Note to readers
Crypto just is not the frontier any longer.
This newsletter is going to pivot.
The podcast, Diamond Rhino, will keep coming out every week, but, for now, everything else about the schedule is in the hands of The Fates.
On that note, I didn’t put out a podcast episode on Sunday because I made a crucial technical error working on the latest one, but I feel like this is a milestone for any podcast.
But it should be consistent moving forward, so subscribe on Apple Podcasts!
That said: The normal cadence of essays might continue for a week or two as I clear my docket, but I’m going to start giving my full attention to particular things and not come up until I have something unique to hand over here.
This is going to mean big articles on the big picture and zero day-by-day.
What’s changing
Instead of doing anything like following the news, which you can already get from sites like Decrypt, CoinDesk or DL News, I’m going pursue exegeses of larger topics. These might take a while, but hopefully I drop an essay at least every 10 days on here.
These will be more exploratory and narrative, less new-startup-bets-six-million-dollars-can-fix-a-thing.
I might also intersperse that with punchier opinion, as events arise, like the piece I recently did for CoinDesk on Trump and Paul Atkins.
Being realistic, one thing I have learned about myself is that I can really only do one thing at a time. There was no way the limited machine that came pre-installed inside my skull was going to do deep dives while managing three deliverables a week (and it turns out that hardware upgrades aren’t in spec for this corporeal form)(bummer).
Expansiveness
I’m also going to move beyond crypto somewhat, since the mood on-chain is not great at the moment, so it’s not an ideal time to be 100% crypto-focused.
Plus I’ve always done my best work pursuing the frontiers. Crypto just isn’t the frontier any longer. It’s getting wired in. I’ll leave covering Bitcoin’s integration with BlackRock to the Wall Street Journal. I know it’s important, but I’m not going to be able to write about it as if I care one bit.
Not that I don’t think crypto doesn’t have some frontier left in it. It does. But there are also new frontiers and it’s time to have a look at them.
The why and what for
I’ve appreciated everyone’s attention so far but this approach clearly hasn’t really clicked in any particular way.
After a decade of covering startups, I picked up a few guidelines for building products that fly (I even drew a comic about Lean methodology 15 years ago). I’ve learned that a product should grab people pretty quickly or it’s time to pivot.
It’s time to pivot.
From the very start of this newsletter I had a sneaking suspicion my approach still had too much of Axios’ DNA in it, because I did a newsletter there for the last four years.
True, Front Stage Exit hasn’t had bullet points with form letter prefaces, but it ran on a steady cadence and it aimed to hit the big topics of the day. Plus, it focused a lot on the regulatory and legislative stuff around digital assets. That’s an important story! But it’s an Axios story, not a Brady Dale story.
Lastly, I’ll admit that I launched Backstage Pass as an attempt to copy Nellie Bowles, at The Free Press, and her weekly TGIF feature. I loved doing BP! I think I wrote some great lines! But it still put me into that day-to-day thinking that is better served by full publications rather than a one-man-one-cat team in Kansas.
Stay tuned
I’m going to drop an essay within the next ten days that will take a winding road through themes evoked by a very old movie that anticipated the current thing. It won’t have a hint of cryptocurrency, but I think its spirit travels with lunarpunks, dreamers and the hobos of the information superhighway.
After that, I’m thinking about a detailed update on one of the industry’s control freak visionaries — someone I’ve intermittently watched since my CoinDesk days.
And I’d really like to explore how the aesthetics of crypto have evolved over time, but — to be honest — I don’t really know how to pursue that one, but my gut says there is something there.
Beyond that, I’m open to suggestions.
easy,
Brady