Finding Trusting and Stable Community Expansion Despite Anxious Interfaces

I think this is my first time documenting things after the heat of that SEC review died down. It's really nice not waking up to emails from the SEC anymore. Don't get me wrong, they are totally awesome and asked for entirely reasonable and relevant things.

But I just hold a high regard for a handful of institutions because they've helped me a lot growing up. I want to put my absolute best foot forward when it comes to my/our interactions, especially in our first official correspondence. Initial impressions count, and I think I've got a great basis with the staff now.

One thing I really appreciate is the segmentation of departmental functions. Like they were not intimately familiar with my comments or correspondences with the Trading and Markets team. While this isn't really about that, I just appreciated how they run things efficiently on a need-to-know basis to enforce the laws, update rules, etc.¹

Centralized Meetings, Requests, and Interactions

In case it wasn't clear, the Commission is an extremely centralized organization. They hold vast amounts of secrets which, if leaked, could unravel entire segments of the market—or at least allow for some insider trading. This was abundantly clear in their professionalism and exclusive focus on applicable rules and questions.

I got these sentiments from our meetings and written document requests, both of which were extremely centralized. I've had my few WebEx’s here and there with staff before, where they were pretty awesome focusing on my questions in an approximately similar manner to the examiners.² These scheduled appointments were some of the only centrally timed discussions I've had in a long time, and they led to the first time I woke up with an alarm in two years.

For work at least, I'm just not used to all the directive operation anymore. I've gradually let it go over the years departing college and watching original teams dissipate because of my funding choices. I really thought it might be for naught until all my questioning ended in an instant when I discovered WhyDRS.

First Impressions

In our initial meeting, I expressed this timeline in depth, chronicling the privatization of the Python implementation before open-sourcing to Affero. Despite sending over explicit governance conversations, they stayed focused on the codified accounting compliance. I appreciated this sternness to mission without leading on policy interpretations outside of official rulemaking, especially because I really pushed them in Response 7 to explicitly give feedback in the form of a footnote on DAO governance.

They didn't seem too moved by things because of our present structure, where I am technically the only "employee," so to speak, although even that isn't in writing. I know I have a lot of work to do, and I'm thankful for their centralization in this regard. By looking into every facet of our/my existing internal architecture, they really gave an exceptionally strong roadmap after just one interaction which I'll use for years.

That kind of speed really does need centralization, and I think it's a great thing to have from an outside regulator during our early days. It will and has helped us make quick progress on actionable items, a refreshing break from the intentionally politicized and unactionable comment letters. And, while I can't guarantee or know anything for sure, I do think they took some recommendations to explore some securities activities based on recent news and also Commissioner speeches.³

Document Requests

Aside from the central meetings where I was an open book, staff sent timestamped requests for information with hard deadlines. They were everything from an explanation of anomalies to policy documents. The first one was probably the most voluminous in individual items, while we started scoping down and really exploring the TAD concept in later letters.⁴

It was the deadlines that really got me. I went through the letters item by item, and it was clear that some responses needed significant supplemental context for my actions to make sense. And just in general to fully explain our operations and interactions with our first client.

This took an immense amount of time, even when I was completely focused exclusively on response work. It was the first time I had coffees to keep myself going, and obvious preparation for the first response was the first time I had energy drinks. I remember we had one night where it was community drafting all the way up to 11:40 p.m. to get everything in order on time.

Phone Calls

When staff first began the exam, they tried to call me twice listening to my voicemail about how I don't take unscheduled calls. In reality, I haven't taken any calls in years because I stopped scheduling them. At least for major work items, I just really prefer written documentation, partly because talking to people is a lot of work.

Luckily, I caught the email asking me to call them for unspecified reasons within a couple of hours of sending. When I received it, it was clear that this was the start of an exam, but I appreciate their general outreach as it would be the setup normally for a physical office examination. A little dated with so much online today, but I understand how it happened given their outreach from an office building in downtown New York.

They are literally a block next to Wall Street, so I can't think of a more centralized basis to start describing their influence. And it really came across in the hierarchy of questions and answer reviews implicit in their direct discussion of issue interpretations. That hit me when Donna answered my phone call after receiving a document request, but multiple subsequent calls were ignored in deference to written submissions or out of unavailability given other tasks.

What Happened with Chives

Hopefully that frames just how centralized my decision-making had become, going as far as to cancel my gym membership because I chose to spend no time on myself. Centralization leads to mistakes which are incompatible with my vision of a free market. No matter how incredible the immediate working result feels—and I will say I am happy with how the exam turned out and docs produced—it's just not worth the ensuing consequences which cost so much to the public without transparency or trust.

I took a walk just now to think about things, and it really took me out of the flow. Imagine an entire enterprise functioning like that, with constant interruptions and hierarchical meetings all formulated to benefit a dissociated shareholder class with control at the top. I know there's a better way to organize capital that gives people back their freedom and dignity, and I have to find it.⁵

That's why I was really set back when I acted very centralized in a private discussion with Chives, all related to what I'd consider politicking. 6days had done an incredible job introducing my work to Truthful, whom I'd forgotten early discussion with back on Reddit. Interpreting it as a new relationship, I put together very strong replies on the fly and got back some exceptional logic from Truth.

Direct Delegation

After the conversation got a little lower-level and implicated a technical competitor, I didn’t think I could immediately add a ton without thorough contemplation. I was working very hard on the Stellar DEX docs at the time, and so I wanted to focus on that while my prior responses brewed off their own standing. I didn't feel the entirety of my written thoughts had been addressed since they were nuanced and took some time to fully investigate.⁶

I DM'd Chives asking if he'd "want to tackle" a reply to the questions asked. This was the mistake, requiring direct centralized interactions outside of the public forum largely for the sake of expediency. It would have been much more appropriate to post a community forum request in the dedicated influencer-outreach Discord channel, which I know Chives reads anyway when around.

The “around” part is extremely important because Chives immediately disclosed that he could help (within 10 minutes) "but it'll be a bit" because of a prior family preoccupation. After this event, another community member was "actually coming to town to visit" Chives "(he comes in later tonight)" that same evening. This was sent at the end of the workday, and it clearly hit conflicts.

Possible Influences

After letting Chives off the hook with "I would not be offended in the slightest" if other plans blocked collaboration, he hung tight. I knew the moment I sent my first message that something was wrong, and I've had huge warning and caution emojis in my message draft box ever since.⁷ He shared my sentiment that "getting a reply in there would be cool" since Truth "has a following."

It reminds me of all the gimmicks and pressure I'd put on myself growing up to 'get the hot girl.' Even though that might mean different things to different people, the premise remains that too much pressure formed around internal doubts about others. I worried that my own efforts alone wouldn't 'be enough' to get a strong introduction, akin to asking a friend to ask someone out.

It's just a weird dynamic that involved (in my experience) years of improving yourself to feel 'worthy' of being with others who would all have likely wanted to chatter if only you had the self-confidence.⁸ I promise that everyone's voice has the opportunity to make an impact, and it just takes a simple attempt. Even public CEOs or big-shot athletes might reply to a considerate letter, which I saw firsthand when reaching out to public CFOs with practically nothing backing my work but a couple lines in an email.

Continued Outreach

The introductory X comment chain mentioned how we'd crossed paths before, both by Truth and implied by 6days. In a past life of centralized marketing, I learned just how effective repeated outreach is at eliciting a response. The challenge I always had with it was you force people to immediately reply without due time to consider all facts and circumstances.

But when the subject is starting a relationship, work or not, I take less issue with constantly interjecting yourself with others since the goal is collaboration rather than power or money. If you can get someone's attention, then you can make a great first impression before defaulting back into relaxed asynchronous and possibly public interactions together. There are nearly infinite ways to accomplish this hook-in depending on personality factors, political considerations, and technical proficiency.

For instance, I was awed by Cormac Kinney's work after finding out about Diamond Standard in college. The more I learned about his career, the more incredible I found the project, DAO, and markets. I viewed their LinkedIn profile one time, screenshotted his photo, and set it as my lock-screen background on 13 Aug 2020.

Decentralized Patience Takes Time

Cormac added me on LinkedIn in a message explaining our shared investment background on 1 Feb 2019, but I never responded to his ask for investment opportunities. He never messaged anything else to me, so I decided to do nothing but think about how we could work together each time I saw his face, each and every day. Then, in a college study group working on MPC, I read a message from Cormac on 18 Nov 2021 out of the blue asking to speak with someone on 'my team' that absolutely shocked me.

He wrote that he was "looking for a transfer agent" for assets "that will allow secondary trading on blockchain-based ATSs and OTCQX," and I felt like my whole world had come complete. It took me fifteen minutes of intense cheering out in the hallways to process what just happened. Right in front of me stood an issue poised to uplist onto the NYSE backed by a prominent investment institution, all of which I had great esteemed respect for at the time.

While that offering ultimately faced insurmountable regulatory scrutiny, it legitimately laid the groundwork for years of my research into securities offering types I'd never been exposed to before. While I had had the InVenture pitch earlier that year, this event was what really gave me the belief that I could and should pursue BT as my main thing. I remember preemptively posting about it a bit naively on the Bitcoin forums, and it was really the confident backing that I needed amidst a sea of complete silence from anyone I tried to talk about this with online.

Discovering Friends

While this single message cemented my own belief, there was a significant event earlier that year which inspired so many. I had walked away from certain unsupportive discussions before the sneeze, and I see that as just another example of needing to wait and take some time for work to mature. Even just a couple more months on WSB would have likely exposed me to some of DFV's earliest posts.

In a way, everyone's desire for a more transparent, fair, and efficient system also preempted my work. For so long I've seen threads divulge into archived wishes for something on the blockchain for transfer agents. But it wasn't until that fateful week in November 2023 that we all financially crossed paths and could realize some of those latent wishes for a parallel financial system built right.

It might not be so easy to sit there waiting in silence for what can seem like forever. But the craving to quit at your dreams almost always hits hardest before a major breakthrough. I think of the "three feet from gold" story by Napoleon Hill about a gold mine.

Applying Lessons

And so, if we can agree that our relationships are perhaps the most productive asset possible, then it's worth letting nature play out even if we can only visualize success. Things can feel miles away while we're apart, and it's very tempting to close that gap faster through central coercion. Heck, I've even considered actually traveling to clients' places of work for instructions.

But those new relationships compound so much better when given the time to develop naturally. When optimized for natural convenience and interest alignment, we let the world around us mature until it's truly the best moment for connection. With Chives, I'm sure a community response would have surfaced around the same timeline as the reply I forced out of them.

I've worried too much lately about getting things right myself rather than relying on friends because I was practically the only person who could answer a lot of the SEC's questions implicating PII. I'm excited to open the systems up so that I don't continue as both a bottleneck and central point of failure. Because I know everything will be so much more sound when we do it together, no matter the speed.

Supporting Options

Aside from understanding outreach, I also realized something crucial after I successfully enticed Truth to join the Discord. Whereas I used to spend hours upon hours crafting the perfect X reply without my friends, I am a lot better with flowing continuously in our chat server. It took me a long time to get this right, and you can see it if you look at my post history.

For about the first year of the Discord (at least into November 2024), most of my messages were deeply crafted paragraphs of text with AI emoji enhancements. I felt early on like each statement I made was a public press release of exactly how the Syndicate would develop. But over time I realized that BT's work aligned so much with everyone's interests that we could be special. 🤝

During some of these initial chats with Truth and other great community members like Jack, there was a lot of rapid-fire back-and-forth. During these periods, I was asked meaningful questions I had a unique ability to answer (or it was asked generally). This led to my typing a couple of sentences in response while someone else was also typing, as most of it was in the #general channel.

Being a Toothpaste Mouth Only

I used to wait for others to finish writing their thoughts, like allowing others to finish speaking in a real discussion. This is a super common negotiating tactic and broadly just a good way to learn the entirety of someone's perspective. I actually have a book on my shelf that's entitled Shut Up and Listen.

It's really helped me uncover deep dark nuances when financial insiders speak with me over the years. When a particularly emotional discussion came up with Kayla while I was brushing my teeth, I was forced by circumstance to exclusively listen to her speech. This resulted in a tremendous resolution and prompted me temporarily to consider writing a book on all these business social strategies.

But I've found something really special with working friends that continue trusting my sentiments. While I would not interrupt a written dialogue without good reason or poor sleep, I now find comfort in typing simultaneously. In the asynchronous message-board format, I find that it only hastens conversation toward shared passionate points (why else would we both be writing so feverishly).