Do You Believe in Magic?

Content

• The Believers
• The Non-Believers
• Heard in Silicon Valley
• Startup of the Week
• Tweet of the Week

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Editorial

This week sees the parting of the ocean, perhaps somewhat appropriate for the Passover weekend. On the one side the believers, believing in startups, Bitcoin as an energy store and an investment-grade asset, Remote digital events, Medium as a platform, NFTs, and yes, Microsoft, believing in the blockchain as a trustless identity platform. Trustless is good by the way, It means we can trust without needing proof. The believers’ number in their ranks Geoff Ralston of Y Combinator, Nick Grossman of Union Square Ventures (along with his colleagues), Hopin, the $5 billion startup, Ev Williams of Medium, The buyer of a $500k digital house via NFT, Chamath Palihapitiya, Marc Cuban, Fidelity Investments and Packy McCormick of Not Boring fame.

The non-believers include a similarly impressive list. John Thornhill of the Financial Times piles into Sam Altman for believing in automation and a workless future. Casey Newton at The Verge piles into Medium after speaking with 14 departing employees, Mark Zuckerburg begs to be regulated by Washington DC, presumably because he has…