TetraMesa

Archives for October 2025

Cryptocurrency and Fiat: Independence, Interdependence

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This article is a follow-up to “How Does Fiat Currency Become Cryptocurrency?“

Crypto’s original goal: self-sovereign, independent finance. Some see it as the dream; others impossible. Reality: separate system, yet as a practical matter, is often coupled to TradFi.

It’s a key nuance from the discussion of the on-ramping processes, liquidity provision, and reserve management. Crypto intertwines with fiat for access, valuation, and compliance, but this isn’t essential. Cryptocurrencies were designed as standalone assets, valuing from scarcity, decentralization, and network effects, not fiat backing. In practice, fiat bridges to tokenized economies for adoption/integration. It’s useful to further unpack this distinction, drawing on foundational principles of blockchain technology, economic theory, and legal frameworks.

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How Does Fiat Become Cryptocurrency?

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A common disconnect I’ve heard about is how dollars seem to “magically” become crypto. If you already know financial rails, skip this article. The focus is more for retail investors or digital product managers who find themselves working more with crypto interfaces.

Spoiler Alert: There’s no magic. A fiat-to-crypto on-ramp swaps your cash for crypto; value “appears” when the crypto hits your wallet. It’s sort of like trading dollars for euros at an airport, except there’s no government backing or guaranteed redemption/liquidity. That’s it. All done. Deep dive below for a lot more!

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The Composable Everything Future

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Something is happening across technology sectors creating one of those paradigm-shift moments. It’s not a single breakthrough but a convergence of pieces that have struggled to be the “next thing” on their own. Their larger use cases are emerging as they interact. Look across our shiny new tools: blockchain, crypto, and of course AI and more agentic systems. Together they’re forming connective tissue among themselves. Like generalized microprocessors once enabled hardware to be more useful and economical with flexible software, this new phase of composability could again transform speed, flexibility, and cost.

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Will RWA Tokenization Growth Increase Systemic Risk?

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As a product person and retail investor, I’m sensing what I would have thought is an obvious risk with Real World Assets (RWA) tokenization, but don’t see much discussion beyond esoteric finance venues. I’m a believer in blockchain and crypto opportunities. However, I prefer a more thoughtful approach than the breathless crypto maxi hype spew. With that perspective, I’d like to offer a primer for product managers and investors interested in this area. I’m trying for a deeper sense of what’s going on than, “The RWA Tokens Are Coming, Invest Before You Miss It!” Or as Darth Crypto would say, “The FOMO is Strong with This One.” Disclaimer: I’m not a finance person… these are my explorations into this world as a retail investor and digital product builder. I’d just like to help my friends and colleagues with informed choices.

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How to Capture Sales / Margin by Just Being Less Bad

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Maybe it was back-to-school season or random, but in my family we’ve recently switched multiple brands, vendors, and products for reasons from quality to service to pricing. Each move had friction: annoying phone calls, returns, learning new systems. How bad does something have to be to push customers past switching cost barriers to seek alternatives? Although I’m coming from a consumer perspective with this, it all applies to B2B as well.

I’ve shared my perspective on brand loyalty before. This is now about how average or bad is more frequent. For consumers, it’s frustrating. For product leaders, an opportunity. While quality is subjective, evidence shows decline (or at least perception of decline) recently in product and service quality. Forrester’s 2024 US Customer Experience Index reports quality among brands in the U.S. is at an all-time low, declining for a third consecutive year. Then we have The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) reporting U.S. overall customer satisfaction dropping for three consecutive quarters.

What’s behind this? Execs in the Know suggests cost cutting, bad customer service bots and lack of focus on customer satisfaction. One fundamental business ratio is Lifetime Value of Customer (LTV) and Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC). Leaving aside operating costs and understanding there are variations by industry… For the LTV:CAC ratio, at 1:1 you’re breaking even, 3:1 you’re likely healthy. Below 2:1 chances are you have thin margins and below 1:1 you’re losing money. LTV:CAC is a lagging indicator because churn and retention metrics might take awhile to show.

It’s one thing to have customers you erroneously think might be happy. It’s another to have some that can’t stand you and switching cost is the only thing barely keeping them with you.

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Agentic & AI Business Safety for Product Managers – Part 2

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Welcome back. If you’re new here, in Part 1, I went over some basic risk categories Product Managers need to be looking out when AI is an offering component.

This follow-up will cover the items in Part 2 of the outline. My motivation for writing these articles is due running into the challenges expressed in Part 1 head first and didn’t see a lot of great article coverage. For this next part, topics are already well-covered, but I’m going to run through them as introductions anyway for the sake of completing the outline and having a cohesive package for anyone new to the area.

As with so much we deal with, these areas are evolving fast. Many areas don’t have settled answers yet, and in the case of some fairness and ethical areas, might not even have the right questions yet.

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