Interview Series — Crypto’s favourite Educator Captain Rational
In our interview series, we talk to the chads of Crypto Twitter — people that share the best alpha and have won the community's respect. This time we’re talking to Noah Seidman, known by the username Captain Rational. If you want to become more competent in crypto and finance, he’s one of the best Twitter accounts to follow.
Follow & links:
1. How long have you been in crypto & what was your first investment?
Dash, back in ~2015? just prior to the start of the cycle. Was using Genesis mining at the time. Dabbled with Bitcoin and original QT wallets. No doubt very different navigating that cycle as compared to post 2020.
2. What did you do before crypto?
I’m schooled in Electrical Engineering, with a career in Software Engineering. Specializing in Android apps since 2009. A laundry list of industry exposure over the past decade, crypto remains part-time as the rule is always never to quit the day job.
4. You have your own discord channel — what’s that about and what can people find there? Is it paid group?
Our Discord is the most rational community in the crypto space. We avoid hopium, avoid exuberance, and focus on enterprise evaluation. I strongly encourage engaging with crypto markets professionally, and not taking the memes and exuberant tone of the space lightly. I often say we need to peer through the madness, meaning there’s seriousness at the core of all the insanity we’ve seen over the last several years.
Cash flow above all else is the focus of the group, and macro analysis to assess where we are in the liquidity cycle. It’s a paid group, $10 per week. https://launchpass.com/noah-s-real-talk/captainrational
5. Name 3 of your current favourite protocols?
Curve Finance, Frax Finance, and Synthetic primitives (would take a story to explain)
6. Will there be a DeFi for degens in 5 years?
I don’t think what was experienced in 2020/21 will occur to the same degree. Yes, there will certainly be unregulated token issuance, but there’s no turning back from what has occurred in regulation land of late. The climate, sentiment, and willingness for persons to engage in rampant degeneracy will likely strike a different tone in future liquidity cycles.
7. You can only own one — BTC, USD, or ETH — which one do you choose?
Ethereum. Hyper disinflationary since the merge, and an inflation rate significantly less than Bitcoin. Transitory periods of deflation will almost certainly be quite pronounced; proportional to network activity.
8. Most underrated protocol in terms of impact on the whole DeFi space?
The Curve Finance federation. Federations are opt-in, and the protocols of the crypto space chose for the federation to exist. When Curve launched its hyperinflationary tokenomics, we did not know what it would become with regard to mandatory reserve accumulation to control the commoditized emissions. It’s extraordinary for a hyperinflationary emissions regime to be net disinflationary at worst, and deflationary at best. Overtones of the now existing Ethereum monetary policy, and the federation strikes tones of how the US bond market, and global USD debt market, has allowed the USD to be in extraordinary demand no matter how much supply is increased.
9. (Question by Rektdiomedes) What will the crypto and economic landscape look like in 5–10 years?
I believe that “real yield” will become the status quo. Real yield is basically a traditional value investing methodology allowing market actors to view the crypto space in terms of enterprise. Is a company profitable, are they cash flow positive, and does their protocol have a sustainable monetary policy… by looking at protocols like this, as an enterprise, we’re able to turn the crypto investment process from rampant speculation into a more typical, and traditional, value evaluation process.
10. 1–3 accounts people must follow on Twitter?
Very difficult to distill a short list. Real Vision and their content is invaluable to getting started in digesting macroeconomics, and the crypto space. Clearly the equities space as well. Luke Gromen, Brent Johnson, Lyn Alden, and Raoul Pal I think offer some of the best high-level macro observations to attempt to understand what’s going on. On YouTube George Gammon gives a very nice overview of many topics that need to be digested well to understand how to engage with capital markets.
11. Which crypto chad would you like us to interview next & what’s one question you want us to ask them?
For the community, I think Crypto Condom has done well for his followers.
Stand-up content, rational observations, restraint, a dash of exploration, and avoidance of degeneracy.
