BitRobot is building the “Bittensor for robots”

They just raised $8m from top investors and depin founders to do so

Here’s everything you need to know:

Previously Michael @micoolcho built FrodoBots which is a fleet of sidewalk robots that can be operated, using natural language instructions, from anywhere in the world

You can buy one for $199

As a serial entrepreneur based in Singapore, he learned lessons that he’s now applying to BitRobot:

“No point building a great product if you cannot figure out distribution”
“You really wanna get the TAM right”
“Helps a lot to be on the edge”

FrodoBots was a hobby project during covid as a way to work together with his brothers

It’s a mix of DEPIN, AI, robotics, and crypto (with $SAM, the memecoin)

https://www.frodobots.ai/
https://x.com/frodobots

In a few years, they have:

-shipped several sidewalk robot models, an order of magnitude cheaper than existing options

-released the largest opensource dataset of 2000+ hours of human robot telemetry data

-collaborated with researchers from Deepmind, UC Berkeley, YGG, and more

Michael was red-pilled in crypto by depin project Helium (decentralized wireless)

This made him realize he could turn his passion for robotics + AI into something much bigger

Thus was born BitRobot — a bittensor-like network for robotics subnets

So what is BitRobot?

-network of subnets (independent robotics startups, projects, and competitions)

-North Star is to “solve embodied AI”

-co-created with Jonathan Victor (@jnthnvctr) and Juan Benet (@juanbenet) from Protocol Labs (the creators of Filecoin and IPFS)

Whitepaper coming soon: http://bitrobot.ai/

Why now?

Michael believes robotics is an even playing field — maybe Tesla has won for self driving cars — but even with Optimus, they have the same challenges as every other robotics company

“So crypto isn’t behind” (key point)

If BitRobot’s incentives are structured well, the network could have more resources and move even faster than web2 competitors

“Each subnet is a competition with a defined objective”

Examples could include sidewalk robots… robots for home chores… datasets including video data and synthetic data… AI models specialized for robots…

“History is very path dependent”
Michael would not have believed BitRobot could exist if it weren’t for Axie, Helium, and Bittensor

Like Bittensor, each subnet owner defines the objective – and define tokenomics within its subnet for resources, marketing, and community

If there’s 10 subnets, how will rewards be distributed?
(1) A Senate with human robotics experts
(2) An AI decision maker (named Gandalf) as a counterweight to human biases

“Each subnet should move embodied AI research forward”

As subnets create value, the datasets and model weights will be open source for non-commercial use

The BitRobot Foundation will accrue commercializable IP and represent the ecosystem

Finally, Michael believes the bottleneck is the “10 to 100K world-class robotics researchers”

BitRobot wants to find those robotics experts and help them with resources and money – let them 10x

Thanks for reading all this!

For more —
Whitepaper coming soon on BitRobot.ai

Follow @BitRobotNetwork

Follow Michael @micoolcho

In a followup thread, I’ll talk about Robots.fun — a new initiative from FrodoBots that is “Virtuals for robots” — stay tuned!

Longhash
Started 2018, one of first web3 accelerators - more Asia focused; Early stage founders
What’s unique - close partnership w/ ecosystems - Polkadot, Filecoin, Acela
Two funds - 2021 defi fund, 2022 infra/multichain fund
Small distributed team

Accelerator
-running since 2018, how has your approach to startups changed since then
-during bear cycles (2022-2023), hard to find capital - accelerator can really help during this phase
-normally it’s a team of 2 cofounders, we’re 3rd cofounder - first check
$100-200K co-invest
-2024 meta - more money and investment options, accelerator is still core element of helping early stage

What accelerator teams had most success and what was different about them?
-if VC is 99% failure, accelerator is even greater risk
-lot of teams just have idea
-bet on background, seasoned founders
-web3 / crypto native, what’s magic of web3
-“great founders pivot with the times”

Ecosystem report
https://www.longhash.vc/post/bootstrapping-developer-ecosystems-for-web3-protocols
-developers are always your first users - b2b2c
-0:1 phase (bootstrap) and 1:100 phase (flywheel)
-0:1 — need technology, need to market it well, core team must be very vocal + present
what is your positioning? Solana = onchain Nasdaq; Bitcoin = digital gold
Bittensor = incentivization platform for AI models
write a lot, be vocal on twitter and farcaster, produce a lot of content
meme season — attention is next currency
-1:100 phase — now u have developers, how do u get them to build interesting stuff
Ronin: focus on helping game devs build good games — dev tools, SDKs, marketplace
address different dev needs (eg, new devs v experienced ones)

How do builders choose between the ecosystems?
Many are mercenary
How do ecosystems retain devs?
- Case studies on Axelar, Berachain, Solana
- Devs wanna go where the users are — eg, narrative that users are migrating to Base

Flywheel
Get best devs to build a few pioneer apps / use cases — get good users — get more devs
Ronin — onboarded Pixels team one year ago, migrated from Polygon, Mavis Hub + Ronin name service, went from 10K to several hundred K DAU

Token price matters a lot in web3
-in bull, everyone wants to stay in ecosystem, get rewards
-in bear / when price crashes, how to retain? Need clear focus on what ecosystem is about, why devs should build there
-for bootstrapping, need well-designed tokenomics so early adopters are rewarded, yet sustainable (deflationary) in long-run

In-person / offline events — hosting events, panels, sponsoring conference tracks

“Everyone building an ecosystem”
L1s > L2s > L3s
L1s > EigenDA / Celestia
Big projects will become own appchains / rollups
Want to become a place where new ideas are built atop

Influencers / crypto Twitter
“Attention is next big world currency”
Everyone attention span getting shorter, TikTok
Crypto next meme coin, next narrative
Few types — investor type (actually invest), founder/builder type (know tech), token price type (appeal to retail, what’s next 10x)

Links shared:
https://x.com/mo_baioumy/status/1760296558539501698
@mo_baioumy AI x Crypto is a hot narrative right now.

https://www.workingtheorys.com/p/before-the-crowd

This is the same way people talk about the good ole days of the San Francisco tech scene (circa late 2000s to mid 2010s). The meetups were more meetup-y. The hackathons were more hack-y. The nerds were more nerdy. Everything in the tech scene felt more authentic, more egalitarian, and less sceney

follow Michael on X @brazenburrit0

Follow Two Degens on X - @habits and @bridgexplore

Subscribe and listen to past episodes: twodegens.com

Building tech is expensive and time-consuming. CodeX is an all-in-one no-code AI-powered ecosystem for WEB3 mass adoption. Build faster and cheaper. Learn more here https://codexchain.xyz/home
and follow

Follow Two Degens on X - @habits and @bridgexplore

Subscribe and listen to past episodes: twodegens.com

Follow Two Degens on X: @habits and @bridgexplore

Subscribe and listen to past episodes: twodegens.com

Kevin’s links

https://kevinhabits.com/media/kevin-kelly-saw-the-future-in-1997-in-the-network-economy-follow-the-free
Kevin Kelly - 1997 - New Rules for the New Economy

https://kevinhabits.com/cryptoes/collection-of-recent-crypto-learnings-crypto-is-the-machines-body-and-ai-is-the-brain-that-enters-into-it
Redphonecrypto’s 69 theses

https://kevinhabits.com/media/an-exhaustive-and-beautiful-reminder-of-how-good-we-got-it-from-gwern
Gwern’s list of things that have gotten better since the 90s

https://kevinhabits.com/media/the-important-concept-of-social-information-hazards-it-is-more-like-a-black-pill-that-might-give-you-a-slightly-more-accurate-understanding-of-how-the-world-works-but-saps-your-motivation-to-effect
Jeff Lonsdale on information hazards



Jorge’s links

Mental model:
Blockchain is like CO2 / Electricity, and AI like plants/machines that thrive on it?

https://twitter.com/nillionnetwork/status/1752433717446901887?s=46
Would you openly give an AI assistant 10+ years of your text conversations (and everything else) knowing OpenAI had full control over it?

https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1752291413503729751
Vitalik – The promise and challenges of crypto + AI applications

https://twitter.com/qwqiao/status/1752820832160596015?s=46
Bittensor is a cult. Everyone I know who has spent more than 5min researching it is bullish, but no one can explain to me why. Never fade cults in crypto.

https://www.caseycaruso.com/thoughts/decentralized-ai
Potential market opportunities in the intersection of AI and Crypto

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/college-admissions-educational-consultants-command-education.html

Consulting services for those applying for university -- $250,000 for a two-week intensive period that helps refine students' regular-decision applications before early January deadlines -- highlights the complex dynamics and pressures within the college admissions landscape.

Show notes:
Jimmy @jimmyyin talks about how he started learning about crypto in 2016 while at UC Berkeley, founded Tsinghua Student Blockchain Association in 2017, and how his current project @izumi_Finance

Media to discuss

• https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2022/02/17/sequoia-launches-500-million-fund-to-invest-in-crypto-tokens-as-silicon-valley-throws-billions-at-blockchain/?sh=41a037e12510
  • Sequoia launching a fund to buy crypto tokens - while also splitting into separate global entities
• https://medium.com/vision-hill-blog/understanding-monetary-premiums-in-programmable-value-networks-74f0ba2b91c2
  • If GDP = value of corporate productivity, programmable money = value of developer activity
  • Thus, a network’s ability to earn a monetary premium, depends, to an arguably large degree, on the strength of its developer base. If developers abandon one network in order to build on another, whether due to improved UI/UX, computational efficiencies or simply a better perceived community and sense of belonging, the original network’s monetary premium should not be expected to hold its value over time if that developer base is not adequately replenished with equal or greater caliber
• Classic: https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html
  • The ocean is freezing and putting my body into it is a bad life experience, so I tend to limit myself to around one ocean swim a year. So as weird as it seems, I might only go in the ocean 60 more times
  • I probably eat pizza about once a month, so I’ve got about 700 more chances to eat pizza
  • http://www.paulgraham.com/vb.html

• In regards to Gary Gensler SEC law: https://twitter.com/LibertyCappy/status/1666437353794322432?s=20

• https://twitter.com/IAmMarkManson/status/1584163981828112385?s=20
  • A good life is largely defined by what's missing: - The fights that don't happen - The health problems you don't have - The debt you avoid - The desires you don't indulge A good life's not about gaining. It's about letting go.
• Carl sagan: demon haunted world: https://twitter.com/highbrow_nobrow/status/1665815355657207809?s=20
  • The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, In 1995, American astronomer Carl Sagan predicted what a future American society could look like. His forecast has been proven prescient. Read the image.

Howdy everyone — this is the 5 minute crypto update for Monday, June 5, hope everyone had a lovely weekend

Today we’ve got a ton to cover, I’ll go over it faster than usual, globalization, web3 gaming, ETH metrics, bitcoin halving, Bali, and more

Let’s do this like Buddhists

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Food for thought
https://conversableeconomist.com/2023/05/26/globalization-evolves-not-reverses/
-exports as a share of GDP have levelled off in recent years–while remaining near the all-time high. However, global flows of data and information are dramatically rising
-Roughly 20% of global economic output is exported (in value-added terms), FDI flows equal just 6% of gross fixed capital formation, about 7% of phone call minutes (including calls over the internet) are international, and only 4% of people live outside of the countries where they were born

Interesting stats on ETH network gas usage
Top was DEX trading at 26% of gas
Next at 12% was a tie between NFT mints and token transfers

https://twitter.com/AdrianoFeria/status/1663571657594683392
Nvidia has a P/E of 214
If ETH had the same P/E, its price would be $7200

https://twitter.com/iamzeroika/status/1664294156385280000?s=46
A few narratives that stood out to me
-Tokenized real world assets
-GambleFi
-Memecoins, to quote: “Funny logo ➩ low value ➩ get rich overnight ➩gamble.”

https://twitter.com/DappRadar/status/1663265129776005120
A lot of people counting Axie Infinity out, but according to DappRadar, it’s still the top blockchain game by 7d volume at $9.4M

https://www.onceinaspecies.com/p/655-bitcoin-indicators-suggest-bull
Another great piece from Jesse Myers Croesus BTC on why he believes we’ve entered the early phases of a Bitcoin bull market - and other analysts I respect largely agree such as Bob Loukas
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes. And it rhymes because humans behave in similar ways when exposed to the same set of conditions.”

https://blockworks.co/news/bali-pay-crypto-prohibited
According to Blockworks, Bali is apparently warning tourists against using crypto for any forms of payment
While licensed entities in Indonesia are allowed to trade crypto assets, crypto as a form of payment is still illegal

https://cryptohayes.substack.com/p/patience-is-beautiful
the net effect of US monetary policy is currently stimulative and the money printer is churning out more and more fiat toilet paper. And remember, this happens /because/ the Fed is raising rates to fight inflation. But if raising interest rates is actually increasing the money supply, then it follows that *raising interest rates actually increases inflation*.
he also predicts 3 things will happen

https://newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/andreessen-horowitzs-state-of-crypto
Always good to read your critics and she’s both funny and fair

https://twitter.com/definapkin/status/1656135765942841345?s=46
-there have been 3 halving - 2012, 16, and 2020
-expected next one is March 2024, reward drops from 6.25 to 3.125btc
-2012 - lasted 13 months, 90x increase, 2016 - 18 months, 29x increase, 2020 - 19 months, 12x increase

—

That’s it for today! All the links are in the show notes. You can follow @twodegenspod on Twitter and subscribe for more!