It’s been a very eventful 2024 for the HonorCode project and on-chain reputation more generally, and 2025 looking even brighter with efforts like Deep Funding picking up. This year-in-review thread is a reference for the main milestones and posts so far:

The semi-incomplete news is that the reward flow piece, allowing for actual funds to be distributed, is not in the best state and hasn't been fully deployed. Next step there is to build out proper streaming w/an existing tool. For now it's enough to try out the reputation side!

I'm pleased to finally announce a UI for HonorCode! Available on OP Mainnet here: https://t.co/RbJvktizBG Implementing basic reputation tracking for projects, I was able to replicate the original allocation in minutes instead of hours.

Here are a few examples, sry for paywall https://t.co/EkLDN5GAkk https://t.co/yyhKCZ59hk

We need to call it out for what it is: #corporatesocialism is a deliberately engineered set of financial policies, institutions, laws, privileges that allow superrich to escape negative consequences. BC what good is all that $$$ if it can't be used to carve out special treatment?

However, the term "wealth pump" to describe the tendency for wealth to be sucked upward from working classes sounds mechanistic, almost like it's an inevitable characteristic of societies going through late-stage prosperity.

Peter Turchin is one of the few big picture thinkers able to see our society through the light of history and thermodynamics. His recent discussion of the dynamics driving inequality and the breakdown of social cohesion deserves attention.

Certainly we’ll keep seeing wealthy elites & their media stooges concoct excuses for outrageous policies, while claiming the free market is at work. But make no mistake: we’re seeing #corporatesocialism further entrench, which will continue to spew its ugly and poisonous fruit.

By overstimulating the financial sector, rent extraction and asset speculation are allowed to run rampant. Actual productive investment is not incentivized, because it’s simply easier to park capital in a sure thing instead of making a risky bet.

The vast majority of financial easing makes its way into existing assets like stocks rather than investment in new assets, which is why the market sets new records each day. The only “abundance” it’s creating is too much money.

Cutting rates now (with QE to follow) will do absolutely nothing to make housing more affordable for working people. Instead, it becomes easier for large investors and financial firms to access debt, allowing them to bid up real estate beyond the reach of the middle class.

Textbook econ calls for lower rates for a struggling economy, higher rates when it overheats. However, this playbook assumes central banks that serve the broad economy. Instead, we consistently observe actions dictated by the interests of asset holders first and foremost.

This past week, the #FederalReserve cut short-term interest rates in the midst of sky-high stocks and unaffordable homes, low unemployment, and rising inflation. Such a questionable move only makes sense through the lens of metastasizing #corporatesocialism.

This topic is critical bc free market economics assumes that workers and owners alike are rewarded roughly in line w/ their contributions. If this link has been weakened due to government policies, it’s dishonest to ignore that the capitalism narrative is commensurately damaged.

Remember that Bitcoin started as a statement against the bank bailouts in 2008. We need to keep this picture in our mind bc each round of QE makes the last one look like child’s play. Token objection (ha) is not enough w/o realizing it makes all wealth less meaningful.

Recognizing this mechanism as corporate socialism - not free market capitalism - is essential for honest policy debate. Only then can we address how monetary policy has become a wealth transfer mechanism disguised as economic stimulus.

The result? We get the worst of both systems: socialized risks for the wealthy, brutal market discipline for everyone else. Innovation suffers, inequality grows, and productive investment gets crowded out by financial speculation.

Free market capitalism requires: Real price discovery Creative destruction of inefficient players Rewards tied to productive value creation Corporate socialism delivers: Manipulated prices Protected incumbents Rewards for financial speculation

This isn't "too big to fail" - it's "too rich to lose." The system protects existing capital from creative destruction while exposing workers to full economic volatility. Risk becomes a parody of itself when lenders believe debt can be backstopped by central banks.

The 2008 crisis marked a turning point in establishing the playbook: privatize gains during bubbles, socialize losses when they burst. Banks got bailouts, homeowners got foreclosures. The pattern repeated in 2020 with corporate bond purchases.

It's not just stocks. Real estate becomes an investment vehicle for those with capital access, pricing out first-time buyers. Housing shifts from shelter to speculation, funded by artificially cheap money.