Privacy and Cybersecurity

I have two slides at the end of most of my presentations. One is my investible theses for the upcoming year and the other is stuff that has my attention. As we head into 2023, I thought it might be fun to look at a deck from 2018 and see if I got any of it right five years ago. I'll let you be the judge. Continue Reading →

As 2022 winds down, I thought it would be fun to review the 10 most popular stories by page views on shellypalmer.com. Obviously, 2022 was a transitional year for crypto, the world of decentralized finance, Web3 and the metaverse. It was also "the" year of AI. These stories reflect those trends, although some of the topics may surprise you. Continue Reading →

Let's imagine the fan experience of the future. If there were no technological or financial restrictions, how would you want to attend a sporting event or a concert? What will "attending" evolve to mean? Continue Reading →

At a dinner party the other night, a very accomplished business person told a story about how he and his wife were certain that their devices were listening to their conversations. “I was talking to my wife about a pair of designer shoes that she wanted to purchase, and not 10 minutes later while she was doing some online research for work, she saw an ad for that exact pair of shoes. She hadn’t searched for the shoes; the ad just appeared. Clearly, our computers or our phones are listening.” Some people nodded in agreement, and others began to chime in. Continue Reading →

Elon Musk recently wrote, "Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences," he followed with, "Twitter aspires to be the most respected advertising platform in the world." Twitter cannot serve two masters. So, which will it be, "a free-for-all hellscape," or "the most respected advertising platform in the world." Continue Reading →

The most significant event in the short history of Web3 will most likely occur on September 15, 2022. That’s when Ethereum, the largest smart contract blockchain (with the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap), is now scheduled to enact an existential operational change. If it fails, “The Merge,” as it is colloquially called, is almost sure to take the crypto markets down with it. But even if The Merge is 100 percent successful, it will come with profound implications regarding censorship, regulation, and the future of money. Continue Reading →

Ever wonder how misinformation goes viral? Let's follow a typo made by CNBC as it propagates across the Web. The story quotes a post from Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner about the recent Instagram redesign. It's an object lesson about the truly revolting lack of journalistic standards that pervade our digital lives. Continue Reading →

You just purchased your first NFT. Where is it? Is it sitting in your account on the marketplace you purchased it from? Do they have custody of your digital asset or do you? Did you transfer your NFT to your crypto wallet? If so, do you believe your new NFT is actually in your wallet? It isn't. That's not how this works. Here's what is really in your wallet. Continue Reading →

Elon Musk and Twitter are probably going to court over whether he should be forced to buy the social media company for $44 billion. He's trying to back out of the deal because he thinks Twitter is lying about the number of bots and fake accounts on the platform. But it's not just about the bots. Twitter has not had a substantial increase in users since 2016 – which makes you wonder why Elon ever considered buying the platform. But the story gets worse, because Twitter's woes are not even a little bit new. Continue Reading →

In World of Warcraft, a soulbound item, once picked up, cannot be transferred or sold to another player. It is this idea of “immutable, permanent binding” that inspired Ethereum’s creator, Vitalik Buterin, to ask a question: What if NFTs could be soulbound? Continue Reading →