“Banks are highly regulated public-private partnerships in an environment where new charters are excruciatingly hard to obtain, and as such remain de facto arms of the state. It has been and remains trivial to deputize them to carry out political objectives. If there was any doubt, it’s now evident that the Obama administration and its…

“The title of this book may evoke the kind of question that i hear once in a while: “Why do you use the word ‘selfishness’ to denote virtuous qualities of character, when that word antagonizes so many people to whom it does not mean the things you mean?” To those who ask it, my answer…

“Central Banking is successful alchemy in this sense. The money- issuing institutions of the world have found a way to create new money with no cost. No mining is required. They are the alchemists of our era. The Central Banks’ promise of stable prices is as absurd as the alchemists’ promise of cheap gold. The…

“I believe that in the open /attention/ information economy we find ourselves in, value will mostly derive from effective curation, dissemination, and transmission of information, not the exclusive ownership of it.” — Dergigi Today we dive into another great piece from Gigi exploring more possibilities and incredible shifts in the dynamics of information, censorship, and…

“Can you imagine a world in which you are restricted from buying meat for a while because you have already used your “carbon credits” for the month? Your “financial privileges” could potentially be restricted at any time at the whim of a government bureaucrat, and if you are a big enough troublemaker you could be…

The Lightning Network finally strikes in this Bitcoin Basics episode! Now that we understand the fundamentals of keys, wallets, transactions, and the node, we can finally take a dive into Lightning. What is it, what makes it tick, how do you own something that isn’t “on chain,” and what are the best tools to start…

“This was how more mainstream Bitcoin culture degraded from intellectual expressions of ideas (2017-era debates) to tribal recreations of the past. The old enemies were replaced with new enemies who were more convenient for the times, but we retained the “Bitcoiners against the world” ethos of the scaling era, which led to many newbies being…

““In the old days they didn’t even use tables and chairs. They sat on beer crates and ate off the tops of beer barrels. You’d be surprised how much fun that was. Somehow it made old men feel young again. And they’d drink beer out of cans or growlers. Those beefsteaks were run in halls…

“Of all the objections to Bitcoin, the objection that it “wastes” electricity is the most absurd. This thinking betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how electricity works, how markets work, and what waste is.” – Beautyon Today we take a break from all the discussion of doom and impending economic obliteration to hit a favorite topic…

“Generally, what we’re talking about here is unregulated (or lightly regulated), uninsured investors, LLCs, Funds and privately controlled “Shadow Banking” assets. In 2021, these OFI Assets scattered around the planet amounted to $152.0 Trillion (Again, not including China’s non reported OFI) or roughly 172 x JP Morgan’s relatively miniscule $884 Billion of Cash and Equivalents immediately…