Flinn Dolman

Some observations: we had an HFT prop firm reach out to us to get help hiring quant traders. They supposedly are a top 10 crypto market maker - they run quite stealth... but before they were willing to have a call with us, they wanted us to sign an NDA which included a 2 year non-solicit of their employees... Now I don't have a problem signing an NDA, but signing a non-solicit for 2 years with zero context and no guarantee of doing business (let alone us wanting to do business with them) is a non-starter. We asked them if they'd be willing to share more context on how many other recruiting partners they are using or plan to use, what kind of volume of hiring they anticipated, and if they would pay our fees. (We told them we were expensive). Instead of having a conversation, they told us that we were too expensive and that they were insulted that we would even request such a number, and based on that they would not be interested in doing business with us. Hmm. What's the point of this story? 1. We work for money just like everyone else. Companies that pay us well get our (and our team's) attention. 2. There are only so many firms we can work with in trading. We have to decide as a company who we hire for and who we hire from. We can't work with everyone. 3. If a company thinks of us as just a commodity, not a partner; or if a company can't understand or relate to our incentives to work with them - then trouble ahead. We're on a consolidation kick at Fionics and are really leaning into the firms we work with that see the bigger picture with us (and that means some companies might not make the cut), and that's just the nature of this business. If we're going to take on someone new to hire for, they need to meet our bar, just as much as we need to meet theirs.

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Andrew Bailey’s softer stance on stablecoins is an important signal. It shows UK policymakers are finally starting to see what innovators and businesses already know: stablecoins can coexist with banks and broaden access to money and payments. Rezolve Ai's initiative with Tether.io demonstrates the power of stable digital money to drive trust, efficiency, and innovation. The challenge now is turning regulatory openness into a framework that lets the UK lead. Exciting times. #RezolveAi #AI #CryptoPayments #Stablecoin #Tether #Fintech $RZLV

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Right so the BritCard proposal then. Cryptography to the rescue? 1/ I don’t instinctively like the idea of ID cards. It offends my liberal sensibilities. But ignoring the political landscape, digital IDs aren’t the privacy catastrophe they would have been in the 2000s. 2/ Back then, the model was a central database of every citizen, accessible across departments. A honeypot for abuse, leaks, and scope creep. 3/ Today’s digital ID standards are different: built on verifiable credentials. That means you hold your own digital passport/driving licence on your phone, signed by government. 4/ When you need to prove something eg the right to work, you don’t hand over your whole passport. You share just the fact needed. Sometimes even a zero-knowledge proof: “Yes, over 18” without showing date of birth. 5/ Data doesn’t sit in one giant silo. It stays with the issuing authority (passport office, DVLA, Home Office). So-called federated. Checks are done cryptographically, not by copying documents into filing cabinets all over the economy. 6/ Done right, digital ID reduces risk compared to today, where employers and landlords hoard passport scans, and mistakes in manual checks create Windrush-style injustices. 7/ Of course, the devil is in design. A “canonical event log” of every check could easily tip into surveillance. Guardrails are needed: minimal logs, tight retention, transparency reports. 8/ We need three guarantees: – Share less, prove more – No new central database – Errors are visible and appealable 9/ If those are in place, digital IDs don’t have to be a tool of control. They can be an upgrade in privacy and security 10/ The politics will always be tricky. But let’s not fight the battles of 2005. The technology has moved on.

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Bitcoin and Crypto Bitcoin is not Crypto. But a far bigger idea. It is blockchain's first use case to build a digital store of value. Store of value is a USD 1000 trillion TAM (with real estate, equities, bonds, gold etc) and bitcoin is quietly and surely disrupting it. However, Crypto/Web 3 has a definite place (a big one!) in humanity's future, particularly in the age of AI AI will accelerate Web 3 and Web 3 will symbiotically accelerate AI. The scale up of AI will depend on our ability to solve for "trust" as AI will create a lot of fakes. Blockchain provides trust and data integrity to AI. It is near certain in my mind that web 3 transition will accelerate in the age of AI and we'd all have innumerable uses of quantum resistant cryptographic signatures/keys. Web 3 solves for sovereignty and Web 2 provides convenience so medium term may be hybrid but overtime Web 3 will be convenient too. That's how big arcs of technologies develop. Human beings are on the arc of evolution and we will look back at this period with awe and wonder. 500-700 years after Jesus Christ was born, we started using AD and BC. After a few centuries, we may refer to this era as AS and BS (After Satoshi and Before Satoshi) - it may seem absurd now, but we may be undermining the shift underway led by AI, blockchains and energy. It is a different world we are porting into when the previous millennia would look unrecognizable. SatoshiWealth

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