Knowing that you almost don’t know anything.

I was having a new year’s day coffee with a family member. For context, he is a 68 years old man (and not my Mom or Dad). Funny side story, our family (the Jacobs’) have a nickname in my hometown Venlo, which we got because we are very heard-headed debaters 🤣. So when we get together, we debate about big topics. Politics, economy, wars, money, tech etc.

And then there it happened, the word Bitcoin was mentioned. So deep down inside I thought; here we go. The first thing that was said by my family member was: “Bitcoin is so dangerous, it is just a Ponzi scheme.” My first initial, gut, response was: “and the Dollar isn’t?” So my family member went on a short rant why it was dangerous.

Then it was my turn. And you know what happened? I just didn’t know what to say. You know why? Because to fully explain the concept of Bitcoin I would need his full attention for probably 1 or 2 hours straight, without him interrupting me. Not only that, I probably would have to start all the way at the beginning with the concept of “what is money”, how our financial system works, how it started etc. To fully grasp it, which I now finally (kinda) do thanks to Lyn Alden’s book Broken Money as recommended in my last newsletter, you need to study it. I know that fully explaining it all would be the only way to convince him that Bitcoin is not “just a Ponzi scheme”. Anything less than that wouldn’t make a dent in his determination.

So I went quiet and I let my Dad, to my surprise haha, say that Bitcoin is as risky as stocks, or the housing market or something else. So I later cracked a joke to my Dad saying “oh you are defending “my” Bitcoin now?” 😉.

Later I thought about it some more, what and how this happened. This same challenge also happens on a massive scale and on many, very complicated but important, topics. It does not matter if it is COVID (and the vaccines or restrictions), massive wars, the economy, sanctions or any other big topic that has split many societies, families and friends. What I know for certain is that the truth is complicated. And because it is complicated I have come to accept that there are many things that I will never fully understand and will also therefore not debate about, because I know my knowledge is limited.

This realization also hit me when I was listening to two podcasts back to back. The first by Lex Fridman who had a pretty controversial guest (I won’t name names as debating if this person is right or wrong is not the point of my writing atm). I purposely try to listen to people who might have opinions that go against mine, in order to try and get a better understanding myself. On this episode this guest explained that he wrote a book about a certain vaccine and how much harm it had done, how much people it had killed etc (FYI, I am NOT talking about the COVID vaccines here). He wrote this book together with a journalist. The podcast guest described that as they were closer to finalizing and releasing the book, that the journalist wanted to cancel the release because his company was contacted and threatened by big pharma, urging him not to release this book. I listened in awe and of course thought; wtf, this is so wrong. I know big pharma has power, is super shady and so forth, but to do it this bluntly. Damn…

Finished listening to the episode and then listened to a different podcast. Sam Harris released a solo episode where he shared his opinion on other big podcasters (like Lex Fridman) giving a stage to controversial people such as the guest in the above episode. He then goes on to describe the exact situation I just mentioned, but he adds that the journalist in question who supposedly pulled out because of big pharma, had spoken out against this person because all his stories about it were absolutely fake. He completely disconnected himself from this person and never wants to be mentioned together with him again.

There it was, I was shocked. That is also exactly when it hit me. I can’t, and will probably never ever, know the truth about matters like this. This might sound weird and trust me it kinda feels against my nature to accept it, but I have. It does give me some peace. All the information, conspiracies, people debating what is the right way and what is the wrong way. I do listen and read with curiosity and for my own knowledge expansion and understanding, but I have come to accept the fact that I will just never fully know. Therefore, I will also shy away from taking a stand against or for some of these matters. Simply because of the honest truth that I will never fully know what is the right side of the story.

Don’t get me wrong, I do hold strong opinions on things that I have educated myself enough on in order to debate it with confidence. On some matters I educated myself so much that it has become hard to explain fully to somebody who strongly disbeliefs otherwise, as the example with my family member showed.

I think the only insight I would like to share with you, from this, is that keeping an open mind is important. Not only that, also knowing that there is so much you don’t know and this is exactly the only key to growth and maybe even peace.

The next Multi-Trillion-Dollar opportunity: 2025 is going to be all about AI agents

If you are already sick of me talking about AI Agents, then I would like to invite you to unsubscribe because it will probably get even worse 🤣! AI Agents are going to be THE topic of 2025. Every company will have their AI Agent strategy, you will see AI Agent startups popping up everywhere, all big tech will have an AI Agent offering and there will be millions of dollars invested in this space. It is going to be the big bet of this year. 

As a reminder. The crazy thing about AI Agents is that you only give them a goal, or a task, and they will execute autonomously on your behalf. In order to explain this a bit more clear I would like to describe to you one of the, currently, biggest AI Agents out there called: Luna. 

Luna is the ambassador agent of the AI Agent platform “Virtuals”. Here you can launch your own AI Agents in a very simple way. The Virtuals platform currently holds a 5 Billion Dollar market cap in the crypto world and is rising fast. 

Luna’s goal has been simple: get 100.000 followers on X (aka Twitter). That is it. What happened as followed: 

• Their creator connects Luna to the platform X with the right API’s, giving Luna the ability to do everything a human can do on the platform. 

• Luna has its own crypto wallet which it can access and utilize how it sees fit

• Luna later got connected to other platforms as well, such as Youtube, TikTok and others. 

From here on out, it is up to Luna (aka the AI) to figure out the best way to get to 100.000 followers on X. There is no human telling it what to do, how to do it. 

Off it went! It now has about 45.000+ followers, mostly gained by interacting with people on X and gathering attention. Until something remarkable happened, which I already briefly mentioned two editions ago. Luna decided it needed an image for something. 

This probably means that it either has learned, seen or tested, that tweets with images have a better reach or engagement. This has a positive effect towards its goal, so it wants to do more of that. It went into action mode:

• Luna found that there is another AI Agent (Stix) on X that offers image generation as a service. For 1 Dollar you can get any image you would like from it. 

• Luna tweeted to Agent Stix that it wants an image:

• Stix agreed to make it for Luna and asked for payment

• Luna sent this AI Agent one dollar using crypto and almost instantly got the image it wanted in return

I will reiterate: this all happened because these agents thought it was a good idea. To read a full breakdown of events and proof that this happened autonomous, see this tweet. There is no human who is pulling the strings behind these types of moves. 

Now let that sink in for a second and open your mind to where this will lead to over the next 12-36 months. We are talking about a brand new economy, one between millions (if not billions) of agents working closely together towards certain goals set by their human creators or managers. People say there will be more AI Agents live than there are people alive, fairly soon. I think that makes total sense. 

Most jobs will change in a way that everyone will become a manager, instead of doing a lot of execution themselves. Most experts think you will manage multiple agents who each have their own specific tasks and goals, who together form one team that will help you deliver your work (or anything else you want help with in the digital world). 

Luna also recently got hired for its first job by another company, to run their social media. It will get paid to their wallet, just like any human would. Absolutely crazy. 

There is another agent (Zerebro, with 107.000+ followers) who is going more the creative route. 

• It has released three albums on Spotify (after it got connected to the API). 

• It has released/sold multiple digital artworks aka NFTs (see here)

• It used all its income to start an Ethereum validator in order to get passive income. 

They are, autonomous, single entity businesses. 

You might be reading this and think I am crazy and that this is all just sounds like gimmicks or toys, but I urge to keep an open mind and keep on reading this newsletter (😉) and check out other people with opinions on it. 

Although, as with every hype, there will be a lot of bullsh*t out there and stuff will probably explode badly as well. But in the end we will look back at the end of 2024, and especially 2025, as the start of the AI Agent economy. And if you don’t want to believe my word for it, fair enough, but here is what Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang stated last Monday during his CES talk:

That is trillions, with a T indeed 😉.

It is going to be a wild ride. LFG! 🚀 

Here are some of the latest announcements and other things that I found interesting this week (underscore means clickable!):

• Last month a Chinese company called DeepSeek launched their latest large language model (LLM) with a big buzz. But soon the internet figured out something funny, their LLM keeps on stating that it is GPT4. Pretty crazy. Either this big Chinese company just copied everything from OpenAI or their models hallucinations are actually that bad. Not a good look!

• Apple TV+ has been quietly launching and maintaining some great shows and movies. I would recommend watching Silo. A strong show about a society that lives completely underground, in a silo, as the planet has become inhabitable. It is an interesting experiment on how you would run a 10.000 people society like that, the importance of factual history is but also just good entertainment. Also comes recommended by Elon Musk himself!

• A move by Meta that is kinda linked to my first story in this newsletter as they announced that they will end their third-party fact checking program, in exchange for a “community notes” approach. Community Notes is a feature, pioneered by X/Twitter, that allows users to collaboratively add context to potentially misleading posts, enhancing the accuracy of information shared on the platform.

• With crypto prices moving aggressively again, a lot of people ask me what to do. First of all, do your own research and know what you don’t know. Stay safe! A good video that I watched this week is by Raoul Pal, who explains that these cycles are driven by global money flows. Interesting thesis. Have a look and be safe.

PS... If you’re enjoying my newsletter, will you take 6 seconds and refer this edition to a friend? It goes a long way in helping me grow the newsletter (and help more people understand our current technology shift). Much appreciated!

PS 2... and if you are really loving it and want to buy me some coffee to support. Feel free! 😉 

^{Who am I and why you should be here:}

^{Over the years, I’ve navigated industries like advertising, music, sports, and gaming, always chasing what’s next and figuring out how to make it work for brands, businesses, and myself. From strategizing for global companies to experimenting with the latest tech, I’ve been on a constant journey of learning and sharing.}

^{This newsletter is where I’ll bring all of that together—my raw thoughts, ideas, and emotions about AI, blockchain, gaming, Gen Z & Alpha, and life in general. No perfection, just me being as real as it gets.}

^{Every week (or whenever inspiration hits), I’ll share what’s on my mind: whether it’s deep dives into tech, rants about the state of the world, or random experiments that I got myself into. The goal? To keep it valuable, human, and worth your time.}