuance of human stories, we can better orient ourselves toward a collective vision of the future, and better prepare ourselves to enact it.

Today, we’d like to introduce five humans with stories to tell, who will be starting their Next Billion Fellowship at the Ethereum Foundation. These individuals are highly qualified, but represent only a small slice of the capable people out there working to solve some of humanity’s deepest coordination problems. We hope that their stories can serve as both a reflection of the true character of the Ethereum community-at-large, and an inspiration for how this open protocol might yet positively impact the lives of billions.

Fellows Cohort #3

Brian

Brian Limiardi builds for financial inclusion in Indonesia as co-founder of Copra Finance. While access to personal loans is available through banks, there are many contexts in which the only way to get a loan for business is through informal lenders (read: loan sharks). For folks that choose to work and invoice in cryptocurrency, access to even simple legacy financial tools like personal or small business loans can be an obstacle. For his Fellowship, Brian will focus on researching the needs and realities of the growing demographic of workers and small businesses who use crypto as a primary means of invoicing and bookkeeping.

Devansh

Devansh Mehta, co-founder of VoiceDeck, is interested in mapping out public good impact space. Impact methodologies and markets for environmental use cases are well-documented mechanisms, but sometimes ‘impact’ wanders into more subjective territory: Investigative journalism, for example, is undoubtedly a public good. How can the real work of journalists be documented and valued in a way that fits into the right funding mechanism? Devansh will work with citizen journalism newsrooms to explore methodologies of impact documentation using the hypercerts standard, with an aim to find a good mechanism of retroactive funding for positive social outcomes.

Masa

Masahiro “Masa” Fukuhara wants to spread the spirit of ONGAESHI, (恩返し, “To return a favor”) in the world of education. ONGAESHI DAO is exploring mechanisms of retroactive solidarity payments in education and employment. For his Fellowship, Masa and other ONGAESHI DAO team members will learn from pilot programs in which contributors to the public good of education like funders and teachers are rewarded when businesses hire their students.

Mulenga

Mulenga Kapwepwe is co-founder of the Women’s History Museum of Zambia. There are many African artifacts in museums around the world, but rarely do those items have a tangible connection to the people and communities who created them. For her Fellowship, Mulenga is working with the Zambian web3 community to create a tokenized artifact registry, experimenting with museum revenue sharing for community documentation of art, customs, and crafting methodologies still practiced by the descendants of those items on display in museums around the world. Even if the items won’t return to their places of origin in the near future, it’s a small step toward bridging a gap of ownership that spans centuries.

Valeriia

Valeriia “Ria” Panina is a user experience specialist and an advisor to the Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation. The war in Ukraine has shown that ingenuity and tenacity in human coordination is essential. When understanding the potential of protocols like Ethereum to be useful in such a time, pragmatism is wise. During her Fellowship, Ria will research the real drivers and blockers of adoption of cryptocurrencies and other decentralized applications for ordinary users to map emergent use cases and behaviors in Ukraine.

(dev)Connect with Fellows

Over the next six months, each fellow will drive forward a small project that works toward larger objectives in their story. Fellowship stories will be published over the course of 2023 on this blog, but there are more opportunities to meet and learn about their projects. If you, dear reader, are interested in learning about the fellows and their projects, consider attending devconnect in Istanbul and in particular the Next Billion World Café event, and connect with us in person!

To the many applicants to the Next Billion Fellowship cohort 3 not selected, we thank you for sharing your story with us, and are glad to know that you’re out there tinkering, building, researching, and creating the future of human coordination.

Sign up to updates about the Next Billion Fellowship here!

]]> https://earlybirdsinvest.com/the-human-stories-of-ethereum-meet-the-next-billion-fellows-cohort-3/feed/ 0 26983 Meet Cohort 4 of the Next Billion Fellows! https://earlybirdsinvest.com/meet-cohort-4-of-the-next-billion-fellows/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/meet-cohort-4-of-the-next-billion-fellows/#respond Tue, 25 Feb 2025 00:44:03 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/meet-cohort-4-of-the-next-billion-fellows/

As a global public resource, technology must remain open, accessible, and dedicated to promoting the greater good. The Next Billion Fellowship Program is a testament to this vision, seeking to capture stories of communities whose lives are changing for the better. Today, we are proud to introduce seven individuals with remarkable stories to share. Their narratives offer a glimpse into their diverse contexts and possible futures — ones we cannot fully foresee but where humanity is uplifted. By drawing inspiration from the Next Billion Fellows’ stories, we hope to imagine a future where this open protocol of human coordination serves as a public good for billions of people.

The Next Billion Fellows Cohort 4

David Uzochukwu is leading an initiative focused on enhancing Ethereum’s decentralization by educating the community in Africa on how to run an Ethereum node. Exploring barriers like the lack of stable internet access and power outages as well as the possible solutions, this project seeks to make visible the considerations that need to be in place for decentralization and inclusivity.

Eddie Kago is working on Antugrow, a platform that digitizes production records and farm metadata to create on-chain reputation scores. It aims to provide affordable working capital for smallholder farmers and cooperatives in Kenya by standardizing farmer data for interoperability. Eddie seeks to unlock low-cost credit and scalable agricultural insurance.

Guo Liu works for freedom of information as a co-founder of Matters Town, a digital space and censorship-resilient publication platform. His project aims to support high-quality open-access content by merging advertisement protocols with the Harberger tax and quadratic funding.

Lefteris Arapakis was raised in a family of fishermen and soon understood that fishermen collected a lot of plastic from the ocean. He built a social enterprise called Enaleia, focused on reducing marine plastic pollution starting first in Greece and then expanding to the rest of the Mediterranean. As part of his Fellowship, Lefteris will implement a system that enables the traceability of recycled marine plastic on Ethereum.

Mercedes “Meche” Rodriguez Simon is conducting practical research on using web3 solutions to support human rights organizations in Venezuela. As a dedicated human rights activist and a key member of Ethereum Venezuela, Meche aims to bring her knowledge to address Venezuela’s political and humanitarian crises.

Rebecca Mqamelo explores integrating EVM-based local currencies with traditional economic practices in Africa. Her research, with Grassroots Economics, will compare two different models of community currencies: traditional digital vouchers backed by government bodies and a model where the community pools their future production capacity as commitment.

Tomislav ”Tomo” Mamić is working on the Municipal Quadratic Funding Initiative (MUQA), a project designed to assist cities in using Quadratic Voting (QV) and Quadratic Funding (QF) mechanisms to allocate funding for public projects. His pilot in the city of Split in Croatia will experiment with QF in the areas of culture and green spaces, aiming to introduce transparency, efficiency, and citizen participation in managing public resources.

What’s Next?

Over the next six months, each Fellow will drive forward a small project that works toward larger objectives in their story. Fellows will share their progress during Devcon 7 in Southeast Asia, November 12-15th. Follow @EFNextBillion for updates. Need financial support to attend Devcon? Check out the Devcon SEA Scholars Program and apply by July 7th, 2024!

]]> https://earlybirdsinvest.com/meet-cohort-4-of-the-next-billion-fellows/feed/ 0 21663