Code on distributed systems may live long into the future, etchings on a ledger, similarly revealing our human tendencies — Intrigue of the Ancients The earliest contracts in human history may be from thousands of years ago, in ancient Mesopotamia. Here’s an example of a real-estate transaction containing many familiar ideas: Sini-Ishtar, the son of Ilu-eribu, and Apil-Ili, his brother, have bought one third Shar of land with a house constructed, next the house…

Quick Look at Miners and Validators Crossing The Merge — Consensus is the backbone of crypto. And so, not surprisingly, it is a topic of much discussion and debate. Ethereum after The Merge is no exception: There is concern that proof-of-stake (PoS) validators have become too concentrated in the hands of a few, and that some are censoring transactions. This…

This series of visualizations depicts data from the perspective of an observer who is embedded in some way in that data. The tokens are both inspired by and part of the “New Home of the Heart” curated collection to commemorate The Merge and its developers and contributors. Often data is…

“Portal” will go into a curated collection of cryptoart supporting Ethereum development at the edge of The Merge — “New Home of the Heart” is a collection curated by JPG, Stateful Works and Sofia Garcia to commemorate The Merge and support Ethereum development. An auction will be released this week Monday Sep. 12th, 2022. I’m very excited to be included among those who contributed! https://jpg.space/mint/NewHomeOfTheHeart/comingsoon

“There’s only one thing worse than being talked about, and that’s not being talked about.” She was talking about her life as an artist. “I guess,” I said. We were five creators around a table at a pub. Sipping beer and lamenting the fixed and fickle nature of appreciation. Some…

A virus, its pervasive influence, through artists and their works — “You can’t help it. An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times” — Nina Simone Back with parents again; with several little children while working remotely; or in a tiny apartment completely alone; far from family in another country, in another city; social distancing and…

Super quick quickstart on jumping into the second layer that is evolving rapidly on Ethereum — I contributed a blog post to Etherscan recently, focusing on second layers as products: The focus of this post is to describe L2 solutions as kinds of products. In another post, I’ve argued that thinking in these terms is helpful. Product-thinking can help to sharpen scrutiny and consumer caution. Products…

L2s are evolving quickly, and are now very easy to try. Here’s a little product guide to L2s available for wide adoption. — Contents Introduction Why L1 → L2? Product dimensions - Dimension 1: What’s an L2? - Dimension 2: Validation Method - Dimension 3: Market Specialization - Dimension 4: Ecosystem Progress Important Limitations and Risks 🚧 Further Reading, Endnotes, Disclaimers ⭐️ More: Super Quick L2 Quickstart ⭐️

Unless you have recoverable on-chain NFTs, a challenge for anyone creating or owning NFTs is storing them. You hit this wall quickly. As many will know, one of the most prominent methods of storage is IPFS. I love this model — and IPFS is amazing. But it has all the…