After 14 months, last week was my final week at @NEARFoundation and @NEARGovernance House of Stake. I'm deeply grateful for the opportunity. Working on HoS—helping design and launch a governance system from scratch—was like a dream, and it was one of the most rewarding professional experiences of my life. The team is outstanding, the MPC signer project is underway, and the project is genuinely in more capable hands than mine now. I'm optimistic about where it goes from here. Crypto is in a strange, humbling moment. Markets are rough, attention and talent are understandably flowing toward AI, and it's easy to lose the thread. But as I wrote yesterday on Substack, I think this has less to do with what crypto isn't and more to do with what AI: an important technology that's finally hit its stride. The two aren't in competition; they're mutually reinforcing. We just can't see it yet through the fog. It's an excellent time to step back and ask the big question: how do I have the biggest positive impact? I don't have an answer yet, and I'm in no rush to find one. For the foreseeable future I'm focused on family—second child is arriving in a few days, and I didn't get much time off when my son was born—and digging deep into AI tools and building. If you're hacking on AI-powered projects, or just figuring out what's next in this weird interregnum, I'd love to hear from you (DMs open!). I'm not looking for a job. This is the first time in nearly a decade that I haven't known what I'm working on next, and I'm really enjoying the feeling. I plan to enjoy it for a while. I know I've been pretty quiet here the past few months. No excuses—life got busier than usual and my attention was elsewhere. I have a feeling that's about to change. "Finite players play within boundaries; infinite players play with boundaries." - James Carse Onward.

Read yesterday's issue: Nine Years in Crypto, by @lrettig