[thatguyintech #19] - end of year update

hello from taipei

apologies, i’ve been MIA for a few months

we’re back now though, just in time for one update before 2022 leaves us forever 🫡

new format:

• blockchain stuff

• tech stuff

• personal stuff

let me know if you like it!

- Albert

Blockchain Stuff

1. Matt Levine on FTX Fraud

2. Visa on Auto Payments for Self-Custodial Wallets

3. Brian Armstrong on Crypto Regulation

4. Nansen AI’s 2022 Research Papers Compilation

5. Alchemy University is now on week 5

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1. Bloomberg’s Matt Levine wrote a super easy to understand and VERY damning summary of the SBF & FTX catastrophe…

   • Check it out: https://archive.ph/TVgZF

   • “If you win a billion dollars and take it out to spend, and then you lose it again and don’t put it back, then on net nothing has happened (everybody’s bets are flat), but you have effectively transferred $1 billion of money from the exchange — ultimately, from other customers — to yourself.”

2. Visa is exploring account abstraction and auto-payments. It’s nice to see big legacy players pushing blockchain innovation forward for practical use cases!

   Catherine Gu @catgu_

   At @Visa , we want to serve as a trusted bridge between the crypto ecosystem and our global network. Excited to share some update today, here is the 🧵

   

   • Account Abstraction and smart contract wallets are going to be huge in 2023 and beyond — lots of smart and motivated people looking to innovate on how users manage transactions and assets in order to improve blockchain UX. Definitely look into this if you’re a blockchain/dapp developer if you want to keep your skills sharp.

3. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong tweeted his thoughts on how crypto regulation should work moving forwards:

   Brian Armstrong @brian_armstrong

   1/ I often get asked: “What does regulatory clarity actually look like for crypto?” So I outlined a realistic blueprint for this that regulates centralized actors, while preserving decentralized innovation. coinbase.com/blog/regulatin…

   • Basically:

     • (1) regulate centralized players

     • (2) enforce regulations such that bad actors actually get punished while good actors flourish

     • (3) give decentralized solutions room to breathe while we continue to innovate.

4. Alchemy University has now been live for a few months! We’ve been running a weekly town hall and content review livestream for the Ethereum Developer Bootcamp for a few months. Come check it out while you have some holiday break time :)

   • https://university.alchemy.com/

   • You may need an Early Access NFT invite depending on when you’re seeing this email, so if you need one, just reply and I’ll get you set up ASAP!

   • The livestreams are on a new YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@alchemyuniversity/streams

Tech Stuff

1. 2022 Tech Salaries from Levels.fyi

2. Career advice from Netflix Senior Software Engineer

3. Asking ChatGPT how to optimize prompts to itself

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1. Updated tech salaries info from Levels.fyi shows that even with all of the layoffs and stock corrections, experienced software engineers are still very much in HUGE demand. Not that that’s surprising, but it’s cool to see anyways, in case you need some extra motivation to keep leveling up in your career. From levels.fyi/2022.

   Tanay Jaipuria @tanayj

   Despite all the challenges the tech industry has faced this year, a reminder that it's still a great time to be an engineer. (this is for people with ~5-7 years of total experience via levels.fyi/2022)

   

2. I recently started following this pretty funny tech personality / shit poster account: @trashh_dev . Turns out, he’s a senior engineer at Netflix and he just started his YouTube channel recently and it’s already pretty good. Looks like it’s going to be focused on software engineering career advice. Super funny, but also very useful content. Highly recommend giving him a follow.

3. Funny post from my good friend Aaron, asking ChatGPT how to ask prompts to itself. For anyone who’s been living under a rock, ChatGPT is an amazing new chat interface for OpenAI’s latest large language learning model (LLM). It’s an AI model that has been trained on a ton of text and feels almost human to talk to, outperforming google search results in a variety of cases. You can try it out for yourself here: https://chat.openai.com/chat

   Aaron | webthreewaves.eth @webthreewaves

   Starting to see a lot of posts about how to write great AI prompts. But let’s ask the real expert? Here’s how ChatGPT wants to be talked to! 👇

   

   

   

Personal Stuff

1. Last week, I took an awesome vacation through Karuizawa and Tokyo. Went skiing in the mountains and visited CryptoBar — a cozy bar where you can get all-you-can-drink alcohol by paying in Ether.

2. This week, I’ll be spending Christmas and New Year’s in Taipei with Catherine’s family. Lots of beef noodle soup coming my way…

3. I’m looking forward to being very refreshed and ready to grind in 2023 (also looking for a new apartment in San Francisco!) Thinking about making some interesting upgrades 👀

Happy Holidays :)