My goal with this brief piece is to provide an elementary introduction to Ethereum, a platform upon which decentralized applications (DApps) can be built by developers, what’s happened over Ethereum’s recent past, and a few potential short and longer term purposes.

What is Ethereum?

Ethereum is a blockchain with it’s own programming language, called Solidity, which allows developers to create “smart contracts.”

Here’s some background reading on Ethereum and Bitcoin, the two leading cryptonetworks.*

I’m going to skip over Ethereum’s White Paper back in 2013 and its release in July, 2015. I trust you can intelligently use Google. …

1) Timing-
-Why is right now the best time to work on this and how will it fit into the larger industry landscape in the next few years?
2) Team-
-Why is this team the best group to work on this problem?
-What’s their unfair advantage, if any?
-Why are they hungry to win? What’s the motivation?
-Have they done it before or are they wantrepreneurs more motivated by Silicon Valley than solving actual problems or [potentially] creating a Zero-to-One Product?
-To note, I think experience is overrated. I prefer total learning over experience, unless that experience is domain-applicable.
-Have they faced this problem themselves? How did they solve it previously?
-Do they have strong technical talent or are they outsourcing? There’s no hard-no here but people who don’t know how to code and think outsourcing without giving equity is “good enough” to win are no-gos for me. It doesn’t work unless they’re the Winklevosses, but even then, it’s a maybe.
-Along this line, if the team is made of one or there is no technical talent, it is likely not a match for me. Reasoning: if you can’t convince friends to work with you on the project, then how will you convince users to do so? Obviously, there are outliers here (e.g. Mint), but unless you are a stellar founder like Mr. Aaron Patzer, it is unlikely. …

ETH is going to be slightly bearish in the short term due to 100 Hourly SMA.

Buy big on dips and hold for the [long term] rewards.

Disclosure: I’m buying on dips.

Disclaimer: This information should not be considered investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

I’m an early stage “VC” at The Council. I’m looking for promising teams/ideas in the following fields:

1. Consumer Tech
2. Fintech
3. Machine Learning
4. EdTech
5. HRTech
6. HealthTech
7. AR/VR
8. SaaS for Enterprise
9. Blockchain

Consumer tech is very broad, so my focus is on the following:

1. Curated web
2. Consumer and packaged goods
3. Marketplaces
4. Ideas that empower anyone to become an Entrepreneur

I use an adapted version of Bill Gross’ framework to evaluate early stage opportunities:

1. Timing

· Why is now the best time to work on this idea/company?

2. Why this team?

· Do the founders have previous startup experience?

· Is there Founder/Market Fit? …

Foreword: I first wrote this before Brexit was approved in the last week of June 2016, and subsequently shared this with friends. Now, I’m making it public.

This also gives me a good opportunity to reflect on how far I’ve come from a nascent understanding of ethereum to a slightly better understanding of ethereum. Boy, did I come far, and man, do I have a long way to go, still.

Background

Here’s a requisite background reading on bitcoin and ether. Here’s a recommended read on the validity of cryptocurrencies. Please review these prior to proceeding. …

The book is by Tom Peters, a McKinsey person.

This article is an anagraph and presupposes you have read and/or are familiar with the contents of the aforementioned book. I tend to let my mind wander and make connections between topics while I read books of this sort. Therefore, not all of the examples will be 100% precise and my commentary is editorial and not necessarily factual. Notes at the end, as appropriate.

Enough of the disclaimers, onwards!

Key Learnings from The “Eight Basics.”

Below are some of the “Eight Basics” I found most useful.

1. Bias for Action instead of simply planning. …

Tl;dr: fasting broke me down with a triumvirate attack on mind/body/spirit, but I found several longterm micro-wins in the process: increased resilience, discipline, patience, and empathy.

First, let’s get the disclaimers out of the way. I’m not here to proselytize a certain religious or spiritual approach or the benefits or harms from fasting for any period of time. You can easily find research to support or denigrate fasting in a vetted medical journal — or in a fluff piece, if that’s your style. …