I write this letter to share some of the things that I’m working on and thinking about. A little about me:

I own and manage an agency in Toronto called August. We design and build digital products. We spend about 80% of our time on client work and the balance on internal projects. I also invest in real estate with my two brothers.

some thoughts

We are now officially in a crypto winter. All the fun that people were having six months ago—making money, claiming to change the world, etc.—has pretty much stopped. Now there are plenty of tears brought on by plenty of losses. It was probably due.

In the wake of the crypto market—broadly defined—collapsing, there’s been a lot of discussion on the question of what crypto, or blockchain, or web3, pick your term, is good for.

This guy Liron Shapira on Twitter has been clipping segments of podcasts where this question is discussed, and where the guests generally come up with very unsatisfactory answers. Here’s one of the better examples of the genre:

Liron Shapira @liron

Yesterday @packyM was asked to explain a Web3 use case. I clipped this gem from 8:40 of @loganbartlett's latest @cartoonavatars podcast episode with co-host @zachweinberg. Highly recommended...

It’s very clear to me that a lot of people who’ve built large followings and bank balances on the back of web3 haven’t taken more than 10-minutes to actually think through the implications of the technology they’re promoting, and its application beyond speculative ponzi schemes.

So, I’d like to spend a bit time making their arguments for them. Critically, I limit my arguments to the uses of bitcoin specifically, as opposed to web3 more broadly, as I think that it has some unique properties that make it better suited for the use cases listed below.

So, what is bitcoin good for?

First, bitcoin is good for facilitating transactions that governments don’t like. Think: buying drugs, paying for prostitution, circumventing capital controls, evading taxes, and maybe even donating to Canadian anti-lockdown protest movements.

This goes directly to the question of decentralization: why decentralize, when it comes at the cost of transaction efficiency? Well, because you don’t want the network to be shut down by government agents with guns. That’s one good reason.

Second, bitcoin has created a good global payments network that is not bound by traditional money transfer regulation. To be clear, bitcoin on- and off-ramps (ie, exchanges) are bound by regulation, but the broader network is not. And that again, is because it is decentralized.

This might sound like an extension of the first point but it’s not quite. Remittance payments from California to El Salvador, for example, are perfectly legal, assuming compliant start and end points, and the bitcoin network just provides a good alternative to, say, Western Union, and maybe even SWIFT.

Third, bitcoin might be a good savings vehicle. Unlike every other currency on earth, its supply is finite. Assuming constant or increasing demand, over time, this should lead to upward price pressure. Despite the recent 70%+ crash in price, this has been true to date for anyone who’s been holding for more than a few years.

This is the “digital gold” narrative.

These are all good arguments for bitcoin. You’ll note of course that they might not be good arguments for the broader web3 ecosystem.

For what it’s worth, I think that over a long enough timeline, web3 boosters and detractors both basically converge on the above case for bitcoin.

business stuff

August is in another interesting phase of its growth. Twelve months ago, our big problem was generating enough demand for our services to cover our monthly burn. Now our big problem is managing employee burnout, and improving our hiring process to weed out bad candidates as quickly as possible. This is arguably a better problem to have, but just barely. It does feel like my time as CEO is being consumed by jumping from one fire to another at the cost of longer term strategy. I need to work on that. To that end, I’m trying to find and connect with more experienced agency founders and CEOs to avoid always learning lessons the absolute hardest way. If this is you or someone you know, please let me know.
Buildstack is not yet in its ideal launch form, but it’s good enough. “Fuck it, we’ll do it live!” So, check it out: buildstack.co, and check out this short demo I’ve recorded as well: https://www.loom.com/share/41f3587f4c034efca7a653ea906bf34a

The next month will be dedicated to working through my long list of backlogged tickets relating to user interface and experience improvements, including the addition of the sign-in/up flows for company owners looking to upgrade to a premium profile.

I’m also going to reach out to a bunch of my real estate developer friends—many of you reading this—for thoughts on how useful this is, how it can be improved, etc. Expect me.

investment stuff

FH1*: Our successful 4-1 Committee of Adjustments decision continues to be under appeal. We’re in a bit of a holding pattern here, though we’re continuing progress on our working drawings to be ready to apply for our building permits in the even that we can come to an agreement with the appelant.

In the meantime, debt and construction costs continue to rise, but so do rents. It’s not clear where this will all net out for us on this project, but we’re medium-term bullish on the city as a whole and on our chosen neighbourhood for this project in particular
MR1**: We’ve now had our Pre-Application Consultation (PAC) with the City, where staff from a number of relevant departments provided us with very high-level reactions to our proposal for this site. These included staff from Community Planning, Transportation Planning, Urban Design, and Engineering and Construction Services (ECS). No major blockers at this point, so we continue to work with our design team to pull together all the necessary drawings, studies, and reports for a complete Zoning Bylaw Amendment application.

There might be another interesting development on this project in progress, but unfortunately not one I can share with you until it’s done. You’ll just have to stay tuned.

*Forever Hold 1. A proposed four-storey multiunit rental building in Toronto’s west end that we plan on holding forever.

**Midrise 1. A proposed nine-to-eleven-storey multiunit residential building (tenure to be determined) in Toronto’s west end. We’re starting with a rezoning and we’ll take it from there.

stuff I’ve enjoyed

This is some of the content I’ve come across over the past month that I’ve particularly enjoyed.

Article: I want the future to be better than the present, and I focus a lot of that desire on Toronto as a city. That is, I want Toronto to be a much better city in 20 and 30 years than it is today. For that to happen, I think that housing needs to become more abundant and affordable, that our mobility networks (for driving, transiting, cycling, and walking) need to be more expansive, connected, and fast-flowing, and that our public realm and commercial amenities (bars, cafes, restaurants, shops) need to all level up. But how do we get there? This article provides one important consideration: marketing. If we want the future to be better than the present, we need to get more people onboard with how good the future can be, and have them buy into the necessary change and work that will be needed between now and then. Check it out.
Book: I’ve been reading The New Kings of New York. It’s like a modern version of Skyscraper Dreams, which I may or may not have recommend in this letter—essentially, a series of stories about New York City real estate over the past two decades, full of fascinating characters, large dollar amounts, and larger skyline-shaping development projects.
Podcast: I think I’ve recommended the All In Podcast in the past. I’m starting to get a bit bored of the content in general but this episode in particular was a lot of fun. It features a talk by Palmer Luckey at the recent All In Summit on America’s national defence challenges and the need for a strong and large ecosystem of innovative companies supplying the Department of Defence with the latest and greatest hardware and software, including of course from his new company, Anduril. Palmer then pivots for the “one more thing” portion of his talk to a 5-minute roast of host Jason Calacanis for things he’s said in the past relating to Palmer’s politics, donation to an anti-Hillary PAC in 2016, and ultimate firing from Meta. And don’t worry: you’ll still enjoy the episode even if you don’t know the full backstory or all the characters involved.
Video: My friends at The Peak hosted a debate this past week on the question of whether or not Elon Musk buying Twitter would be good for democracy. You can watch a recording of the debate here. The debate results haven’t yet been announced, but to me, Jamil Jivani was the clear winner. What do you think?

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And that’s it for now. Here’s to a good and productive July.

Feel free to reply to this email with any comments or questions. I love chatting about everything mentioned above.

Chris’s Newsletter

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