As bandwidth and technology advanced, new social networks emerged to match each leap in media format: Text → Images → Video Each format gave rise to a dominant network: Twitter for text. Instagram for images. TikTok for video. My bet? Software is the next media format. Not just content to consume—but code, tools, agents, and apps that people share, remix, and build social capital around. The big question: 1. Which platform will treat software like TikTok treated video? 2. Will an existing network evolve or will a new one rise to define this category?

Last two weeks, I ended up on weld-tok. It's hilarious -- totally deserving of an anthropological study, and an interesting parallel to distributed systems. So, there's a group of people who keep posting self-congratulatory videos of what even I can tell are crappy welding jobs. Huge gaps, splatter everywhere, stop and go tack welds, inclusions, bad rod angles, weak joints filled with rod pieces, and somehow, the videos all end with a big thumbs up to self at the end. Then there's the rest of the people on the Internet with a welding background who dutifully point out how terrible the weld was and how this person would be fired immediately from their work site. Neither group seems to be slowing down any time soon. They seem to be in a continuous death embrace, where one group is constantly making welding videos powered by the Dunning-Kruger effect, and the other is coming up with hundreds of creative insults for each video. The thing is, welding is broadly taught in schools, there are objective measures of weld strength, and there are literally hundreds of thousands of experts around the globe who can call out the poor job. Contrast this with distributed systems, where there are no good benchmarks and very very few experts, and you get the situation that we have now: self-congratulatory posts on X and Hacker News, powered by the Dunning-Kruger effect **except we don't have enough people with the time and expertise to call out the poor jobs on display**. So the next time you read about "here's how we scaled X using Mongo" or "how we parallelized something or another that didn't need parallelizing" or "the insanely complicated architecture that we glued together at some startup," keep in mind that we're most likely looking at the equivalent of a tack-welder who is walking away from a botched job, but without the community that can call out broken tech.

BREAKING NEWS: @circle has announced that we are moving our Global HQ to New York City, building out a flagship space on one of the top floors of 1 World Trade Center, an historically important landmark in standing for American global economic leadership. Details below the video. I’m thrilled to celebrate this milestone with an event including leading financial industry firms, crypto industry leaders and policymakers. We are also sharing this announcement video that captures the moment and inspiration. Why is this important for Crypto, Circle, New York, America and the US Dollar? Since our founding, we have envisioned building a new internet financial system on the foundations of crypto – open networks, open source software, open protocols, decentralized and distributed infrastructure – and building on and expanding the capabilities of the largest and most important currencies in the world, starting with the US dollar. 11 years into our founding, that vision is coming alive in a tremendous and exciting way, with USDC now powering trillions of dollars of onchain transactions, with thousands of developers and applications building on this innovation, and with increasing legal clarity that digital dollars like USDC are new forms of legal electronic money that can be used widely around the world. As this technology explodes into the mainstream, and as Circle becomes a more and more important company and infrastructure for this new internet financial system, it became clear that we needed to plant our flag, both literally and figuratively, in the heart of Wall Street, in the most important economic center of the world, and in the great country of the United States of America. Many complain that the United States is not the right jurisdiction to build a company in our industry, and that the current government here remains hostile to this industry. I couldn’t disagree more. My view is that we are at a turning point, and that the US is about to become THE decisive leader in building and supporting this technology and financial revolution. We are an American Technology champion, and we want to demonstrate that the highest quality, the best run, the safest and the most powerful technology for the new internet financial system calls not just the US, but New York City, it’s home. Today, New York City is home to an enormous number of crypto firms that are leading and innovating in nearly every area of this industry. New York may have the most talent-density in crypto of any city in the world. It’s truly astounding, and we feel so privileged to join this thriving community of companies with a flagship headquarters in New York. After having originally founded the company in Boston, like many technology-driven companies, we have scaled out largely as a remote-first operation. Today, we span 36 US states and 14 countries, with a presence in many of the world’s leading cities including New York, SF Bay Area, Boston, London, Dublin, Paris, Singapore, Berlin, São Paulo, Taipei and more. And we are growing all around the world. But through this, New York has become a crucial nexus of talent, connectivity and a core location for where we convene. 1 World Trade Center is an awe-inspiring building. Its history is known to nearly everyone; this iconic tower, the tallest in the Western hemisphere, stands for freedom, strength, and a projection of America’s central role in the global economic system. Freedom Tower stands above the great pillars of the global economic system – Wall St., the New York Stock Exchange, the New York Federal Reserve, and more. Sitting on a top floor of the tower, Circle’s new flagship HQ is being built not as a traditional office, but rather as a powerful convening space, where we bring together all of our stakeholders to collaborate together, discover, and build the new internet financial system. It’s going to be an amazing and inspiring space that helps bring to life everything that we do at Circle. Today, we are celebrating this new HQ, joined in person in New York by industry, political and key partners who have been central to Circle’s growth and success. Join us virtually in this next phase of our journey. We are investing in New York. We are investing in America. We believe strongly that the infrastructure we are collectively building – this new internet financial system – will be the foundation for the next hundred years of global economic activity and coordination. 2024 has been a turning point year in crypto, a year when stablecoins started to truly breakout in scale, importance and usage. 2025 will be the year when this goes mainstream. As we open our new HQ to the world in early 2025, we will be thrilled to host and convene and see many of you there for this next phase of our collective journey in building a more open, inclusive, safer and efficient global economic system. JA

A message from Catherine, The Princess of Wales As the summer comes to an end, I cannot tell you what a relief it is to have finally completed my chemotherapy treatment. The last nine months have been incredibly tough for us as a family. Life as you know it can change in an instant and we have had to find a way to navigate the stormy waters and road unknown. The cancer journey is complex, scary and unpredictable for everyone, especially those closest to you. With humility, it also brings you face to face with your own vulnerabilities in a way you have never considered before, and with that, a new perspective on everything. This time has above all reminded William and me to reflect and be grateful for the simple yet important things in life, which so many of us often take for granted. Of simply loving and being loved. Doing what I can to stay cancer free is now my focus. Although I have finished chemotherapy, my path to healing and full recovery is long and I must continue to take each day as it comes. I am however looking forward to being back at work and undertaking a few more public engagements in the coming months when I can. Despite all that has gone before I enter this new phase of recovery with a renewed sense of hope and appreciation of life. William and I are so grateful for the support we have received and have drawn great strength from all those who are helping us at this time. Everyone’s kindness, empathy and compassion has been truly humbling. To all those who are continuing their own cancer journey – I remain with you, side by side, hand in hand. Out of darkness, can come light, so let that light shine bright. 🎬 by Will Warr

Lovely relief map of Manhattan made from LiDAR data

Met Gala attendees as crypto project homepages, a thread 🧵 (I'm really sorry, guys — I saw one of these and couldn't un-see it and... here we are)