Gm. If we build a colony on Mars, would the official currency be Dogecoin?

POLLS

Ok 50 people said tech bros have the drip. I’ll be grateful and take it.

Some funny answers:

“We're not hiking today bro.. we're spending the day in an office. Leave your tech clothing at home until your next weekend trip to Tahoe.” Lol walking around big tech campuses is a form of hiking, c’mon.

“Utilitarian tech bros got the drip. Performance over everything.” I feel that, don’t tell that to my fiancée who works in luxury fashion. I keep trying to wear sweats to swanky NYC bars and every time she has to explain that I may not be allowed in.

🏠 SPACE

The (New) Space Race

The Space Race was one of the most celebrated events of the 20th century. An epic showdown between two superpowers for spaceflight supremacy. There’s a good argument to be made that this was the recent peak of government-sponsored technological innovation (and, if nothing else, was a lot cooler than the Cold War chess battles).

Now, there’s a new space race. Only this time it’s not a matter of life and death among warring countries, but a battle among private companies to build sky-bound cell phone towers.

The Broadest Of Broadbands

At one time or another, we’ve all experienced the frustration of not having cell service. Just thinking about going without Instagram for a few hours sends a shiver down the spine.

Unfortunately, this is the default mode in certain parts of the world. For example, 18% of Africans have no access to a mobile broadband network.

Space cell towers would permanently fix this, and there are now multiple big players and startups working to make it happen:

• SpaceX leads the way here with Starlink, which is being utilized by T-Mobile.

• Satelliot is aiming to have 256 satellites up by 2025, which would be enough to enable text message conversations anywhere.

• Apple’s iPhone 14 Pro came with a Satellite SOS feature that let you send a text message to your emergency contact.

• Qualcomm has Snapdragon Satellite, a service that uses orbital communication company Iridium’s group of satellites for emergency texts and data.

• Amazon has Project Kuiper, which Verizon plans to use.

This all sounds great, but, unfortunately, you can never make everybody happy. In this case, Astronomers are the ones left unenthusiastic. The reason? Satellites are really bright, and thus, make it harder to study space.

Hopefully this gets mitigated soon, but until then, let’s enjoy our new broad mobile coverage.

Why should I care? Bringing strong cell and internet service to developing countries could lead to a technological revolution and, if we’re being super optimistic, might help crypto reach adoption in these markets quicker.

🏠 CRYPTO

The State of Crypto 2023

This week, a16z released their 60-page State of Crypto Report as well as an interactive State of Crypto Index. Here’s everything you need to know.

The 3 Main Takeaways

Blockchains have more active users, and more ways to engage.

While the market might be down, active addresses hit an all-time high last month – 15 million – doubling over the last two years, as a growing variety of apps and services, like on-chain games, offer people new ways for people to engage with blockchains.

After a verifiably insane bull market and a quite depressing bear market, it seems like DeFi and NFT are rising again as promising new uses and applications emerge. 

More people seem to be buying NFTs in recent months. Meanwhile, on decentralized exchanges, more than $100 billion traded last month, marking the third consecutive month of positive growth in trading volume.

Although it may feel like it, all the crypto bros have’t switched to AI yet. The number of active developers in the crypto industry is steady. 

Builders drawn in by the 2020 bull run are sticking around. Almost 30K developers contributed to, or built on, crypto projects last month – steadily increasing over 60% in the last three years.

Why should I care? Crypto and NFT prices may be in the toilet, but the degens are still grinding away. As they say, the bear market is best for builders. Just because AI is hot right now, don’t forget about the web3 world.

🏃‍♀️ QUICKIES

What else is going on?

• OpenAI is planning a Japan expansion.

• Counterfactuals are about to supercharge Spotify’s algorithm.

• There are now AI glasses that can read silent speech.

• The Harry Potter Balenciaga video is the greatest thing AI has done so far.

Stat: Apple saw a 40% plunge in PC shipments in Q1, the steepest among major computer makers. No wonder they’ve begun laying people off.

Rabbit hole: 50 Ideas That Changed My Life (David Perell)

🤩 WEIRD AI IMAGE WEDNESDAY

Can someone plz tell me why there’s a Balenciaga x Harry Potter spoof going around Twitter? Actually, I don’t need to know why. It’s amazing.

Tech bros might not have the trip but Harry and Dumbledore do.

🛠️ FOUNDERS CORNER

The best resources we came across this weekend that will help you become a better founder, builder, or investor.

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💉 DOPAMINE HIT

Elon is just like the rest of us!

And get this, Elon replied.

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