#savetherobots

Searching for the First True Money

bred-red — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 07:44:40 -0500

The history of money is long. Having grown up in the United States, I have always understood our greenbacks as the most perfect money ever made. But my perspective is also influenced by younger years in Brazil as well. In 1942, Brazil overhauled its currency. They moved from the old Colonial Real to the Cruzeiro. In 1967 inflation had caused the Cruzeiro to be devalued. It was replaced by the Cruzeiro Novo. As the coin gained traction, and the old coins were taken out of circulation, the name was changed to reflect the old coin. The Cruzeiro Novo was renamed the Cruzeiro in 1970. The Cruzeiro quickly inflated, like its predecessor. In 1983, Brazil devalued the Cruzeiro by 30%. By February of 1986, the Cruzeiro was abandoned because of inflation. In its place was introduced the Cruzado. And by the end of 1986, it was clear that the Cruzado would see a similar demise. The Cruzado was devalued in 1989 and replaced by the Cruzado Novo which was replaced one year and three months later by the Cruzeiro Real at par value. 11 months later, June of 1994, the Cruzeiro Real was scrapped for a new economic plan under the administration of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Again, subject to massive deflation over those 11 months, it was replaced by the final and current iteration of the Brazilian currency the Real.

The Real is still in print. The dollar is still in print. But this represents only a small slice of the history of money. The 1900s were replete with countries being caught flatfooted by inflation. Inflation is a monster under the bed. It sits stealthily, unseen by adults, ignored and cast off as a problem for those dumb children in third world countries. But it lurks. It sits there, ever present, kept at bay, in some ways by the accident of productivity. And it is an accident.

Productivity isn’t promised. There is no law that says the people of your country must produce goods or perform services at an ever increasing rate of growth. This is the reality of the world, but not a law of the world (just look at the French with their leisure or the Spanish with their naps). In some ways, perhaps, ever-increasing productivity is distinctly American. The need, the drive, the desire to be productive is an unceasing engine that drives the superpower. And its driver, competition, is to the economy as a Holstein’s teat is to her calf.

And what of the dollar? Money serves to allow frictionless transactions between actors in that economy. To describe this, economists have broken money down into three necessary functions. Money’s functions are that it serve as a unit of account, a medium of exchange, and a store of value. Modernity makes obvious these three functions. As a unit of account, it serves as the thing everything is priced in. As a medium of exchange, it is used to net. As a store of value, it is stable enough that one can expect its value to remain approximately the same from one moment to the next. This means that one can impute a net present value of money with relative ease. If I can buy one tomato today for $1.00, then tomorrow, I am likely to be able to purchase the same tomato for $1.00. Over long periods of time, the value of the money might change, but in the case of a good unit of account, this change is de minimis. Perhaps, a year from now the tomato will cost me $1.04 rather than the $1.00 it costs me today. Or, the opposite might occur. Perhaps, in a year, the tomato will cost me $.96. Whatever the case, the change is small. This is important, because knowing that the money might change slightly over long periods of time, particularly when the country has a policy of causing this to happen as the US does, one can make decisions that allow them to avoid the devaluation caused by inflation.

The American Dollar, once backed by gold, was divorced from the fetters of the hard asset in order that it might better reflect growth. Gold, once seen as the paragon of money, has its issues. To serve the functions of store of value, unit of account, and medium of exchange, modern theory suggests that money must be durable, portable, divisible, uniform, in limited supply, and highly accepted. Gold fails on nearly every count. While it is certainly durable, its weight makes it hard to move. As money, whatever hard asset is used will have to expand to the size of its container. This means that gold is actually hurt by its limited supply. The total amount of gold in the world, it is said, would fill up an olympic sized pool. This limits its use because of its value density. Even the smallest fleck is worth a princely sum. This makes it difficult to divide. Consider, if you will the $1.00 tomato. Today, $1 of gold would be equivalent to about 0.017 grams. That’s really small. Buying a tomato would involve a gram scale, a file, and a grocer who never sneezes lest he blow away the accumulated dust. It is elemental, so, I suppose it is uniform, though its mass is about the same as tungsten’s. This makes it hard to distinguish real gold from the much cheaper metal without an Archimedean sensibility. These problems were overcome by representative notes. These notes can represent a small unit of gold, additionally, and their issuance by a government entity allows them to overcome any barriers to acceptance. What is good about gold is that it is anchored in the world as we know it. Gold grows at a rate governed by the efforts of independent miners extracting it from the earth.

As a medium of exchange, gold worked quite well when the world was a smaller place. The UK, for example, used it for more than a century. In 1933, the UK got off the gold standard. And the US, famously, abandoned all semblance of the gold standard in 1971. Since that day, America’s dollar has been a sort of naked representation of value. Notably, it has been the strongest, most consistent representation of value ever created. Don’t believe the Libertarian rhetoric touting 10+% hidden inflation each year. That’s bullshit. In fact, life has been a practice in consistent deflationary pressures since 1971. In America, the poor have televisions, cable, cell phones, medicine, homes and condos, and all the trappings of luxury at a fraction of the cost that they were available at in 1971 compared to the value of their relative incomes. There are several reasons for this, but it’s beyond the scope of this analysis. Needless to say, escaping the trappings of a hard asset like gold, have proven effective. And while fiat money may end up a footnote in history, it is not necessarily so, nor is it the great Satan that it is represented by among Libertarians. In fact, it is better than gold in every way. And, moreover, it was inevitable. Consider, fiat money is durable, portable, divisible, uniform, in limited supply, and highly accepted. Much of these features are artificial. For example, its limited supply is an artifact of a limited number of decision makers. But the other side of this coin (pun intended) is that the government’s approval of it and regulation of it forces its mass adoption. The fulfillment of these features makes fiat money an excellent store of value, a wonderful unit of account, and a highly accepted and reliable medium of exchange. Fiat money fits the functions of money in every way.

Critiques are often rooted in the flawed assumption that governments are necessarily corrupt at all times. Or, that specie (the thing itself) is necessary to value minted money. Alas, the ideologues that foist upon money these criteria have never explained the fundamental flaw in their criticism: why, to this day, can I exchange fiat for goods and services? Many (if not most) fiat currencies, for better or worse, have maintained their value predictably and stably. And, in time, it becomes harder and harder to accept these critiques as valid without believing unproven assumptions about hidden inflation. Moreover, the idea that paper money must be “backed,” as it is merely representative value, must be countered with an explanation of why fiat money cannot, itself, be the thing itself. After all, money is merely a ledger system by which we can measure value. The necessity of it being rooted in the real world is an artifact of an era where the function of money was less understood, and its necessity arose as a result of commerce rather than intellectual artifice. As an intellectual exercise, the necessity of money is understood because it arose naturally, and its features were distilled and agreed on. These features are well served artificially as readily as they are served by nature.

The more legitimate critique of fiat’s problems, however, come in their manufactured shortcomings. Scarcity, for example, is only a valid assumption as long as it is closely enforced in a fiat system. Like ever-increasing production, it is only true today, and not necessarily true tomorrow. Scarcity, as a value, is a mere assumption, not a law. And there are many things that could break this assumption, even today. For example, as things stand, the United States is the world’s reserve currency. Were it to become undesirable, the United States would see the repatriation of its notes at a staggering pace. This pace could bring with it unexpected inflation. Moreover, modern monetary theory, at its root, says money printing ad nauseam is acceptable and mitigated by the counterweight of inflation. Yet, the political pressures to appease constituencies, may be a force so strong it overcomes any affect of the inflationary counterweight. That said, natural scarcity is similarly fragile. Diamonds, serve as a primary example of the possibility of the same sort of artifice in the natural world. Likewise, while gold is regulated by natural pressures, there is no single reason that prevents nature from endowing some lucky prospector the gift of divination wherein he falls into an unknown hole from which he extracts enough gold to double the world’s supply. Moreover, it is only by choice that we have agreed that gold is only valuable once extracted. What prevents a government from simply declaring that gold in the ground is as valuable as gold out of the ground and issuing notes against the unrefined assets in its soil? How can one argue that gold in the ground is any less legitimate as a store of value than gold in a safe? Perhaps we treat gold in the ground like Fort Knox. We put guards around it, and simply prevent any extraction. After all, it’s obviously safer there. Moreover, it’s not as though we moved the gold that was represented by the promissory notes we passed around. We did not write on the gold who owned which bit of it. Rather our claim on it was merely the certificate we did or did not have. The certificate itself was the ledger, and gold was a useless appendage that promised to limit the size of that ledger. And to what end? There is no real use in limiting the size of the ledger.

Moreover, the acceptance of fiat is manufactured. There is no necessity that this remain a feature of any fiat money. This is regularly enforced by governments that declare fiat be accepted by those engaging in commerce. Moreover, governments often require its citizens to pay taxes in fiat. This enforces the acceptance of the fiat. But fiat can fall out of favor, as it does in countries where the currency inflates. In Brazil, during its period of currency crisis, and, indeed, around the world, US Dollars are regarded as the safest asset one can hold. In fact, the US Dollar is considered so safe that many countries take possession of dollars into their central banks, and create currencies tied to those holdings. Panama, Belize, Hong Kong, and many other countries peg their currencies to the US Dollar. Like in the gold standard, much of the world relies on a dollar standard. This is because fiat currency, like gold, is the thing itself. This is the answer to the question I posed earlier. The fact that the dollar is the thing itself is the reason that you can buy goods and services with it, even as it is not, itself, backed by anything. Its creation is the result of a masturbatory process of creating debts in the thing itself. And the thing itself represents a cascade of IOUs.

Uniformity is also a manufactured feature of money. Uniformity, contains within it what is known as fungibility. Fungibility is the ability to accept any $1 bill for another. Consider, when receiving change, you do not generally care whether the bills you receive are nice and crisp or beat to hell. Rather, you will take any $1 bill in exchange for any other bill. That is normally the case. Though uniformity and its fungibility are manufactured in a paper fiat system. This fungibility can be broken in a number of ways. Tracking serial numbers, for example, can destroy fungibility, dumping radioactive, invisible dyes on bills can also destroy fungibility. Bank dye packs destroy fungibility. For the most part, dollars are fungible, but this is not necessarily the case. And it is not required of dollars. It is a built-in feature, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

A fiat currency is a more competent solution to the function of money than is gold. Alas, the critiques here are important. The elements of fiat that are manufactured and are not endemic to its nature, are systemic risks to its benefits as money. It is to say that the scarcity of fiat and its acceptance are enforced through law and culture. However, they are not, by the natural order, necessary. This makes fiat tenuous as money. It is money insofar as it is enforced as money by the government or its people. The Argentinian Peso is a good example of this risk. Argentina has used the Peso in one form or another for a very long time. Like Brazil, it suffered untold inflation throughout the 20th century. The Peso is anathema to her citizens; they prefer holding dollars. The Peso is still used to transact, but the rapid inflation in the country has broken the confidence of the people who need to use it. They hold as little as possible. The government, for its part, does what it can to enforce an artificial value. For example, many assume that the price of the McDonald’s Big Mac is being manipulated by the government. This is because the Economist runs a (jokingly serious) inflation calculation every year by publishing the prices of Big Macs in countries around the world. The Argentinian Big Mac is one of the cheapest items on their McDonald’s menu. The goal of price controlling such a trivial item is to hide the inflation that would be revealed in a price hike. Meanwhile, the people of the nation trade at what’s known as the Blue Dollar rate. This rate represents the unmanipulated, free-floating street price of Pesos. Needless to say it reflects a largely inflationary peso and a desire for US Dollars.

Despite their desire for US Dollars, what is important is the fact that the US Dollar and the Peso represent the exact same thing. The difference in their value might be competence, it might be scale, it might be God’s divine love for the United States. Whatever the case, the value of the Peso to the people of Argentina is no less guaranteed than the value of the dollar to the citizens of the United States. Rather, both sit tenuously on the shoulders of a global system of governance, the decisions of a few appointed people in the system, and the willingness of the people of the countries to continually and willingly transact in the currency. And while it may be de rigueur among the dissident majority to speak ill of those in charge of the system, it is a unhelpful bias. Rather, the system’s longevity and constancy, seems to make the more apt assumption that the people at the helm are competent and well intentioned. But, again, their competency isn’t the actual problem. This is because on a long enough time scale, a system whose elements are composed of artificial means will come undone. Scarcity is not a law of fiat and acceptance is not a guarantee. These are mere artifacts. They are thin strings tied around the hands of divinely appointed puppet masters. The masters themselves of varying competencies, philosophies, political persuasions, and eccentricities. The most quirky of our modern puppeteers being Greenspan who, famously, may have had an Oedipal affair with his philosophical mother, Ayn Rand.

Greenspan is a divine pupeteer, made such, by the divine breath of God and Ronald Reagan. This man deemed the most competent for the job of maintaining the fiat ledger and its legitimacy. And I’m not criticizing Greenspan’s competence. The point here is not that he was or was not competent. It is merely to demonstrate the humanity of those in charge of the fiat endeavor. And Greenspan, like his predecessors and precursors, was most certainly a flawed, arrogant, and unpredictable master of the fiat experiment. And, whether he performed that job well or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is that at some point, perhaps it has already happened, we will see appointed a person whose quirks break the manufactured bits of this experiment. Or, perhaps, and this is more likely, their combined flaws, strengths, and eccentricities will eventuate into the necessary demise of the manufactured elements of fiat. Or, even more likely, the elements of the universe will come together on some fateful day to bring to a natural end the manufactured bits of this experiment. Either, scarcity or acceptance or both will necessarily fail at some point. It will be caused by either man or nature. And that is a certainty. And whether that occurs within the next 10 years or 1000 years, is neither interesting nor relevant. Only the possibility that it can and will happen are notable.

To wit, fiat is not money. Paper money that represents gold is not money. Gold is not money. Silver is not money. Neither is the Yap stone money, nor wampum, nor clams. Rather, these are merely like money. But they all fail as money qua money. Rather, they are or have been good enough as money to stand in its place. But they all fail as a result of the natural order. They usually fail on some dimension of the function of money, and they usually fail on some dimension of the necessary features that serve the function of money. As such, the closest thing that we have ever had to money itself is fiat.

But then, I think it’s worth reexamining the features of money itself. Money, we say, must be durable, portable, divisible, uniform, in limited supply, and highly accepted. But this is merely a list of features that we have discovered are important in money. And each of them are spectrums. All things are portable. Some things require a semi-truck to move, however. Bread is divisible, but it isn’t good money because it fails the test of durability. Cigarettes are not durable nor divisible nor uniform (fungible), but they are often used as money in places where currency fails. It is to say that sometimes, even non-durable, non-fungible, non-divisible items are better than a failed fiat. But the Universe has presented a new way to maintain a ledger of accounts that is durable, infinitely portable, infinitely divisible, absolutely uniform, limited by its nature. Additionally, the political atmosphere of the United States has unconvered a new problem with fiat currencies that were obviously there, but were previously thought to be off-limits. But the cultural milieux has validated the violation of what was once considered by a norm to be off-limits.

This is to say that modernity has revealed two new features that we did not know about that are necessary to the functionality of money: money must be digital and money must be neutral. Perhaps portable could be swapped with digital. And perhaps neutrality is an extension of uniformity. But this is not necessarily so. Although, we are discovering, one aspect of neutrality is anonymity, again, potentially a feature of uniformity. And this is because of the political atmosphere in the United States and globally. We have observed the phenomenon over time in numerous countries. In Cypress, for example, the banks confiscated enormous amounts of wealth. The United States has begun confiscating money from dissident voices like Nick Fuentes. Banks are complicit, and the digital nature of the US Dollar makes it costless for the United States to confiscate the money. Likewise, the government’s control of a digital dollar makes portability of the currency manufactured. Whereas one can take a paper dollar and move it anywhere they want, countries with digital ledgers can restrict the outflows of money because the digitization of the currencies necessitates that individuals keep their money inside of institutions, and institutions are necessarily burdened by regulatory compliance. No matter where they are, no matter the request, they are beholden to the government that they are under.

Digitization of currency is not a universal good. In fact, in the case of fiat money, digitized fiat creates a new set of problems. While we have identified the aspects of fiat that are manufactured, digital fiat exacerbates a number of the risks that result from the manufacturing of money and introduces a new problem entirely. Whereas cash can be removed from a centralized institution, digital fiats, in a world without paper fiats, can not be easily moved. The digitization breaks portability, which should be surprising, given that digitization makes the units of cash infinitely small. However, this is the reality of digital, institutional money. The reason is that there is no settlement with the user. The user themselves must rely on institutions to net and settle with among themselves. The user is subject to a sort of second layer of compliant instruments that are compatible with the base system. These are credit cards, debit cards, checks, and other financial instruments. The result of digital fiat is an inability to settle with the user outside of an institution’s regulatory compliance. One can not, in this scenario, hide their cash in their mattress. Nor can one transact with users outside of the system. Buying drugs is hard in this system unless your dealer takes VISA or Mastercard. Likewise, as is the case in countries like Venezuela currency controls can prevent the exportation of value from within a fiat system.

If it is true that the features of money must include neutrality and digitization, it would necessarily mean that fiat money is unfit for its role. It is too subject to the trappings of the political winds. And digitization, when enacted by the government, makes neutrality, portability, uniformity, and scarcity mere, temporary choices. Likewise universal acceptability is subject to political whims and shifts in culture.

High acceptance is an interesting feature of money, insofar as it also exists on a spectrum. To date, countries that print local currencies (which nearly every country does), accepts that acceptance within one’s own borders is enough to meet this standard. And this is true for most people. However, this is a point of friction in many systems. Remittance flows prove this. Sending money from one country to another is rife with fees and regulatory hurdles. One can not simply take $100 US Dollars and send it to their friend in Ukraine. Rather, one must use an institution to take the US Dollars, send it to their partner in another country, where their friend can receive $100 minus any fees worth of their own currency. This inefficiency plagues many families all over the world who see their wealth confiscated through these regulations. A world with multiple currencies, all of which are highly accepted (meaning within their borders) is expensive. The most efficient scheme would necessitate a single currency. This would be the least frictional way for the world to trade.

So the question would be whether there is something that can be used as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value, that is digital, neutral, durable, portable, divisible, uniform, in limited supply, and can become highly (universally) accepted. Such an asset would be truly miraculous. And were it to exist, it would be the first asset in the history of the world that, as a matter of nature, fulfills all the features of money. Perhaps, one day, we will find such a digital instrument…. Perhaps.

Epstein’s Island Clubhouse Room with Charles C. Johnson

bred-red — Tue, 23 Mar 2021 01:39:21 -0400

If you were in the room a lot of books were recommended. Below is a compiled list of all the books we spoke about:

Epstein: Dead Men Tell Tales: https://www.amazon.com/Epstein-Dead-Men-Tell-Tales/dp/1510757929
Liftoff Desperate Early Launched SpaceX: https://www.amazon.com/Liftoff-Desperate-Early-Launched-SpaceX/dp/0062979973
PayPal Wars: https://www.amazon.com/PayPal-Wars-Battles-Media-Planet/dp/1936488590
This is How They Tell Me the World Ends: https://www.amazon.com/This-They-Tell-World-Ends/dp/1635576059
Robert Maxwell: Israel’s Superspy: https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Maxwell-Israels-Superspy-Gordon/dp/0786712953
As God As My Witess: https://www.amazon.sg/As-God-Witness-Carl-Rosenberg/dp/0896041433
Genius Factory: https://www.amazon.com/Genius-Factory-Curious-History-Nobel/dp/0812970527
Hacking Darwin: https://www.amazon.com/Hacking-Darwin-Genetic-Engineering-Humanity/dp/149267009X
Blueprint: https://www.amazon.com/Blueprint-How-DNA-Makes-Press/dp/0262039168
Deep Nutrition: https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Nutrition-Your-Genes-Traditional/dp/1250113822
Man’s Search for Meaning: https://www.amazon.com/Mans-Search-Meaning-Viktor-Frankl/dp/067166736X/ref=sr_1_13?dchild=1&keywords=Man%27s+Search+for+Meaning+frankl&qid=1616480656&s=instant-video&sr=1-13-catcorr
Conspiracy: https://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Peter-Gawker-Anatomy-Intrigue/dp/0735217645 (Charles says that this book is “mostly false.”)
https://www.amazon.com/Zero-One-Notes-Startups-Future/dp/0804139296
VC An American History: https://www.amazon.com/VC-American-History-Tom-Nicholas/dp/0674248260/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=VC+An+American+History&qid=1616482510&s=books&sr=1-2
The Weirdest People in the World: https://www.amazon.com/WEIRDest-People-World-Psychologically-Particularly/dp/0374173222/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=The+Weirdest+People+in+the+World&qid=1616482481&s=books&sr=1-1
Seeing Like a State: https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-like-State-Certain-Condition/dp/0300078153/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Seeing+Like+a+State&qid=1616482527&s=books&sr=1-1
History of the Future: https://www.amazon.com/History-Future-Facebook-Revolution-Virtual/dp/0062455974/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=History+of+the+Future&qid=1616482748&sr=8-1
Live Not By Lies: https://www.amazon.com/Live-Not-Lies-Christian-Dissidents/dp/0593087399/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Live+Not+By+Lies&qid=1616482771&sr=8-1
Count of Monte Cristo: https://www.amazon.com/Count-Monte-Cristo-Alexandre-Dumas/dp/1420951408/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?dchild=1&keywords=Count+of+Monte+Cristo&qid=1616483025&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExMFRBWVgxNjNGVFAmZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTAxMTEzNjgxTjRQVVZBRU9DNERFJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTEwMDQxMDEzTE1QQkpWM0FNRUI3JndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==
Hunchback of Notre Dame: https://www.amazon.com/Hunchback-Notre-Dover-Thrift-Editions/dp/0486452425/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?dchild=1&keywords=Hunchback+of+Notre+Dame&qid=1616483046&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExMUNZSEhUNVdYTFQ2JmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNjYxNTgzMlFFVkdJSVBZNUlQNiZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwODQwMTE5MjBMTzVFUEI1SkJFWSZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2F0ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=
Persecution and the Art of Writing: https://www.amazon.com/Persecution-Art-Writing-Leo-Strauss/dp/0226777111/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Persecution+and+the+Art+of+Writing&qid=1616483106&sr=8-1
What Is Life: https://www.amazon.com/What-Life-Autobiographical-Sketches-Classics/dp/1107604664/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3HL8QRDT7MHZH&dchild=1&keywords=what+is+life+schrodinger&qid=1616483072&sprefix=What+Is+Life+Sch%2Caps%2C177&sr=8-1
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court: https://www.amazon.com/Connecticut-Yankee-King-Arthurs-Court-ebook/dp/B001CHH828/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Connecticut+Yankee+in+King+Arthur%E2%80%99s+Court&qid=1616483324&s=books&sr=1-1
The Storyteller: https://www.amazon.com/Storyteller-Authorized-Biography-Roald-Dahl/dp/1439189765
Marx: https://www.amazon.com/The-Marx-Engels-Reader-Second-Edition/dp/039309040X/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=marx&qid=1616483472&s=books&sr=1-5
Wealth of Nations: https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Nations-Bantam-Classics/dp/0553585975/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=wealth+of+nations&qid=1616483542&s=books&sr=1-1
1984: https://www.amazon.com/Animal-Farm-1984-George-Orwell/dp/0151010269/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=1984&qid=1616483638&s=books&sr=1-3
Book of Verse (Marx as a Poet): https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1837-pre/verse/index.htm Specifically: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1837-pre/verse/verse11.htm
All of Darwin: https://www.amazon.com/Charles-Darwin/e/B000AQ3LK0%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

Articles:

Ron Unz: https://www.unz.com/runz/
Stripe: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-08-01/how-two-brothers-turned-seven-lines-of-code-into-a-9-2-billion-startup
Unabomber Manifesto: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ted-kaczynski-the-unabomber-manifesto-the-complete-manuscript-ted-kaczynski/1126940487

Movies & Videos:

3 Identical Strangers: https://www.amazon.com/Three-Identical-Strangers-Tim-Wardle/dp/B07F7YWTKH
Gattaca: https://www.hulu.com/movie/gattaca-02310e91-f709-4de6-9b04-166f5048afe4?entity_id=02310e91-f709-4de6-9b04-166f5048afe4
Paralax View: https://www.amazon.com/Parallax-View-Warren-Beatty/dp/B000HZI0HS
Tokyo Rose Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tkBiFZBix0

Subjects to Look into:

U-Biome: https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2021-49 Founders are on the run from the SEC after being accused of running a scam. Theranos-like?

Francis Galton: Darwin’s Cousin. Inventor of Modern stats, and eugenycist. https://www.google.com/search?q=francis+galton+books&oq=Francis+Galton&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j46i433j0l5j69i60.2454j0j9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Clearview: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/clearview-ai-trump-investors-friend-facial-recognition

Edge.org

Forgotten Books

“I think you can get a Liberal education just by reading all of Adam Smith, and Karl Marx.”

Do You Get It Now? Bitcoin Scaled...

bred-red — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 22:48:50 -0500

7 transactions per second, eh?

This is the central question of Bitcoin’s skeptics. Bitcoin doesn’t scale, they say. But the scaling question is stupid. You don’t understand what’s going on here if you think it matters. Let me explain why.

Bitcoin is highly versatile. Bitcoin’s network, itself, doesn’t need to scale to a trillion billion transactions per second. As Bitcoin grows, as it institutionalizes, there is a clear reality that Bitcoiners are going to have to accept. It’s a settlement engine. I didn’t coin the phrase. I believe that Greg Maxwell called Bitcoin a settlement engine in the Bitcoin core mailing list. But that’s what it is. To the chagrin of Bitcoin Cash users, this is what a blockchain has to be. Blockchains don’t, themselves, scale. They never will. They don’t need to.

What has happened, what will continue to happen, and what I have always said is that Bitcoin will bring in institutions. This is where the stupidity of Bitcoin’s most ardent anarchic asshats get off the train. The Antonopoulos’s of the world didn’t see this very obvious reality. And the fact that they didn’t is a blindness that probably is responsible for the Blockchain warring we are all familiar with. Institutions aren’t evil qua evil. They are simply amoral. And they come with a hell of a lot of experience.

So to the question, how do you get Bitcoin to do as many transactions on VISA and Mastercard… the answer is, you put them on VISA and Mastercard. A centralized rail will allow Bitcoins to move at the speed of light within the same database that VISA and Mastercard manage their own financial transactions. This comes at the cost of privacy. But most people aren’t looking for encrypted privacy in all transactions. Buying a sandwich or a coffee doesn’t need it. How do you get institutions to begin accepting stable coins? You create a clearinghouse for that money. You net each day, and you hit a single central database. You don’t need lightning to scale. You need institutions. Lightning is a great fallback. But it isn’t necessarily the answer. At least not in the immediate moment. The answer, at this time, is institutions. Institutions scale Bitcoin. And institutions carry with them the most important part of scaling a financial network: liability. If they lose your money, you can sue them. You can get your money back from them in the courts.

So do you get it now? The world of decentralized finance is dependent on institutions. And the bigger Bitcoin gets, the more centralized institutions become dependent on it. Bitcoin will not recreate finance. Rather, traditional finance will recreate the way that we use it by wrapping their millennia of experience in clearing, settlement, and more onto the industry. And that’s a good thing Bitcoiners. Embrace it. If you don’t like it, then keep your bitcoins out of the institutions. But for the everyman, for the ma and pa users, that’s the only way to get them. Don’t begrudge them their technophobia. Don’t foist your ideology of decentralization on to them. Just sit back and enjoy the adoption.

Introducing the Wuhan Bond

bred-red — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 20:29:32 -0400

Remember when Krugman proposed printing a single coin worth some trillion dollars and pegging US Bonds against it? When he proposed it, I thought it was an insanely stupid idea. But now I have an insanely stupid idea, and I’d love to hear why it’s stupid.

As the Corona Virus rages all throughout the world, countries have seen some $15 trillion dollars wiped off the balance sheets. Companies have plummeted, and countries have begun printing money in order to stave off the possible problems. In the US, there are proposals on the table to literally send Americans thousands of dollars to get through these hard times.

Here’s the problem, the world has no way of dealing with international externalities. China refuses to deal with its wet markets. For now, put your conspiracies about the origins of Corona aside. Let’s presume it was of a natural origin and not created in a lab. On your own time, you can presume anything you want about it. But for now, let’s stick with the official narrative. Recognize that this is virus is one of many that we regularly deal with that originates in China. The country as a whole refuses to deal with the ways they raise animals and the proximity of humans to these wild beasts. We know that many of these animals harbor viruses that are readying themselves for transmission to humans. These animals include bats, pangolins, baby mice, dogs, monkeys, pigs, and more.

In the right conditions, most of these problems can be averted. But when humans are eating things like raw bats or Pangolins or baby mice, or putting monkeys in cages while they are alive, cutting open their heads, and munching on their brains, perhaps it is time to begin pointing fingers. When these viruses jump from animal to human and develop the ability to move from human to human, the result can be a pandemic. China has gifted us MERS, SARS, and now COVID-19. All of these in successive, short order. Not to mention, the annual flu’s dubious origins. China! China! China!

Perhaps it’s time we charge China. In the way that Trump promised Mexico would pay for the wall. In this case, however, China has a lot of American debt. They are holders of $1.1 trillion in US debt. These treasuries, I believe, are serialized We know which ones we issued to them.

Why not create a new kind of debt instrument? We call it the Wuhan Bond, perhaps. It acts as a sort of series B US dollar. These bonds are bills to other nations. We issue them based on externalities. China makes America spend $5 trillion to stave off the dire effects of a crisis? The American people have mounting medical bills? No problem. We print $5 trillion in Wuhan bonds and put them to the China account. Any treasury China has purchased will be paid in these bonds. Any debt that we owe China will be paid in these bonds. Any trade deal we strike with China will use these bonds as negotiable instruments. You want a great deal? Excellent. Let’s talk about how to pay off the remaining $3.9 trillion you owe us. What kind of tariffs will you agree to?

Maybe this ruins the Chinese economy. Perhaps it takes off and the whole world begins issuing these externality bonds. But as far as I see it, there are times to employ this sort of thing judiciously. China owes America and her people every dollar they spend getting themselves healthy. China owes money to every family that lost a loved one. You might even say they owe us all of their tea. And it’s not just us. It’s Italy, France, Iran, for God’s sake.

But this is the insane reality. There is no use in dealing with a country whose evil regime is propped up by our wealth. We want things produced in China. The cost: China gets rich, murders her own people, genocides Muslims, harvests their organs, and let’s their people live in a manner that makes them a Petri dish for every single goddamn pandemic. All of this so that we can have an iPhone. I say fuck that. Send them the bill.

The Story of Cambridge Analytica Through the Eyes of Julian Wheatland

bred-red — Mon, 18 Nov 2019 00:30:44 -0500

Today I interviewed Julian Wheatland. I’m not sure how much came out in this interview that is new information. I got the distinct impression that much of what Julian shared was shared by him at other times. That said, they were new to me. You can listen to the interview below. And underneath the embed, you I timestamp a few of the most interesting moments in the interview.

9:35 - “We oversold everything we did….” This includes the work Cambridge Analytica did on the Trump campaign to the work they didn’t do on Brexit.
15:45 - CA licensed Facebook data to determine whether it could be used to determine personalities. It was ineffective. The data didn’t work the way they’d hoped.
16:23 - Facebook data was “never used on the Trump campaign….”
24:25 - I ask whetther psychographics should be considered a munitions. Julian responds, that “it’s absurd.” Because psychographics “isn’t that powerful.” It’s used by many enterprising advertising agencies. Also, they didn’t use psychographics on the Trump campaign.
28:14 - “Everything we did was nothing compared to what Jim Comey did… It was the first time there was a negative story about Hillary in the news and not a corresponding negative story about trump…. It was changing the way voting was happening….”
34:24 - Chris Wiley discussion. Needless to say, Wiley is the first CA whistlblower. He was not working at CA when the the activitty he alleged was happening. Moreover, he is the one that brought in the FB data that wasn’t ultimately used. After CA, Wiley left to start his own firm. He then pitched both the Brexit and Trump campaigns.
39:40 - Vote.leave did not hire Cambridge Analytica. AIQ, the, agency that co-ran the Cruz campaign, ended up the agency of record.
1:05:34 - Cambridge Analytica did delete the Facebook data after being asked. CA attempted to get an auditor from FB to come in and verify the deletion. The information commissioner quashed the audit, citing collusion concerns.
1:08:40 - Wheatland believes that the claims about CA suppressing Trinidadian votes is “almost certainly not true.”
1:20:10 - Britany Kaiser left after she didn’t get a pay increase Wheatland believes she thought she deserved. Wheatland believes she felt financially well enough as a result of an ICO the company participatedin marketing in. Kayser was given coins from Dragon Coin.

Post-interview, I’m left wondering where the due diligence was here. This entire story is as a public interest piece is predicated on the idea that the Trump campaign levereged ill-gotten Facebook data. But did the Trump campaign really do that? All of the evidence is based on claims made by a business development employee and a man who started a competing company. So how did this story begin? Was it a political hit job? To what end? For those of us who watched the CA story fromt he beginning, it seemingly came out of nowhere. The claims were and are astounding. Many believe the story wholesale. But the question that seems to have never been asked where is the evidence that anything nefarious happened at all?

Why an Alternative to YouTube Isn’t an Easy Proposition

bred-red — Wed, 15 Aug 2018 21:05:11 -0400

Since Alex Jone’s was de-platformed, I have heard market-loving advocates talk about the necessity of a second YouTube. It’s a great idea. The sort of monopolization of the social media space is worrying. And de-platforming “dissident” content is unprecedented, for some (me included) it’s a bit scary. I don’t think that sequestering content as good and bad is necessarily a good thing. Perhaps it’s fine to do it with content we consider lewd or pornographic. But even that standard changes over time.

What’s more, there seems to be a movement underfoot that labels this “dissident content” as even worse than porn. When gun manufacturers and gun enthusiasts were purged from youtube post-Parkland, some of them moved to Pornhub. The response from Pornhub was astounding. Mindgeek, the owner of basically every popular porn site in the US, quickly banned the gun content on its platform saying, “As a privately-held company that operates and manages many businesses and organizations within the adult film industry, we believe it is in our best interest to protect and serve our standing client base. The MindGeek group has labored tirelessly for many years to produce and erect a foundation of quality content for a specific group of customers. We do not believe this new segment of unique visitors is a part of that group we have pushed to acquire.”

The irony is not lost on anyone; gun content is a bridge to far for a bastion of smut and filth. Porn has traditionally occupied a difficult space in free speech. In some ways it occupies the base layer. And the laws of the United States have gone out of their way to protect the industry and those who want to consume it. In Libraries, for example, one can consume as much pornography as one’s little heart desires. The computers are public computers, and the government cannot restrict the speech that people consume there.

The truly remarkable thing about Mindgeek is that they have successfully monetized the smut industry, as well. Certainly ads are much cheaper there. But, let’s be honest, Mindgeek’s websites consume more bandwidth than (perhaps) any other websites on the globe. The users there are the same users that watch YouTube and peruse reddit. In August of 2017, it was reported that their revenues were in excess of $400 million in global subscriptions alone (people subscribe to porn?).

The reaction of MindGeek feels uncomfortable. It doesn’t make sense that companies that are making content that is on the periphery of free speech would cast aspersions at other content. But then, it’s not all that uncommon. Regarding Alex Jones, Howard Stern equated Jones’s content with “shouting fire in a crowded theater.” This from the man whose show thrived on punkish juveniles eschewing the rules of their parents to listen. Does Stern do real journalism? The answer is that it doesn’t matter. His right to make the content is a testament to the seriousness with which Americans take the first amendment. And that has always been the role of court jesters. The people we take the least seriously are the foils to the suits and tie wearing television news presenters. They sit on the periphery of content making showing society a mirror. One is allowed to make whatever content they please. And we are allowed to consume it or not consume it. The beauty of Stern’s platform is that he was a radio presenter. And it is hard, if not impossible, to prevent the incursion of radio signals into your space. HCJB uses radio to prosyletize. Pirate Radio was a famous station phenomenon in the 1960s in the UK. Jones, on the other hand, was using a private platform for broadcasting his content, which makes him susceptible to being shut down. And shutting down content that they don’t like might even be within their rights.

YouTube Made the Business Decision to Become a Content Trashcan

The problem here is that YouTube built it’s business on the back of content makers that have no skin in the game. While video remains one of the most expensive pieces of content to host, YouTube lets a family host their family videos at no cost. Content creators with no prospects store their footage on YouTube and stream without ever having to pay. YouTube doesn’t make money. When Google bought the platform, the situation was no better.

Modern companies rely on the same economics of Ponzi schemes. The cycle of a company is to get an investment. The investment serves as a bridge to the next round of investment. At each round the company’s founders give up equity. Their goal is to grow the company as fast as they can. If they can show growth (even if they “burn” through more cash than the average person will ever see at any point in their life), they are able to raise another round. Ultimately, this culminates in one of two “liquidation events.” Either the company is acquired or the investors take it public and sell shares on the open market. YouTube sold in exchange for $1.65 billion worth of Google shares. This despite their waning revenues. And now, while Google doesn’t disclose the specific earnings of YouTube, it is widely speculated that the independent branch of Google is, at best, breaking even.

Moreover, and this is the disturbing bit of it, YouTube’s money comes from another strategic acquisition that Google made. Adwords, Google’s programmatic ad platform, is what allows YouTube to generate revenues from its content. Some of this money is shared with YouTube’s biggest content creators. Some of it goes back to YouTube. But make no bones about it, YouTube’s success is largely contingent on Google’s near monopolization of the online ad space. Simply, even if a website were to try to compete with YouTube, the only path to it is by burning huge amounts of cash, then either, IPO-ing or getting acquired. Who would acquire the platform? Another big tech company. What would happen if the company IPO’d? Well they would be reliant on some kind of programatic marketplace (almost certainly Google), and would 1) bring in a lot of investor money and 2) would slowly burn it to bankruptcy. There is almost no way to build a platform that is as capital intensive as YouTube, wherein there is no prospects of profits.

The best attempt I’ve seen so far is GodTube, which relies on its niche status as a video platform for Christians. This site has been through numerous iterations, and is private. I doubt they make money - though I can’t know for sure They claim to have over 1 million unique visitors each month - which some tools sort of confirm. They make money with ads… Guess which company serves their ads.

Google!

The problem with all this isn’t just the banning. It’s the power that the tech giants seem to have acquired. They can de-platform anyone or any business by kicking them off their platform and/or by refusing to sell the website’s inventory. This means that in order for there to rise up a platform that can successfully compete with YouTube and be as profitable as YouTube, they will have to first start a programmatic ad marketplace, and then monetize their videos with it. Moreover, this analysis lacks any claims about Google’s scalability. Because the reason that Google can reduce the price of hosting the content is that Google operates at such scale, that it would be nearly impossible to host content as cheaply as they do. For evidence, just consider how crappy video players are that you encounter online. Even big news organizations seem incapable of serving videos without the video buffering every 30 seconds.

Alas, for the savvy among us, we will point to sites such as DailyMotion existing to prove that there are competitive alternatives. But consider the model for these sites that I articulated above. In 2009, 3 years after Google acquired YouTube, DailyMotion was promising profitability within a year. At the time DailyMotion had about 36.2 million unique visitors. So what happened? In 2015, Forbes reported that DailyMotion had grown to 137 million unique visits per month. And despite their promise in 2009, as of 2015, DailyMotion “has yet make a profit with… $110 million annual revenue.” Where are their revenues now? Not sure. They were acquired by the public French media conglomerate “Vivendi.” DailyMotion’s revenues, much like YouTube’s revenues are wrapped into the parent company. Simply, analyzing their net revenues is a near impossibility.

Free Content is Anti-Competitive

It might be that free content is anti-competitive. It entrenches platforms that get scale, and it makes it impossible to respond to them by competing. The only way one would be able to host dissident content would be to require content makers to pay to host the video. And for those who want to understand the cost of hosting videos, look no further than sites that already do that. Wistia, for example, will only let you upload 10 videos for $99/month. Anything more, you’ll have to start paying for the storage.

I’m not sure what the solution is. But it is clear to me that video is hard to make profitable. And that the idea there is a market solution right around the corner seems a unlikely prospect given the state of the industry. If Google and Vivendi are willing to lose money or to simply break even to maintain these platforms, then how can a small, non-scaled platform even begin to compete? Moreover, even if there were a possibility that one could compete in the space, it would be an astounding proposition for a Venture Capitalist. YouTube has scaled, it has users, and siphoning that traffic is a difficult consideration. One could not simply build a video platform and easily find a buyer, much less grow it enough to make an IPO interesting. Given that there is almost no prospect for an exit for venture capitalists, raising money to start a platform like this would be very difficult.

Does all that mean I don’t believe a competitor will arise? Well there are people far smarter than I who are apparently working on this problem. But I will put my stick in the ground to say that the prospect of a viable competitor to YouTube is not going to come from the expected places. “The market” can’t really deal with the state of online content at the moment. The barriers to entry are simply too great. Additionally, even if someone were able to build a video site at any scale, the possibility of that site not disappearing to bankruptcy or the financial necessity that a site of any scale would be wrapped into a large conglomerate where dissident and unpopular content wouldn’t be tolerated means that even a site that looks like it’s achieving competitive scale will be temporary at best.

If I’m right, things are truly in a sad state. Content isn’t safe. And things have to get worse and worse. Because if bad ideas aren’t allowed to be served up, then good ideas can’t dampen them out. So good luck everyone. I hope that someone can figure out how to build a network that competes with these platforms. But as it is, I simply don’t see how a pathway to a world of another competitive video site where content is served for free. Perhaps that’s what we’ll see. Maybe dissident content will be behind a paywall and all the world’s weirdos who have pornhub subscriptions can fund the free stuff. And the question would remain, how will un-curated, amateur content served for free, subsidized by Google’s scale not simply outcompete un-curated, amateur content that costs money. Whatever the answer, I think in this case, “the market” isn’t a sufficient answer.

Analysis of Stanford Graduate School of Business’s Paper: “Blockchain for Social Impact”

bred-red — Tue, 12 Jun 2018 16:07:05 -0400

Blockchains are a largely misunderstood bit of new technology. As banks and corporations pour in to the space, the skepticism of the new technology that plagued its early days is gone. Skepticism is replaced by a hopeful indifference about the limitations of the technology. Discussion, now, is infused with an impenetrable faith that blockchain will solve all the problems of modern databases architecture. This will be a Synopticon of considerations taking reports that are presented and critiquing the ideas within. And this will be the first report that we critique. We have selected it based on the prominent institution associated with it and its potential for impact on industry watchers and corporate decision makers.

This particular analysis dissects the Blockchain for Social Impact report released by a team from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. It is currently incomplete (about 20% done) and will be expanded on as I find time. The goal here is simply to help readers of these papers more thoroughly parse the claims within.

An Analysis of the Executive Summary (1.0)

1.1 The promise — and potential — of blockchain to drive social impact is massive, but how much of it is hype and how much is reality?

1.1 (analysis) This is a difficult mission. There is very little data in the industry, and doing a multi-variate analysis about what will and what will not succeed is virtually impossible. Given the history of bubbles like the .com era rise in stock prices, we must assume that projects that will fail have yet to see their end. Moreover, the rubrick of “social impact” is non-specific. That said, we will give the researchers the benefit of the doubt and see whether they achieve the ends they are setting out to achieve.

1.2 Proponents contend blockchain will touch, if not disrupt, every major industry and will even alter the way that people and societies interact. Technology that increases efficiency, reduces costs, and promotes transparency can have significant implications for sectors that are dedicated to driving social impact. The potential to transform systems and leapfrog infrastructure can enable solutions that previously weren’t thought to be possible.

1.3 But the question remains: Are we at the pinnacle of a history altering technology that will drive massive social impact, or is blockchain the latest tech buzzword — more noise than substance?

1.2-1.3 (analysis) The report asks the right questions. Though there is little evidence that in the longrun, technologies, even groundbreaking ones, can add more than a few points of efficiency to markets. Warren Buffett describes this effect in his speech at Sun Valley in 1999. After pointing out that the airline industry was destined to improve our lives to an incredible degree, or that radio and television manufacturing should have done the same, he says that none of the industry-leading companies of the time returned the kinds of money to investors that the contribution of the industry as a whole would lead one to believe. He says, rather, “The key to investing is not assessing how much an industry is going to affect society, or how much it will grow, but rather determining the competitive advantage of any given company and, above all, the durability of that advantage.”

1.4 This report is a result of an analysis of 193 organizations, initiatives, and projects that are leveraging blockchain to drive social impact. By mapping and cataloguing the landscape of such blockchain applications, our research captured which applications have already begun to demonstrate proven social impact, which industries and use cases are more or less advanced, and what we should be learning from the hundreds of test cases, pilots, and experiments that are using blockchain for social impact.

1.5 A steady surge in new projects, organizations, and platforms oriented toward the use of blockchain technology began in 2013 and has grown at an accelerating pace. This research has identified dozens of new ideas for how to use the technology for social impact (54 in 2016, 64 in 2017) — reflecting several new ideas each month, with likely many more currently in stealth mode.

1.4-1.5 (analysis) This report will hinge entirely on the definition of “blockchain.” If the premise is accepted that any organization claiming to use a blockchain is using a blockchain, then this will degrade quickly into the realm of nonsense. The idea that stealth development is being practiced by organizations developing applications for “social impact” is striking, however. Presumably these are not for profits. Why would a not-for-profit corporation seeking to impact the public good need to develop solutions in secret? Perhaps we will find out.

An Analysis of the Key Findings (2.0)

2.1 We’re still in the early days of blockchain for good, but impact is close. Blockchain initiatives dedicated toward social impact are still in the early days — 34% were started in 2017 or later, and 74% are still in the pilot or idea stage. But, 55% of social-good blockchain initiatives are estimated to impact their beneficiaries by early 2019.

2.1 (analysis) This seems to articulate the potential pitfall of the project of this paper. Worryingly there is no citation here. 34% of these projects, the paper says have been started in or after 2017 (it’s only 2018 now). 74% of them are in the pilot or idea stage. These must be overlapping categories, since their sum is 108% of projects. That said, the paper declares “55% of social-good blockchain initiatives are estimated to impact their beneficiaries by early 2019.” [Who is making this claim?]

2.2 Democracy and Governance initiatives are the furthest along, with 62% of all projects expected to have demonstrated impact in the next six months. On the other hand, 63% of Energy initiatives are not expected to see demonstrated impact within the next two years.

2.3 The Estonian government’s early adoption (in 2008) is the most advanced example of a government leveraging blockchain technology to enhance government services, with 99% of the country’s government services available as e-services through e-Estonia. These services leverage distributed ledger databases to lead to increased security, efficiency, and accessibility. (See case study on page 22.)

2.2-2.3 (analysis) Here we have the definition of a blockchain. And, as was stated earlier, this will likely be the crux of the analysis. It is widely acknowledged that Bitcoin is the world’s first blockchain. Bitcoin’s interesting structure and solution to collaborative consensus known as Proof of Work (POW) are what made it new. Computer databases, on the other hand, have existed since the 1980s. The idea of time stamping entries has been around for just as long. And the idea of merklizing entries and tracking their history has been around since the early days of the internet. SSL certificates do this. Git, the software management tool, does this. The staggering oversight of this author’s papers is in their claim that Estonia has been using a blockchain since 2008. Yet Bitcoin, the first blockchain, did not exist until 2009. As such, it can be assumed that none of the modern architecture of “blockchain,” the elements that make the technology “possibly revolutionary” are being considered in the projects this paper is purportedly analyzing. What is certainly true is that if all of the projects analyzed here are using technology that falls outside of the definition of blockchain, or that does not incorporate actual advances given us by the Bitcoin blockchain, then the question of “what makes these not simple databases” and “what is new here” must be both asked and answered.

2.4 Blockchain enables solutions not previously possible. Of the blockchain initiatives researched, 20% are providing a solution to a problem that could otherwise not have been solved without blockchain, and 86% are bringing forward solutions that are material improvements.

2.4 (analysis) This is based on a self-reported survey that asked the companies whether their solution required blockchain or not. 14% say that “Blockchain is one way to solve their problem, but others may be better.” And only 20% say that “blockchain is a necessity for solving their problem.” The other 66% say that blockchain is an improvement over other solutions. Presuming this paper allows us to follow these cohorts, these distinctions are the ones that we will most scrutinize.

2.5 BanQu is a U.S.-based company that uses blockchain to provide economic passports to those in need of a digital identity, which include unbanked populations, refugees, and micro-businesses operating in the world’s poorest regions. BanQu’s secure and accessible blockchain-based platform (accessible via SMS, smartphone, or web) allows the unbanked and the poor to record their economic and financial transactions, purchase goods, and prove their existance in global supply chains. (See case study on page 29.)

2.6 The health sector has attracted more initiatives than any other sector. Of catalogued blockchain initiatives, 25% were focused on health, which is nearly twice as much as the next leading sector, financial inclusion (13%). Energy, Climate, and Environment (12%) and Philanthropy, Aid, and Donors (11%) were the next highest.

2.7 Modum.io is a Zurich-based startup that combines hardware sensors with blockchain technology to track temperatures of medicinal products across the supply chain. Modum.io has completed three pilot projects, and its first-generation sensors are now in mass production, being deployed as part of several new pilots with primarily European-based companies. (See case study on page 51.)

2.8 Blockchain is most often used to facilitate payments and verify records. The most common use cases for blockchain initiatives are payments and money transfers (25%) and records and verification (26%). Blockchain’s most popular primary benefits are being able to reduce risk and fraud (38%) and increase efficiency (24%)

2.9 Mojaloop, an open-source payment platform developed by the Level One Project at the Gates Foundation, seeks to link financial institutions and payment providers to facilitate payments and information sharing through blockchain. Mojaloop uses blockchain to enable interoperability between financial institutions, which can speed up transaction times to a matter of milliseconds. The increase in inefficiency can lower costs and expand access to financial services to the unbanked. (See case study on page 43.)

3.0 Certain sectors see more for-profit activity than others. Overall, 61% of the initiatives catalogued are for-profit. The sectors with the most for-profit initiatives are those with the greatest commercial opportunity: Energy (94%), Health (87%), and Financial Inclusion (78%). Conversely, the sectors driven by nonprofit or public funding activity are those traditionally rooted in nonprofit or government activity: Philanthropy, Aid, and Donors (76%) and Democracy and Governance (33%).

2.5-2.8 (analysis) We will refrain from commenting on these corporate uses until the case studies are presented other than to say that the regular use of the present tense in this paper is presumptive and biased. The authors seem to be begging the question, assuming that blockchain is useful for these applications.

An Analysis of Blockchain Primer (3.0)

3.1 To understand blockchain, one needs to first understand the phenomenon that led to its origin: Bitcoin.

3.1 (analysis) What?

3.2 Bitcoin first emerged in the fall of 2008, and the Bitcoin network came into existence in early 2009. Bitcoin became the first decentralized digital currency, which means it is a digital “cash” system that allows people to exchange money instantly, without having to go through intermediaries like banks. Even digital payment platforms like PayPal and Venmo still route transfers through banks, incurring fees and time delays.

3.2 (analysis) If it is known to the writers of this paper that Bitcoin is the progenitor of “blockchain technology” then how are they including in this analysis projects that have existed before Bitcoin’s existence such as the Estonian Governments block-chaining of citizen information?

3.3 Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency, but its creation has led to over 1,500 cryptocurrencies that get purchased and traded globally: Ether (from Ethereum), XRP (from Ripple), and Litecoin are just a few examples. The “crypto” in cryptocurrency comes from the use of cryptography, which is used to solve several core problems in transferring money over the internet, eliminating the unauthorized creation of new money (referred to as “double-spend”), and giving users a secure way to prove their identities and transact with each other without the need for a trusted intermediary.

3.3 (analysis) This is a fine enough explanation.

3.4 It is important to separate cryptocurrencies from blockchain, which is the underlying technology that makes cryptocurrencies possible. A blockchain is a digital, secure, public record book of transactions (a ledger). “Block” describes the way this ledger organizes transactions into blocks of data, which are then organized in a “chain” that links to other blocks of data. The links make it easy to see if anyone has changed any part of the chain, which helps the system protect against illegal transactions.

3.4 (analysis) This explanation divorces the innovation of a database that tracks changes from the innovation that allows that database to be held by multiple disparate parties who are working toward their own enrichment, yet still update the database with an honest state. This is the innovation of Bitcoin. Anything else existed before blockchain.

3.5 Over the past few years, blockchain has revolutionized access to capital for new ventures. In 2017 alone, blockchain-based startups raised close to $4 billion through a process known as an “ICO” (initial coin offering) or a Token Generating Event. In this process, a blockchain startup issues its own digital currency, known as “tokens,” and sells them to either private or public investors. Tokens have value because the issuer requires that future customers pay for services rendered using these tokens. The types of services vary; this could be computing resources, data storage space, peer-to-peer home sharing, advertisement space, or medical data. Given that the supply of tokens is fixed, this creates a demand for tokens that creates a priceable market. These types of tokens are known as “utility tokens.” There are other types of tokens, like security tokens, which can be used to represent equity shares. Another type, called digital collectible tokens, are unique tokens that can represent scarce digital goods like collectible cards, in-game items, or other collectibles.

3.6 The process of issuing tokens became orders of magnitude simpler thanks to the Ethereum network, which made it easy for developers to code their own tokens in twenty minutes or less instead of writing custom code, and it provided a simple way to deploy tokens using a smart contract. A “smart contract” is a piece of software code that gets written into the blockchain, and different applications can reference this code. When an application utilizes a smart contract, it can process counterparty transactions automatically, without human interference; for example, when the application detects that certain conditions are met (e.g. money has been received from someone), an event is triggered (e.g. send money to someone else).

3.4-3.6 (analysis) This is a unsophistocated analysis of what has happened in the last year. Ethereum’s ERC20 protocol did not make it easier than previous solutions, though it did allow people to agree to a standard of token creation. Again, the analysis here is begging the question. It assumes these token generation events are: 1) legal, 2) good, 3) different than what exists 4) useful. As to whether they are legal, the jury is out. The SEC has been sending mixed signals. [citation] As to whether they are good is unknowable at the moment. And as to whether they are different than what exists is almost certainly untrue. World of Warcraft, for exapmle, has had issued currency in-game for more than a decade. Additionally, Second Life’s Linden Dollars have been traded like Bitcoin and other crypto currencies on exchanges. All the while, they exist on a centralized ledger. As to whether these tokens are useful, the report touts their manufactured utility within the framework of a developed ecosystem. In the way that arcades lock up a visitor’s capital so that a culture of captive users is created, additionally reducing capital costs by allowing machines to be manfuactured without concern for the kind of currency that is being put in them, it is a highly suspect claim that this sort of arcade mentality is more efficient or even useful for a business. For example, is it better for Facebook to issue Facebook tokens or is it better for Facebook to accept and pay out US dollars? To accept as fact that issuing Facebook tokens is more efficient, more profitable, and more useful is presumptuous and unproven. It belies the complications of monetary systems and their management.

3.7 There are three key elements needed to establish trust: 1) identity, or who’s who; 2) ownership, or who owns what; and 3) verification, or what’s true. Blockchains allow users to easily prove their identities, protect ownership of digital assets, and verify transactions without a high-cost intermediary.

3.7 (analysis) The identify funciton of a blockchain is simply cryptography. It is not endemic to a blockchain. It is the result of individuals signing messages that reveal their possession of a public identifier. Blockchain is not necessarily the source of this innovation. Rather, this was made possible in 1976 when Diffie and Hellman invented public-key encryption. Its ease of implementation and use as a means to establish ownership of a private key was furthered by Phil Zimmermann when PGP was released in 1991. When it comes to blockchain, this establishment of one’s ownership of a public key does, indeed, purport ownership. THe blockchain tracks what tokens are associated with which public address. The identity portion gives control of those tokens to the individual or individuals who can sign the transaction verifying their possession of the number the tokens are on. But the third bit of this, the fact that blockchains purport truth, is only true insofar as the information that is entered into them is true. Simply, using blockchains for tracking provenance requires that the entry of the data be honest. Otherwise, the provenance will articulate the data that is put in truly, but it will promulgate bad data. Thus, the source of the truth matters as much as the truth keeping function of the ledger. Moreover, while Bitcoin’s Proof of Work implements a cost function that makes changing the data that is in the blockchain prohibitively expensive, most internal “blockchains” do not implement this same function. This means, simply, the notion that these projects are secured because blockchain is questionable. Rather, they are more likely secured in the way that organizations have always secured databases - through obfuscation and digital security. As such, it is questionable whether these blockchains are blockchains in name only or whether they are actually architected in a way that reflects the benefits that blockchain would bestow on a database. It is likely that these chains are nothing more than databases that track changes through time stamping.

3.8 Who’s Who: Blockchains solve the identity problem through the use of digital signatures. Each user is given a set of two digital codes (a “private key,” similar to an account number, and a “public key,” similar to a password) that allows them to easily prove an identity and issue authorized transactions.

3.8 (analysis) A private key is more like a password, in that it is kept private. A public key is more like an account number in that it is the place where funds exist. But the analogies are not perfect. The private key is used to sign and verify ownership of the public key.

3.9 Who Owns What: Blockchains solve the ownership problem through a technology called “cryptographic hashing.” A cryptographic hash is simply a piece of data that has been run through a math function and transformed into a shorter piece of data. In a blockchain, each block contains a hashed representation of the data in the previous block. If you change any previous pieces of data, that change will get reflected throughout the chain, making it easy for the system to see and reject fraudulent attempts to manipulate the data. This allows blockchains to create “immutable” data, otherwise known as tamper-proof records.

3.9 (analysis) This is not how ownership is established. The notion of tamper-proof records is, at least in Bitcoin, a function of the cost of tampering with those records. The cost is made high as a result of proof of work. Proof of work is what makes this data unchangeable, or “immutable.”

3.10 What’s True: And, finally, blockchains solve the verification problem by making it feasible for a group of people to publicly verify that a transaction is true, without the need for a trusted intermediary. In blockchain terminology, this is called “distributed consensus.” The ability for blockchains to verify transactions with fewer intermediaries is a key benefit that can lead to lower costs for many applications in this report.

3.10 (analysis) There is no reason that substituting the need for a single verifier of a state is more efficient than utilizing multiple verifiers. A blockchain is not more efficient as a tool of verified truth than a database managed by a single entity. Moreover, the process of coming to consensus is expensive. It is not as simple as all the participants signing off on the data. Blockchains are the solution to a complicated problem called the Byzantine General problem. The problem is a thought experiment that contrives a battle wherein all the generals must agree to behave in a given way even if some of the generals work against the group. Incidentally, this problem is why blockchain is excellent as a bearer instrument. While it behooves an individual in the system to move money from one place back to them, the nature of the ledger punishes corruption fo the data by not paying the creator of the data if the data is not accepted by the rest of the system. The process of coming to this consensus is difficult and expensive.

3.11 Blockchain’s potential is rooted in enabling four things. Transparency: Anyone with access to the network can view a history of transactions in real time. Potential impact: The money trail can be tracked and monitored more accurately in areas like aid distribution.

3.12 Immutability: Blockchains protect data from tampering; no one entity is able to change past data without alerting the network. Potential impact: Immutability protects areas like voter authentication and land title registrations.

3.13 Reduced counterparty risk (and subsequently lower cost payments): Blockchains allow anyone to send money to anyone without an expensive or corrupt intermediary. Potential impact: Money sent across borders or into natural disaster zones will move quickly. In addition, many critical elements of our economy allow people to trade with each other without fear that the other party will back out. Banks perform this function, but often add high administration costs and slow processing times into the system. Blockchain’s smart contracts guarantee that a contract will be fulfilled when a specific action is completed. Potential impact: Eliminating intermediaries reduces counterparty risk, thus reducing costs.

3.13 (analysis) Intermediaries are necessary functional pieces of an economy. The irony embedded in the elimination of intermediaries is that this is synonymous with claiming blockchains kill jobs. But more than that, it belies the functions of intermediaries. Intermediaries do not exist to extract rent, generally. The function of an intermediary is to make a transaction cheaper. For example, one can remove intermediaries from tomato farming. The result would be that a farmer would need to harvest his own tomatoes. He would need to pack them into his own truck. He would need to drive that truck somewhere. He would then need to sell them himself. In the exchange of tomatoes, however, huge efficiencies have been achieved through the rise of intermediaries. A company comes to the famer’s farm and picks up the tomatoes. This company picks up this farmer’s tomatoes and his neighbors and his neighbor’s tomatoes. These tomatoes are driven from the farm to a central sorting facility. This facility sorts the tomatoes based on size, weight, looks, etc. These tomatoes are transferred from the factory to stores all over the United States and sold at a pittance. This is an absurd reduction of the process, insofar as one must acknowledge all the intermediaries involved in the process of delivering the gas that the vehicles run on, and the creation of the equipment that the farmer farms on, and the generation and science involved in the seed the farmer planted that generate higher yields. In all, intermediaries are not a grand evil. Even in the case of disaster relief, while it might be true that transmitting money over blockchain would quickly get the money from one spot to another, the money will still need to be transmitted to an intermediary that will handle the relief work. In fact, the very act of sending money to disaster zones is an acknowledgement that intermediaries are necessary. One sends money in order to vitiate the need for their labor to be put into solving the problem.

3.14 Efficient provisioning of identities. Blockchains can create and manage identities for people in a lower cost, secure way through digital signature technology, which gives people a public key (similar to an account number) and a private key (similar to a password)Potential impact: Underserved populations, like the unbanked, receive access to services never before possible.

3.14 (analysis) This application is theoretical. There is no solution here, and if the paper’s authors believe that Estonia’s implementation of “blockchain” as an example of this very system, then, as was shown in the notes, this didn’t require the innovation of blockchain, but, rather, is an innovation rooted in cryptography and could have been implemented as early as 1991.

Overview of Agriculture (4.0)

4.1 Investments in blockchain for agriculture are in their early stages, but they have the potential to impact the lives of large numbers of people. Although nearly 90% of Agriculture initiatives are headquartered in Europe, Australia, or the United States, and 50% of implementations are in these same regions, another 30% of the implementations are in sub-Saharan Africa.

4.2 The primary uses can improve traceability, transparency, and efficiency for actors across the entire supply chain, from farmers to consumers. To achieve those improvements, Agriculture initiatives must overcome the siloing of actors along the supply chain.

4.1-4.2 (analysis) Provenance blockchain initiatives generally fail to account for the centralization of data inputs. These inputs are where corruption can easily occur https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2018/06/how-i-became-leonardo-da-vinci-on-the-blockchain/. Simply, decentralization does not solve the problem of dishonesty. With a bearer bond, that honesty can be dire. When a thief sends money from an honest actor to himself, everyone will verify the fact that the bearer instrument is now the bad actor’s. This is an inconvenient truth asserted by a bad actor, but it is truth nonetheless. That said, putting into the blockchain, “God exists” does not attest to the validity of the statement. Rather, it simply attests to the fact that the statement is in the chain. This reality makes provenance a very difficult problem that Blockchain can not solve simply.

4.3 As agricultural supply chains are structured today, compliance data (such as data on safety, sustainability, and certificate status of food products) is stored on paper or in a proprietary database, which is audited periodically by trusted third parties. This structure results in costly operational management and high potential for fraud, corruption, or error (both human and technology-based).

4.4 Food contamination and food fraud affect both consumers and producers. The WHO estimates that one in 10 people fall ill every year from eating contaminated foods. The economic cost is estimated by the Grocery Manufacturers Association to be $10–15 billion per year, with a single food fraud incident costing 2–15% of a company’s annual revenue.

4.5 In order to reduce food fraud and contamination and increase transparency and efficiency, for-profit companies are driving 60% of Agriculture applications for blockchain. Blockchain replaces the trusted-yet-fallible third parties involved in collecting, tracking, and managing data within agricultural supply chains with more neutral and efficient systems.

4.3-4.5 (analysis) This is a highly irresponsible set of assertions. Blockchain does not analyze the quality of food. Blockchain does not analyze the quality of a supply chain. Blockchain can not audit itself. Perhaps, the existence of a less obfuscated database would solve some of these problems. But, in reality, this is untenable as a claim as those who have access to the database would likely not have better information about the supply chain than those regulating or currently checking the database.

4.6 Farmers benefit as well as distributors. Although the large majority of Agriculture use cases identified in our research focused on supply chain management, 20% focused on payments and money transfers, applications that help ensure that farmers receive timely and complete payments for their crops.

4.6 (analysis) Statements about who can benefit from this technology are inappropriate in this paper given the scope of the study. This paper is attempting to analyze the stated objectives of projects. However, the authors regularly interject assertions about the benefits of these projects.

4.7 Investments in blockchain for Agriculture are early stage. Most initiatives are less than two years old, and none are currently reaching more than 1,000 beneficiaries; 93% are either in concept stage or have started a small pilot.

4.7 (analysis) The paper analyzes their data. This less than 1,000 people is highly biased. The study does not attempt to uncover how small these projects actually are. Rather, 53% of these projects are reaching less than 1,000 people. 47% are either currently in concept phase or did not have information available. So, while 100% of the respondents are accounted for here, it seems likely that 100% of these projects are almost certainly much smaller than one might assume given that fewer than 1,000 people is a small number and a category that (apparently) subsumes the entirety of projects that have gone beyond the concept phase.

4.8 For blockchain to be implemented in any supply chain, engagement across the full supply chain would be required, meaning each farmer, distributor, packager, and other agricultural supply chain actors must be willing to adopt and use the technology. Blockchain technologies also require internet connections and digital literacy for widespread adoption; this remains a challenge in some emerging markets, as well as in rural areas of developed countries, where many farmers and producers are located.

4.8 (analysis) This is obvious. Throughout this paper the notional value of a blockchain is that it solves the problem with human coordination. Businesses go to great lengths to solve human coordination problems. Marketing is generally used to overcome barriers to human coordination. Blockchains do not solve the problem of human coordination. In order to get uptake, it is still necessary for people to adopt a technology. Moreover, should an industry agree on a standard to track and monitor provenance, the problem of honesty of data oracles is still not solved. Moreover, one must question why this is better done as a blockchain and not as a simple centralized database run by a company. Even more than that, being that 75% of the respondents in this study are for-profit companies, one must question the truth of the claim regarding the need for decentralized coordination. It is likely that many corporations competing for business to optimize the supply chain will end in many different solutions to optimizing the supply chain and a fractured industry that picks one solution over another. This fractious problem solving will be further complicated by the insertion of more intermediaries to either coordinate between solutions, implement the solutions in the first place, or it could end in the solutions being unusable due to fractious consumers making choices about what suits their needs. This is a far worse solution than the coordination that occurs through market competition and the necessity of solutions that arise from experienced operators in an industry.

Why Trump Must Be Given the Nobel Prize

bred-red — Wed, 02 May 2018 14:30:23 -0400

In a recent NYT article, Antony J. Blinken discusses how Trump could gerrymander his way to winning the Nobel Peace Prize. The fact that the Peace Prize is even on the table is a hilarious reality for much of America. There is a vocal group of ingrates who would have others believe, and who believe themselves, that Trump is hated by everyone. Certainly, Trump enjoys more vitriol than past Presidents. But, while that may be true, I am always left perplexed by the nature of criticisms against him. I do my best to be a-political, and often do not succeed. But his sins, while more mortal than venial, are difficult to parse when the position of his critics is largely assessed.

Trump’s affairs, for example, have taken the limelight. But it is the left that supported Clinton’s known philandering, Kennedy’s penchant for young dames, and Roman Polansky’s pursuit of a 13 year old whom he, forgive the short-hand, Bill Cosbied. Given these heroes of the modern left, it is hard to stomach the critique of our President. While a public philanderer, Trump’s trists have both been known and well documented. Throughout the 90s, leftists were asking when the businessman would run. Trump’s recent trist with a porn star is as public as ever. But, while everyone acknowledges the depravity of Trump’s dealings and the emotional toll on Melania - his wife - the crime is a chasmic prosecutorial reach that relies on semantics and optics rather than the thing itself. This, to me, is astounding though not unprecedented.

The other scandals may have more legs. Trump’s dealings with Russia, for example, are known and documented. Whether there is a crime in those dealings is another matter entirely. But that is what is being investigated.

When it comes to Trump’s foreign policy, there are the supposed bungles that plague his administration. First and foremost is his alleged reference to Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries.” The designation is humorous in its insightfulness and undiplomatic and inexact in its wordchoice. That said, in the days following the scandal, Anderson Cooper ran a piece wherein he attempted to defenstrate Mr. Trump’s foreign policy credentials by telling a touching story about how he went to Haiti. The strength of the people was articulated in their ability to withstand governmental corruption. Which Cooper seems to think is rampant. He describes Haiti as a place where the government has “abandoned its people, where opportunities are few, and where mother nature has punished the people far more than anyone should be punished.” He tells a story about displacement and death in the wake of an earthquake that leveled the nation largely due to a lack of acceptable building codes. And when Haiti is not dealing with governmental corruption, its people are subject to some of the most dehumanizing conditions in the Western hemisphere. This is the country where the people eat cookies made of dirt and clay. In a 2009 interview, Joel Boutroue of the United Nations mission to Haiti says that the country, “3.3 million Haitians are food insecure… around 25% of the children are chronically malnurished… the same indicators as in sub-Saharan Africa.”

Certainly, this language is more diplomatic. But it is hard to find great praise directed at the nation. And perhaps, Trump’s use of the shorthand “shithole country” makes him a crappy diplomat. But I’m not sure how it is any different than describing the nation as run by a corrupt government that has abandoned its people, where economic opportunities are virtually non-existent, where the country is regularly devastated by natural events such as weather and earthquake (while its island counterpart, the Dominican Republic remains relatively intact), and where it’s people eat cookies made of dirt for sustenance. How is that a more inviting description? Trump’s comments are a simple precis of Cooper’s points, and a simple summation about the feelings of most Americans. They do not make our relationship with Haiti any worse. After all, Haiti is a net recipient of aid and not exactly the best exporter of the product. And there are African nations that are in a similar boat. That’s unequivocal. Somalia, for example, is overrun by pirates. It’s per capita GDP is $300 lower than Haiti’s.

To wit, Trump’s comments could more easily be interpreted as shorthand for “there are countries that are struggling and continue to need our aid” than its racist alternative which many in the media repeated. That is if he even said it. Keep in mind that it was a report about someone’s reporting that captured the news cycle with regard to the comments. And while no one would be surprised if Trump confirmed the phrase was his, there was no charity in the interpretation of the alleged words. For Trump, it would seem, confirming words said in a private meeting would be as useful as publicly announcing a particularly noxious rectal escape. There is little doubt it would dominate the news cycle as well.

Certainly, Trump has his flaws. Some of them are eggregious. But his flaws, it seems, are in his unwillingness to bend himself to the mise-en-scène. Then again, if Trump’s support was something like 50% of the nation, it would seem worth acknowledging that the percieved mise-en-scène may actually be nothing more than the result of a highly vocal half of the country. Perhaps, the Eloi have taken over and subjugated the Morlocks to the deep earth. Perhaps, it is difficult to understand the cultural milieu when you ignore the other half. Then again, perhaps not. But it’s at least worth considering.

But a myopic look at American sentiments toward Mr. Trump belies the point. While many Americans might find it difficult to stomach a world where Mr. Trump is considered for a Nobel prize, we have to acknowledge that the prize is an international one. The prize is to be given to the person “who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” That is a high calling. Many years, the prize goes to someone whom has not explicitly done anything like that. In 2007, former Vice President Al Gore shared the prize with the IPCC after his documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” was released to international acclaim. And while it can be argued that the work recognized his life’s work, it is difficult to see how his award in any way fulfilled the mission of the prize except in an oblique sense. Climate change is a global problem, thus we must work together to solve it. Perhaps it was Mr. Gore’s influence on global consensus that stands as the basis. But I do not believe that he set out to win the prize, nor ever considered that he might given the subject of his passion.

I do not stand as a critic of the award either. It is an annual award. In some years, the pool of candidates that have explicitly accomplished the mission of the prize is simply more shallow than others. In some ways this gives the Nobel prize some flexibility in its ability to make statements. Gore’s award, I’m certain, was a statement. And there have been similar, other statements over the years. In 1999, for example, Doctors Without Borders was given the prize. While I may be unaware of their efforts, as I understand it, Doctors Without Borders performs medicine with qualified doctors in zones where medicine is hard to get. This is a worthwhile effort and it is commendable. Many doctors have died while working for the organization. I can’t imagine a more courageous group of people. But they are not explicitly working for toward the fraternity of nations. They are not abolishing or reducing standing armies. They certainly aren’t promoting peace congresses. And this is where the criticism of the right rings so loudly. Obama’s prize in 2009 was given as the result of Obama’s claims that he was working to reduce nuclear weapons. But for the most part, I think it can be acknowledged, his award was more like a collective thanks given on behalf of his not being George Bush. As to whether Obama lived up to the expectations foisted on him by the win is for you to decide.

Perhaps my favorite example of a prize winner is 1970’s Norman Borlaug. Borlaug’s award is a testament to American inginuity. The man single handedly increased grain yields through science by such an extent that countries today are self-sufficient. He is so specifically and personally responsible for reducing hunger and famine by such a degree that it may be worth crediting him for saving more lives than any human that ever lived. At the very least it puts him on par with such magicians as Pascal or Jenner. Perhaps that’s overstating his contribution. But I don’t think it is. While obscure, Borlaug’s efforts are imminently tied to the mission of the prize. His midwestern life, humble upbringing, tireless pursuit of truth, and willingness to share saved lives. His knowledge, was, perhaps, America’s greatest export. He helped wean entire nations off of subsistance living, and greatly contributed to ushering in the modern era of productivity. In 1972, no prize was issued. And, I think it’s worth noting, in 1973, Henry Kissinger was awarded the prize along with Le Duc Tho who turned it down. While I’m not sure what the criticism are, I imagine they are plentiful and merciless. Though it was far less controversial when he received it as numerous biographies are happy to describe.

In 1994, Yasser Arafat was given the prize. The man, who famously addressed the UN while wearing a pistol, received the prize for his efforts to bring peace to the middle east. He shared the prize with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin. Arafat, in some ways, was a dark horse winner. While instrumental in the Oslo Accords, Arafat was the organizer and leader of a guerilla group that carried out thousands of attacks on Israel… thousands.

And that brings us to Antony J. Blinken’s article in the New York Times today. Antony is certainly correct in his sentiment that Trump could do more to negotiate global peace. Yes, a deal with Iran would be a boon. But given the history of the prize, it would seem that the Nobel committee has always acknowledged massive political wins. Arafat’s guerilla group, for example, carried out thousands of attacks on Israelis. His prize was given for his efforts to end the attacks that he, himself was responsible for. And in some ways, while it’s easy to criticize the committee for what might seem a sort of tautological award, this is the nature of foreign policy. Arafat believed that force was necessary in securing peace. Was he right? Perhaps. But his efforts did end in some menial progress in the region. Many died on the road to that progress, however. But the menial progress made in a small region of the world was and remains a significant piece in the mythical museum of totemic foreign policy history. Even in so far as Arafat’s efforts have proven innefective, he was awarded the prize. And he’s not the only despotic victor. Lê Duc Tho had his flaws. And Cordell Hull in 1939 famously sent a ship filled with nearly 1,000 Jewish refugees back to Germany. He was awarded the prize in 1945 for his work in creating the UN.

So what will be the most significant foreign policy event of 2018? In some ways, it’s an irrelevant question. As has been the historical precedent, the Nobel prize is not always reserved for those whom fulfill its stated purpose. But in those years where the prize’s mission is so obviously fulfilled, it becomes difficult to reason why it would be given to anything other than the architect of that event. And thus, we arrive at the current state of North and South Korea. These two nations have been at nuclear loggerheads for 68 years. Until last week, there was no end in sight. Enter Trump. No analysis of the events is complete without an acknowledgement of his unorthodox approach to foreign policy. Perhaps the most excoriated bit of Trump’s method was his tweet wherein he referenced the president of North Korea by name: “Kim Jon Un.” The tweet seems maniacal, psychopathic on first glance. But it is a bit whitty and even slightly clever. He does not, for example, tweet @ Kim. But rather, requests that someone from his “depleted and food starved regime” inform him that Mr. Trump has a nuclear button backed by an arsenal of well kept, working nukes. The humor is in Trump’s ability to point out the fact that Kim may not even be able to know the tweet has been sent from his palace overseeing a Kingdom with the amenities of a practically pre-Victorian world. The only modern convenience that North Koreans seem to enjoy is their seeming ability to manipulate nuclear bombs to explosion. It’s an impressive feat for a nation that is perceived as being so backward its people are purported to believe their leader doesn’t even have a butthole, or at the very least, never uses it. And what of Un’s incredible penscient for cruelty. It has been reported that he killed his uncle. And we have all seen the video of the state sponsored murder of his brother. Reportedly, a standing order to assassinate Kim Jong-nam (his brother) was in existence since 2012 because, “I just hate him. So get rid of him.”

Whether that’s the true reason or not is hard to say. But what is obvious is that the world viewed Kim as a murderous tyrant not just two weeks ago. His Southern counterparty, however, is much different. A recent ascender to the Presidency, South Korea’s Moon Jae-in was voted in after his predecessor, Park Geun-hye, was impeached then jailed for abuse of power, bribery, coercion, and leaking government secrets. For those unfamiliar with the Korean situation, there is a deep sense of mourning that South Koreans have about the state of the Nation to their North. To them, it is still Korea. Speak to a Korean, you will see a longing in their eyes as they discuss the someday, far-off, hope that they have that the Koreas will one day be reunited.

Then suddenly, we all wake up one morning and peace is at hand. For me, at least, it was that sudden. And in the interim, we begin hearing leaks about how Trump was instrumental in making it happen. And certainly, it is important to acknowledge North Korea’s history in respecting these types of deals. But never before has Un been a party to the negotiations. Some, including myself, believe that Kim has very Western sensibilities. His despotic tendencies are more of a necessity than a deeply ingrained personality trait. The murder of his uncle and his brother, some have suggested, are related to a far-reaching coup plot. It is to say that in a regime like North Korea, Kim likely has more fears than your average leader. The Kim family’s infighting is a legendary, remarkable reality when considering the longevity of their reign. Not to mention their geopolitical placement. Sandwiched between China and Russia, indebted to both in many ways, the country is in a precarious place. What’s to be done?

So as Trump fanned the Hawkish flames, and Americans feared the worst, it would seem that his backchannel negotiations were far different, perhaps even more civil, than the public facing rhetoric. They dangled the ultimate prize in front of Kim: a chance to meet and negotiate with the Chief Executive Officer of the world’s most powerful nation. In the end, the pressure, the personal issues, the unknowns pushed Kim to seek piece with his southern counterpart. And while it’s notable that the US does have interests in the region, there are no obvious gains to peace between the Koreas other than for the two nations. This is unprecedented, in some ways. It is an important point in the discussion regarding the Nobel prize as well. Certainly, history would seem to favor a shared prize between the individuals who negotiated peace. Arafat, for example, shared his prize with his Oslo Accord manufacturing and signing counterparts. In this case, it would not be surprising if the award were shared by Un, Jae-in, and perhaps Trump. But while Korea has tried at peace for 68 years, it has never happened. No man or woman has ever been able to orchestrate productive talks between the two nations, no man, that is, until Donald Trump, surprising as it may be. And this is why Trump, and only Trump, must be given the prize. He is the catalyst and orchestrator of this peace initiative. And it is nothing short of miraculous. And yes, Mr. Blinken, we must see where the dust settles. But, like with the reporting of Trumps comments about Haiti, we must be charitable in our understanding of the situation. This time things truly are different. Even if talks stall, there must be acknowledgement that this time is not like the other times. Un is not Il. And Trump is not like the others that have negotiated with the regime. Not to mention that among the list of recipients, there are very few who have so perfectly filled out the criteria.

Ask yourself, who has done the most or the best work to promote fraternity between nations in 2018? The answer is undoubtedly Mr. Trump. Divorce yourself from the invectives about his comments about Haiti or Moslems or Africa. While there might be arguments about why those comments make the world less safe, the evidence is tenuous at best. And while it may be damaging politically, Trump’s comments have done almost nothing in the grand scheme of global relations. Nations that have always received financial aid are still pretty much receiving it. Nations that have not, aren’t. Nothing much has changed there.

Ask yourself, who has done the most for the abolition and reduction of standing armies or for the holding and promotion of peace congresses? Again the answer is undoubtedly Donald Trump. Jae-In and Un met because of his pressure campaign. Trump and his team are the orchestrators of peace between those two nations. And while the others are playing an important role, Trump’s role was pivotal. Nothing would have started without him. And before we begin arguing for Moon and Kim’s prizes, perhaps it is worth acknowledging that Moon himself believes that Trump’s role was so pivotal as to deserve the prize.

Ultimately, the prize doesn’t matter. The fact remains that Trump has won a foreign policy coup that others have only ever dreamt of. Winning the Nobel prize or not doesn’t change that. But the reason that this discussion must be had is because of how clear it is that Trump should win. Generally, when there is an award, given for something, there are three or four or five people who seem equally qualified to receive it. Very rarely is one so head and shoulders above his competitors that it is just obvious. It happens occasionally, and when it does we are struck by a global sense of dispair. The olympics, for example, has occasionally been plagued with such scandals, such as in Roy Jone’s loss to Park Si-Hun in 1988 in the sport of boxing. And as I hear people begin to make arguments about why Trump should not be given the Nobel, such as Mr. Blinken’s allegation that he must do more in a completely unrelated region regarding a completely different problem in order to be eligible is laughable. Moreover, the claim is unexamined. Were Trump, in a single year, to negotiate peace between the Koreas and to stop proliferation of nukes in Iran, that would not make him more qualified for the prize. It would simply make not giving it to him even more laughable than it already will be.

The Hilarious Prospect of Blockchains

bred-red — Tue, 01 May 2018 14:52:13 -0400

Bitcoin is hard enough. It’s rocket science. How it works, why it works, whether it works are both difficult to ascertain as well as difficult and to understand at even a surface level. Take, for example, the recent mining of the 17 millionth Bitcoin. James Lopp has a great Twitter thread describing how hard it is to even know how many coins have been mined. Nothing in Bitcoin is cut and dry. Everything is probabilistic. Nothing is easy to track or understand. Every decision miners make (when they are professional miners) is in dedication to making money. That is their role here. That is the only reason they mine at all. They aren’t benevolent actors working away to make the Bitcoin system run. They mine because selfishness.

That is the nature of “Blockchain.” This is not all as reducible as it might seem. All the questions asked here are difficult. Further, there are so many things that the users of these chains don’t understand. Take, for example, the recent analysis of Monero. This blockchain, whose rhetoric-believing users have touted the science of fungibility built in to the chain because math have transacted in a way that causes a huge portion of the chain’s transactions to be traceable. 64% of transactions have been done with a single mix-in. This tainted set of transactions continues to plague current transactions with broken fungibility. And the fix, according to the analysis, isn’t much better. The fix allows a transaction to be traced to its originator with an accuracy of about 97%.

Monero’s adherents have been using the chain for years. None of this was known until now. And even now, there, I’m sure, will be objections and critiques of the analysis itself. This is science. There is no question. The idea that there are millions of people watching the chain and making sure that others in the chain are behaving correctly is laughable. Most data requires a degree in astro-physics (or its equivalent) to uncover.

So, now, we ask what the purpose of all this crypto is. Money, at least in the Keynesian sense, is understood to be a list of debts. Basically, you give unto me this thing, I give unto you this acknowledgement that I owed you one. This is the simple of why money is debt-based. It’s also the essence of why money isn’t a commodity in the sense that gold is a commodity or oil is a commodity. The use of money needs to be utterly narrow. It’s why written on our money is “this note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.” That is what money is, and that is what money is for. Oil can be used as a lubricant, oil can be used to derive gasoline or diesel. Oil can be used in the creation of plastics. Oil is bad money.

Interestingly, Bitcoin (and I will just discuss Bitcoin) is a great way to transfer value. It is a spaceless commodity with almost no use outside of its use as a value transfer device - at least not yet. This makes it a great way to move money where the process of moving money is expensive. For legal transactions, this will mean that (unless the person has a terribly bad understanding of their risks) they will need an easy way to liquidate the commodity. No business should expose themselves to the risk of holding Bitcoin unless they are a custodian service. For those that are doing illegal things, holding value in Bitcoin is a great way to store value though it exposes that person to the volatility of the commodity. And to those who would tout the benefits of something like tether for this cause, consider that those who are holding money for doing that which is deemed deviant, are exposed to the possibility of seizure every time their money enters an exchange. Moreover, they must ask themselves if they are more comfortable exposing themselves to the volatility of Bitcoin or the risks of a poorly managed peg.

Money is hard. Bitcoin is hard. What I like about it is that Bitcoin forces many of us to ask “why?” when considering how the current system works. Those who have been fair with their answers, understand things like custodianship is one of the world’s most solved and most difficult problems. How do you hold money? The answer for Bitcoiners has involved all sorts of frustrations. Hold your own Bitcoin might be the mantra of the anarchic arrivals, but it’s not practical for ma and pa. And holding it yourself presents all sorts of other problems. Who here had heard of an “air-gapped machine” before Bitcoin? Who had heard of a private key? Some of you will say you had. I’d venture that most hadn’t. And I think the numbers bear it out. Given the Monero data, it seems pretty clear that individuals do not know how to manage their own private keys. And the proliferation of hardware wallets demonstrates something similar. How much money is on Trezors? How risky might that be? These are hard, if not impossible, to quantify.

So now we enter the era of innovation in “blockchain.” All these ICOs have popped up touting their incredible inventiveness. Most of them are doing things in the blockchain space. Many of them are solving what they deem to be hard problems. But generally, these hard problems are being proposed by people no older than their early twenties. Or, they are proposed by narrow-minded neophytes solving problems in industries they have nothing but a myopic understanding of. Listen to the musicians for example. Tatiana Moroz has a token. Originally it was proposed as a token with little to no actual function. She said she was the first musician to adopt Blockchain stuff. She may have accepted payment in it. But that was nothing more than masturbatory self-importance. There was no liquidity in the market for TatianaCoin. Imogen Heap proposed a blockchain solution to the very difficult problem that musicians have: cutting checks to band members. The revolution is here. Now, instead of a bar owner paying a band (which is a corporation) and that band using modern infrastructures like HR software or the humbler check to pay their mates, Imogen has proposed offloading the burden of payments to the payee. Now the bar owner can easily pay the entire band. All he has to do is take his dollars (which he has lots of), obtain Ethereum (which he has none of), take custody of Ethereum for a time (probably will have to buy a ledger or a Trezor or learn private/public key management), then send it off to a checksum-less smart contract where something happens. Now that the band members have Ethereum, they can easily sell it on an exchange. They can then withdraw it for a fee. And voilla, it will end up in their bank account. This simple process is the proposed solution to what used to be the cumbersome and difficult process of direct deposit. Or, the antiquated practice of handing someone cash. I can only dream of a day when my valet is tipped in Ethereum or Bitcoin rather than taking directly from my hands the disgusting fiat. Imagine the improvements that will be rained down by such efficient applications. Every transaction will take only 12 seconds or a minute or 10 minutes or some variation thereof as we wait for a block time to confirm. The valet will subsequently verify he’s received my tip and thank me for giving him custody of the commodity which he will eventually cash out of to pay for groceries.

And while Lightning Network may cut down on necessity of waiting for blocks to confirm, there is something so idiotic about the process of both cashing in and cashing out of these cryptos that is cringe inducing.

The stark reality is that Blockchains are really dumb. There are some innovations that might end up being inspired by them. But for the most part, the current applications are so exceedingly stupid, that I can’t even. More than that they are being funded by more money than I have ever seen move into a space. But the thing is, there’s not really any institutional money here yet. The Universities aren’t putting money into the space. The VCs are just barely starting to touch it. So where is that money coming from? I strongly suspect that it is a combination of foreign nationals and the nouveau rich. I strongly suspect that this is the definition of dumb money. And one doesn’t have to look very far to see times when the dumb money has sunk an economy.

For “Blockchain” the only real businesses that we need are businesses that focus on custodianship of some sort. Custodial services are the fundamental, missing piece of the ecosystem. Institutions have them. Individuals… not so much. Wallets like Armory (which is a bit dead) are necessities. And what’s worse is that as the Blockchain gets more complicated, as Bitcoin becomes harder to understand, we will soon find that these services are both more and more needed as well as more and more absent.

So where does that leave “blockchain?” Blockchain is still as useless as ever. It amazes me that most of the world laughed at the concept of a blockchain only to show up 8 years after its invention decrying naysayers like myself as narrow-minded and ignorant. Those of us who have been here, sitting in the lap of innovation, being laughed at, we are the ones who don’t understand how this works. It’s an interesting turn that I wish I had had the foresight to predict. Obviously, arrogance would have prevented those who avoided this tech early on from admitting why, and Dunning-Krueger would prevent them from understanding how difficult it is to wrap their minds around. Alas, my crystal ball and naivety prevented that prediction. I suppose it will be another 10 years before everyone realizes that the real innovation of products like Ethereum is the redefining of the word “multi-sig” to “smart contract.” Same thing, sexier wrapping. And while people like Pitbull struggle to figure that out, I suppose I can find solace in the fact that real science is still happening in Bitcoin.

Boycotting Vanguard and BlackRock... Good Luck Stupid

bred-red — Wed, 18 Apr 2018 12:37:13 -0400

I think that David Hogg’s most recent tweet asking people to boycott Vanguard and BlackRock presents a great opportunity for education. The idea of boycotting these institutions is laughable, first of all. Vanguard and BlackRock are two of America’s biggest investment institutions. And they aren’t exactly the one’s “investing.” They are managers of money. They invest in the things their customers want to invest in. That’s how banking works.

The fundamental problem here is that a kid with some kind of goal has not realized that there are parts of the world he simply doesn’t understand. That’s to be expected. Hopefully, Mr. Hogg, you read this. I don’t have a lot of interest in criticizing you. But I think that a little lesson in investing could do you some good. Your life will be much improved by the information below. It’s just good, simple, advice. And I proffer it unto you wholly divorced from my feelings about your agenda. In fact, I try to be as a-political as possible.

So here we go…

1) Your investments shouldn’t reflect your morals

Not Investing in certain sectors of the economy is not hurting anyone but yourself. So, by boycotting Vanguard or BlackRock, you’re inflicting damage on you. That’s it. How is that possible? Well, a lot of people are really anti-[stuff]. Sometimes they are anti-consumption. Some are anti-oil. Some are anti-gun. But not everyone is anti-[these things]. And the market is relentless. It moves on with or without you.

There is a principle known as the Efficient Market Hypothesis. The principle states that all information in the market is reflected in the price. No one will say this is perfectly true. But most economists will say this is true enough. And for examples, you can look almost anywhere. When news breaks about a stock, within seconds, the price will jump in one or another direction to reflect the new information. This is the problem with insider trading. Insiders get information sooner than the market. This allows them to profit from that information by buying or selling their position. If they’re smart, they will leverage themselves to take advantage of the information the market has not yet “priced in.”

More than that, this little rule also means that you can’t beat the market. No matter what your fat uncle Ben tells you about his day trading and forex class, the data compiled shows that the chance of beating the market is as good as chance. And before you point at Buffet, that’s a different case entirely. I will do a writeup in the future about the difference between you and the Oracle of Omaha.

The thing is, if you invest in your morality or even just stuff you like, you’re going to invest in some of the stupidest stocks ever. Christian teetotalers might completely avoid liquor stocks. Libertarians might avoid banks. Liberals might avoid oil. Palestinians might divest from Israeli corporations. Pilots might only invest in airlines. I know a number of people who sold their companies. They often put a huge, outsized portion of their money into the company that bought them. The problem is investing like this means that you can not profit from people who enjoy your vices or don’t like the things you love. Essentially, their relentlessness in doing the thing you hate will leave you (and everyone who agrees with you) poorer. That’s bad for you. That’s bad for your movement. You will have less money to throw at causes you dislike because you refused to be invested in causes you didn’t like. It’s counter-intuitive, but it’s true. That said, the idea of “investing in” a corporation seems widely misunderstood. You have to realize that…

2) You Aren’t Giving Money to Companies When You Invest In Them.

Companies don’t even know you invested. When you hold Apple stock, no one at Apple’s like, “thanks for the money bruh.” This only happens during an IPO. Even then it’s not public that you are the holder of the shares. During an IPO investors send their liquidity away, exchange it for shares, and the money goes into the company’s coffers (after a hefty amount is taken out by the bank for facilitating the launch).

Publicly traded stocks are a remarkable thing. They were invented back in 1602 when the “Dutch East India” company offered itself for public sale. Consider that stocks allow individuals to profit from a corporation’s dealings without taking on the liability of the company’s stupid decisions. If you own Textron, for example, and they murder a bunch of Sudanese children, the executives and the people responsible are under the gun. You had nothing to do with it. You can even hate them without irony while simultaneously being an owner in them. And even better than that, you will have succeeded in never having given them a penny.

Alas, you say, “but isn’t my purchase of the stock propping up the price?” No! It’s not. Well, I guess the better answer is that this is complicated. But simply, if markets are efficient and prices reflect all available information, your not participating doesn’t really matter. If you aren’t buying or selling, an arbitrageur or a bank or an analyst will eat up your position. That means that you will be the only one missing out when the stock goes up. Or you will be the only one not missing out when the stock goes down. Feel free my son. Unless your a market maker, you have virtually nothing to do with the price of the stock.

The outgrowth of the principle of market efficiency is the now-ubiquitous index fund. The index fund was a theoretical fund proposed as a means of keeping businesses honest. For fund managers, the suggestion was that they could be kept accountable by measuring their earnings against an “index” of stocks held in proportion to their market capitalization. The result of such a fund over the last 100 years would be a rise of 9.9% annually. That may not sound like much. But to put it into perspective (there are people that are 100 years old, after all), $10 invested in an all-market fund 100 years ago would be worth about $125,000 today. And while $10 might have been a lot 100 years ago, it was nowhere near $125,000 today in terms of spending power parity.

Unfortunately, the index fund didn’t exist 100 years ago. Rather, it was invented on December 31, 1975. The creation of the fund was derided as un-American. Wallstreet equated it with communism. The thing is, it has been the most egalitarian investment tool ever invested. Given modern data, given the work of academics like Fama, French, Thaler, and many more, the data seems to show that the index fund is a democratizing investment tool. Sure, Blackrock can pitch people special portfolios of weird real estate. They can claim future returns of exorbitant amounts. But over time, they will not be able to return what the index returns. And that’s science.

For the first time, the index fund allows “the little guy” access to funds that return the same or more than any other person investing in the market. And that’s amazing. You or I or William Gates have the same opportunity to grow our cash as anyone else. In the same way you own the same or better phone that Bill Gates, you can now get the same returns. And all of it is thanks to a man named John “Jack” Bogle. Bogle created the first index fund. And he did it while enduring endless criticism and alienation from an industry that he loved. And today, Mr. Bogle’s company enjoys $4.2 trillion under management. It’s an astounding number to be sure. But what’s more astounding is that in an industry that regularly takes 2 to 3% from those invested monies, Bogle’s company is uniquely structured. It is owned by the people who have money in it - a mutual company.

It’s fiduciary obligation is not to make money but, rather, to save money. It’s investors, the people whose money is managed, take home as much as they can - and that’s how it should be. Investors put money into investments taking all the risks. Why, then, would that investor want the bank, which does nothing more than buy/sell/clear the transactions, to take 2 to 3%. The investor takes all the risk, the bank gets a huge portion of the reward. That’s why Bogle’s company takes only .05% every year. By the way, if you haven’t figured it out yet, Bogle’s company is known as Vanguard.

So let’s consider Hogg’s claim. Vanguard and BlackRock are two of the biggest investors in gun stocks. Vanguard and BlackRock have outsized portions of their managed monies in index funds (Vanguard has it’s own index funds and BlackRock manages the famed SPDR indices)…

3) Of course BlackRock and Vanguard are Huge Investors in Gun Stocks

When you have $434 billion and $4.2 trillion under management, much of it in all-market index funds, of course you end up being the thousand pound gorilla. And for those who are angry at the declaration, moving your money out of a low-cost mutual fund at BlackRock or Vanguard will just mean that you move it into another company with the exact same portfolio. You are no less invested in the gun industry or whatever loathsome industry you’re trying to avoid than you were the day before.

Ultimately, it’s important to look at investors like Buffet. He invests differently than you and me. While most of us are passive, he is active. I sit on the periphery of my investments. When Apple does well, I am excited because the portion of my portfolio comprising Apple goes up. When Buffet buys Apple, he ends up owning Apple. He has regularly taken positions in companies, and then actively worked to fix the portion that he saw extra value in. Basically, he does what he can to help the company make more money.

5) Investing in Companies is the Best Way to Change Those Companies

The problem is that when you invest in companies, you do it to make a profit. You’re just like Buffet in that way. And if you do ascribe to the principles of the efficient market, than you will have a weird dilemma on your hands. Advocating your morality will mean advocating that certain companies cease to exist. So I prefer to take the opposite position. Rather than advocating that companies cease to exist at shareholder meetings, you can simultaneously take advantage of the vice by investing, while taking contrarian positions against the company. If your gripes are meritorious, then you will easily whether the downfall of the company or industry. But, if your protests have the opposite affect of driving people to the business or the industry, you simultaneously are able to take the money of people doing the thing you hate. Yes sir, the index fund allows you to drink their milkshake. You can drink it up. Their money is your money because… well… you’re an investor and you get to benefit from the profits of the corporation without having to take a position on the morality of the company’s proceedings.

Yes, friends, the index fund is the only thing that will allow you to both have your cake and also eat it. Because while eating the cake of self-righteous protest, you can ingratiate yourself with the moneys spent by those whom you disagree with. All this while taking no responsibility or culpability in the actions of the nefarious company you hate. And that’s why America is a great country.

And that’s also why Vanguard is a great company. The truth is that Vanguard wiil likely be responsible for more social mobility than any other company in the history of the United states because of, as Bogle says, “The Relentless Rules of Humble Arithmetic.” Citizens in other countries are perplexed by the ability of American’s to freely invest as we do. And our incredible access to investments with unmatched returns is the relentless work of unsung financial academics.

So sure, protest your gun manufacturers. Protest your local politicians. Protest whomever you want and whatever you want. But realize that boycotting Vanguard or BlackRock or any other low-rate index fund management company hurts no one but yourself.

Bitcoin is Money of the Gap

bred-red — Fri, 02 Mar 2018 04:01:18 -0500

There is a concept of the God of the Gap. The idea of the God of the Gap is that God exists wherever science fails to explain creation. The long-known problem of the notion that God exists in the gaps is that the mystery of a divine is removed every time science explains something new.

In some ways, Bitcoin is similarly situated. It is the money of the gaps. It functions where it is more efficient than fiat. The result is that Bitcoin is useful for quite a number of things. But as governments enact regulation in response to the effects of Bitcoin, it may be that we find Bitcoin to be effective in diminishing numbers of transactions. By effective, I mean, more effective than incumbent systems.

Right now, Bitcoin is great for gambling, drug purchasing, exporting value from totalitarian countries (which is a kind of remittance), men hiding money from wives, governments making payments to informants, and any other kind of transaction that requires fungibility, anonymity, and censorship resistance. There are certainly other uses. But these are some of the big ones. Given the risks, for the most part, fiat is a better medium of exchange for most transactions. While Bitcoin is romanticized by Libertarians as the holy grail of money, users have to come to grips with Bitcoin’s volatility. Over the last 30 days, for example, Bitcoin’s volatility is approximately 7.14. This sort of volatility makes Bitcoin terrible for spending. Bitcoin inflates and deflates as much as 50% to 100% over the course of a month. Very simply, holding Bitcoin today can mean that your spending power is reduced by 50% a month from now. It can also mean that your spending power is doubled over the same period. This sort of uncertainty makes it difficult to hold if your only intention is to use it as money. Practically speaking, when a person is holding money, it needs to be known whether they will be able to pay rent the coming month. And while an economy that sees everything denominated in Bitcoin might have significant menu changing costs that would allow that sort of thing to happen, while it’s denominated in fiat, the cost is articulated minute by minute. And I don’t think that’s going to change very soon, considering the volatility metrics. Just consider the turmoil that would exist if the US Dollar did that.

So what is Bitcoin good for? Well, not a lot. We must consider that its uses need to be able to sustain the sorts of losses we spoke of above. And, while I think that Bitcoin’s undervalued still, there is no guarantee that its “hodlers” be compensated for the risk (volatility) of the asset. Some of the uses given above are evergreen. Governments will always need an asset that they can pay informants with. Bitcoin is a wonderful way to do that. It allows payment outside of the financial ecosystem. Simply, while KYC and AML regulations are good for a government’s ability to track money and the people using it, Bitcoin allows nation states to sidestep an enemy’s desire to track money. This would allow the anonymous payment of informants in countries where the risk of delivering pallets of bills would be mind-blowingly dangerous. This is one of the neatest uses of Bitcoin. Consider the ability to pay an informant behind the lines of ISIS. Payment from a foreign government in exchange for good information can be made again and again and again. The informant can continue to inform without fear of compromise. It’s remittance, of an important sort.

Likewise, Bitcoin has the potential to remove the last mile problem for remittance. This is a problem that plagues companies. That said, I’m not entirely certain how much it costs to service that last mile. If you have never heard of the last mile problem, with regard to remittance, it’s the final problem of cash delivery. Abra tried to turn this on its head by making cash delivery mobile. Local Bitcoins has done the same thing for as long as they’ve been around. Essentially, Bitcoin removes the need for currency deliverers. It puts the burden of the last mile onto the recipient of the coins. This means that a recipient can choose to hold the risk of Bitcoin or sell their Bitcoin to a local. Meanwhile, they get to hold the settled value regardless of what they do. Additionally, I suspect that countries with unstable currency, Bitcoin will be a better hold. People with low access to investable markets and currency options that are rotten will likely turn to exchanging Bitcoin. This would lessen the confiscation risk that many suffer under despotic rule.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s got some huge markets to disrupt. Gambling and drugs and other illicit things. So the question remains, how much supply do drugs and gambling eat up. I’m certain that there are answers to that question. But there is a strong chance that over the next 10 to 15 years countries will begin legalizing both activities. In a world where gambling and drugs become legalized, what happens to Bitcoin’s use in those spaces? While Bitcoiners want to sound the fiat currency shofar, signaling its apocolyptic downfall, for transactions on the up-and-up, fiat is hard to beat. And when fiat is not easily sent to someone, credit cards’ 2 to 3% seems to fit the bill pretty well. And even if 2 to 3% is expensive, consider that the credit card companies simply need to reduce their fees to compete with any good transactions that use Bitcoin. And that will happen. I guarantee it.

Gambling is following a similar trajectory. There are very serious talks about legalizing gambling in the US. Verizon is even talking about getting in when it happens. I can’t help but think that this is the result of Bitcoin. While gambling has always been a sort of gray industry, Bitcoin’s made it nearly impossible to regulate. Remittance companies used to be a large bit of the onboarding process to online gambling portals. Regulations squeezed that out of the hands of true remitters like Western Union. And just as regulators thought they had controlled the online gambling problem, Bitcoin came on the scene and ruined everything. But what happens if gambling is legalized? Then the only reason to really use crypto for the purpose of gambling will be tax evasion. And while some people will certainly use bitcoin for that purpose, for many the consequences of doing that will be too damn high (even for a seasoned gambler).

Now I think it’s important not to be myopic in our analysis of Bitcoin. I understand that these examples here are uniquely American. But consider that Bitcoin’s global status sets the demand. Its purchase, for the most part, is unregulated and I’m certain it follows a sort of global vice index for the most part. But I’m left wondering, as vices are made legal or mainstreamed, will Bitcoin find itself a diminishingly useful medium of transaction? In the way that a God of the gap is relegated to the corners of the Universe that are yet unexplored, is Bitcoin relegated to some kind of box, and as some things are brought out of the box, will it find a diminished utility? Is Bitcoin a currency of the gap?

If you got to the end, forgive me. I have been writing this in a post-conference haze at 4am, and published it immediately after finishing it. As usual, these are just some ramblings.

Trumph Harumph

bred-red — Mon, 08 Jan 2018 12:56:54 -0500

After spending a lot of time the last few weeks reading the numerous accounts of the Trump administration, I feel like I’ve got a pretty good handle on the state of the administration, at least per the accounts of the authors. First, whether the authors themselves are credible is a difficult question in and of itself. But, I think that the state of the campaign for those that like Trump can be best understood by a fair reading of the text purporting to cast the administration in the worst light possible. It, at the very least, gives a good enough baseline.

The first book is Harding’s Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win

The second book is the new Fire And Fury: Inside The Trump White House by Michael Wolff.

The first book promises to prove Russian collusion. The book purports to be a complete account of the Russian investigation, and it seems to be. From the creation of the Steel dossier to the panoply of characters that are in and out of trumps life, it certainly lays out the state of things.

But the book is like being a horse race gambler with a losing ticket and a pretty good horse. The reader pushes to the end of the story waiting for the win. And as he turns to the final page, the story ends with a number of questions raised but nothing answered. The glorious finale that it promises never materializes. The climactic end of a horse race where the horse you bet on loses.

Likewise, Wolff’s book gives the account of a baboon’s ascent to the office of the President. All along the way, Wolff apologizes for the characterization, in a sort of way. He delights in asking, but never answering the knavish question, could such a [babboon] as I portray here truly have orchestrated a Presidential win as Trump seems to have? He conveys the run as nothing more than an attempt by Trump to make more valuable his brand portending the eventual launch of his Oprah-style network. The book ends with the leaving of Stephen Bannon. His Epilogue recounts Trump’s political missteps in Alabama. But, much like Collusion, the book ends without any worthwhile or notable smoking guns.

The Russian improprieties, it would seem, are the result of Trump and team’s assumption that there was no chance that the candidate would beat the seasoned political class professional, Mrs. Clinton. The narrative of the accidental win is convincing. But insofar as it is true, it neuters the notion of mens rea in accusations of Trump’s Russian collusion. Either Trump ran to lose and inure to himself the benefits of his newfound international fame by launching a television channel or Trump ran to win and solicited the help of Russian spies to do it. Both narratives are fun to believe but hard to reconcile when presented as co-facts. But as it is, in some ways, at least according to Wolff, the Russian investigation relies on the narrative about Trump’s bumbling his way to victory being true. Wolff asserts that the Trump knew that he was so certainly going to lose that he went about his dealings apathetic about the consequences because, as he purportedly says in Wolff’s book, “it would be a problem if I won.” But as the prospect of winning was a non-starter, the author asserts, Trump did not guard himself against the possibility of corruption charges by avoiding obviously corrupt or even tacitly corrupt activities. Trump was a joke running for clout. But in his defenestration of the competing cadre of Republican blowhards in the primaries, he moved from joke to sacrificial lamb. At least that’s what Wolff would have us believe. Both in the mind of his party and in his own mind, he was not running to win. Both parties, both candidates, were prepared for Clinton to take the throne as the heir apparent.

Again, it is a narrative that is believable. But when cast against the backdrop of Russian collusion it is a hard pill to swallow. There are truths that must be dealt with. There are questions that must be answered. Sure enough, the Steele dossier, which outlines the spectacular story of Mr. Trump pissing on a number of prostitutes in a hotel room in a symbolic anti-Obama ritual, the portrait of Trump that emerges doesn’t buttress a strong man who would urinate on hotel furniture. Not to mention that numerous intel operatives have identified the likely falsehood of the story. It is a known tactic of Russian storytellers to include salacious stories that are titillating to Americans amidst a cornucopia of actual stories.

What’s telling about piss-gate is that while salacious the pissological story is the least criminal story in the Steele Dossier. Further, the problems with Trump’s administration seem obvious on their surface. But the crisis comes when we consider that Trump was elected as the kind of guy who might piss on prostitutes. The stories of infidelity or the alleged sexual conquesting Trump attempts with the wives of his friends are both uncorroborated and in at the same time would prove unsurprising at the very most if proven true. Half of the country would hold in esteem his sexual accomplishments. These would be the very right-wingers that the left has characterized as sexually repressed, and obsessed with the sexual peccadillos of gays and public figures. The other half would bemoan the disgusting misogyny of this male pig who used his power to dominate women. These would be the left wingers who stood by complacent as Bill Clinton, a known rapist, furthered their agenda in the 90s. It is a role reversal of epic proportions that Hippocratizes both sides of the debate.

The sex appeal of the Russia investigation makes it hard for the banality of the actual corruption here to be given its day. What of Trump’s ownership stakes in his hotel? What about the $150,000 that the secret service spent on golf carts at Mar a Lago? What about the possibility of currying special favor with Trump as a diplomat when staying at one of his properties? What of his children working closely in the Whitehouse and operating both the family businesses as well as their own? These are some of many questions that I find to be far more interesting, though admittedly less flashy. In the way that crazies both describe a fear of being followed by the FBI and a perverse desire that it be true, Americans seem to want some semblance of these Russian influence stories to be true. And they may yet prove to be. We have yet to understand Trump’s egregiously tied up financial dealings. His famous 2nd loan from Deutschebank may well prove to be problematic for the man yet. We can’t be sure for some time, or perhaps ever. But again, in order for anything to be both scrutinized and substantial will require some kind of political will. And for Trump, being that his party is in power, it might end up that a little bit of leverage against him (like evidence of a fully fleshed out crime) will put more power into the hands of the party itself. Perhaps that fact will eliminate any political will among Republicans, considering that such leverage would put them in charge of the agenda.

That said, it needs to be noted that Trump would have likely been avoidable if we had instituted instant run-off voting during the primaries. But that’s none of my business. It seems to me that the real debacle that America needs to deal with is the nature of the democratic process. It is a well-known fact that one of the hardest bits of a primary to overcome is name recognition. Sure, Hillary had no problem with her known-ness. Moreover, there has been a history of politicians coming from the rank and file of Hollywood. But rarely have they ascended to such high office. Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor of California, Jesse Ventura of Minnesota, and sure Ronald Reagan was president of the United States. But in the case of President Reagan, his acting career was long and storied, but so was his history of politicking. He was head of the Actor’s guild, ascended to become Governor of California, and eventually ran for President of the United States. Trump, on the other hand, is of a different ilk. The comparisons with Nixon are because, in some ways, their demons emanate from the same graveyard. They are both obsessed with being liked, both have a fetish with being considered among the so-called “elite.” They are the types of people that one could conceive of pursuing importance by way of joining secret societies or pursuing membership in shadow organizations like the Illuminati or Bilderberg society. The two of them believe that there is some kind of elite, not realizing that at places like the Bohemian Grove, rich people like Jeb Bush descend into the depths of immaturity arguing about whether or not they are important enough to get a milkshake before 8pm.

In the end, these books truly amount to nothing-burgers (as seems to be the phrase repeated by Trump’s defenders these days). But truly, they are. There is no revelation worth caring about in either text. There is no smoking gun, cover-up, or obvious crime. Even the caricature of the baboon running the country portrays an image of Trump that is more endearing than oafish. And so, I am left wondering where this leaves us. Perhaps the President’s image is in tatters, beyond repair. Perhaps it is not. But as it would seem, and this is a fair point made by Mr. Wolff, perhaps the scandals that Liberals have been drooling over, perhaps even their supposed cover-ups are, in fact, made up of whole cloth.

As it is, the subtitle of Wolff’s day-by-day account of the Trump administration, would have likely been more fair if it read, “The First Year Through the Eyes of Mr. Bannon.” And that alone makes the text as suspicious as ever - especially in light of the epilogue’s claim that Bannon is, himself, gearing up to run against Trump in the next election. Wouldn’t that be a wondrous campaign? Ultimately, I’m left with the simple quandary, “is name recognition the ultimate ace now?” And as I see news that now Oprah Winfrey is considering running, it seems that celebrities may have, themselves, become aware of the value of being known. Perhaps, the Presidency of Donald Trump does not prophesy the end of the American Political class. But, rather, simply provides a new roadmap for how one can shirk the once necessary process of politicking one’s way to the top. Perhaps the lesson of the administration is that it doesn’t matter what you do, who you are, or what qualifications you have, as long as you are famous.

And as for the questions that I think are important. It seems that Elizabeth Warren’s office has asked the GAO to take account of the President’s travel expenses. This may prove to be an important report. But again, the questions remain, even if Mr. Trump is self-dealing, does it rise to anything more than optically improper? Is it a crime? It might not be. But if it is, the report will certainly prove to be far more important than the copious mountains of paper that are being put together to prove his collusion with Russia.

Ethereum’s Promising Future

bred-red — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 20:10:56 -0500

I think that my position on Ethereum is clear. ETH started as a money grabbing project with very little in the way of future prospects. Since criticizing Ethereum long before it’s release, we have come a long way and ETH seems to have found its sea legs. In the last few months, I’ve been asked again and again, what I think about ETH. And I think that it should be no surprise, considering my history of stubborn resolve, that my position is the same. In fact, I would contend that all of my criticisms of Ethereum have been shown to be accurate. Amazingly, the chain’s demise is distant and as seems to be the case with blockchains, “demise” is, perhaps the wrong word. These things don’t die. They only… sort of fade away until someone somewhere revives the lost history. They fade into obscurity and disuse. But as long as there are believers and promoters, there is a chance that it will find price support somewhere. Even Sexcoin seems to have an $18,000 market cap.

In a way, the flaw of the blockchain model is that they are decentralized corporations. But there is nothing like “bankruptcy” for these corporations. While I suspect bankruptcy might look like waning emissions, it seems like these blockchains don’t explode like a dying star, but, rather, just slowly lose believers like a church filled with old people. This is also their strength.

So what was the prediction?

Boiled down the Ethereum prediction is pretty simple. A number of people have told me that they wish they hadn’t listened to me regarding Ethereum. Well, apart from the advice, don’t listen to anyone regarding your investments, BU’s predictions were never about Ethereum’s price. We regularly said that Ethereum could very easily pump. We’ve seen this again and again. Here, in crypto, stupid shit pumps all the time. Everyone here is playing a game of poker. Only so much money can be injected into any of these small systems before the injection of capital stops. Who is going to be holding the bag when that happens?

The predictions that Chris and I made are really the following:

Ethereum’s attack surface is large and in charge. Hacks and attacks will abound because the code is shit. This seems like it’s hard to argue. Ethereum doesn’t get more robust. It proves its fragility every time it gets hacked. Each of these hacks will lead to a loss of credibility. I suspect, as the codebase gets bigger and more unmanageable, the hacks will increase in frequency. But that remains to be seen.
Turing completeness is a red herring. There is no reason to have on-blockchain smart contracts. No one has yet found a use for these smart contracts that can’t be replicated on Bitcoin. And keeping a blockchain’s smart contract set small (nltv, for example), you don’t expose a massive surface to attackers. Bitcoin adds smart contracts to the chain like css adds functions as it finds them useful. But the language of the chain is neutered. For those new here, however, you should realize that this isn’t a limitation. Bitcoin’s openness allows the creation of “turing complete” anything off-chain. You can build a turing complete smart contract dependent on your own honesty and your remaining a going concern. The weight of smart contracts doesn’t need to be held on chain for the duration of the chains existence - especially when they are dependent on an entity to remain viable (like in the case of thse ICOs which require that the team/corporate entity continue to function in order for there to be meaning in one or another token). Ultimately, after years of touting the utility of Turing complete smart contracts, Vitalik agreed. Oh, and then there is the question of whether there is a use-case for a smart contract that is not perfectly emulative of an m of n multi-sig transaction. Ultimately, nearly every smart contract can be reduced to that.
Code is not law. Law is law. Code is flawed and needs constant iteration. Robots.txt has been functioning with little to no bugs forever, at this point. But that’s a rare exception. As the hacks of the DAO, parity, and many others have shown, bugless code is a utopian dream. Also, security through bummed outness and loss aversion is not security. It’s a chargeback. Moreover, the ability to disenfranchise a person of their digital bearer instrument (irrespective of how they acquired it) is a terrible precedent. The DAO’s rollback, for example, was a 51% attack executed as a result of the economic majority’s admission that they did something stupid. It was touted as the most compassionate and empathetic response to the theft. In reality, it was purely selfish. Bystanders bought into the compassion and empathy arguments so that Vitalik and his cronies could get their holdings back. Everyone abandoned the “Code is law” mantra within minutes of the theft and said that they had never said it in the first place. Those of us who saw the DAO hack coming remember the claim fondly. Code is law… until that ideology becomes expensive. Then, suddenly, consensus is law.
The project claims lack skepticism. All of Ethereum’s claims are met with a future solution that is both untested and inadvisable. Sharding is going to solve Ethereum’s scaling issues. Casper is going to solve the energy burning problems associated with POW. ASIC resistance will continue to make sure that mining is for and by the people. Vitalik promoted the DAO because he himself is unable to evaluate the ideas presented here. If you don’t believe that, you can watch Vitalik promote quantum mining, which he did before Ethereum. He is outsourcing his thinking to people near him, it would seem. So Casper… it will work because the person presenting it is someone he trusts - or trusted at one time. Sharding? There will be a day when it can simply be turned on and all scaling problems will disappear. Right? There is an insouciance to the difficulty of the problems. This handwaving should worry everyone. Because, as these things are added to Ethereum, the attack surface continues to grow. Your money is put at more and more risk.
Ethereum isn’t innovative, it’s inadvisable. Everyone knew you could put Turing complete smart contracts on a blockchain. It’s a bad idea. It’s a bad idea for the reasons I’ve listed above. The attack surface is too great. It puts the whole chain at risk. It puts your money at risk. It adds undue weight to the chain. Honestly, Buterin is being praised for his ignorance. He’s being praised not because he did something amazing, but because he did something inadvisable. It’s astounding. How long will this inadvisable thing last? Not sure. Now that it is being co-opted by Russia.

So here’s what I think will happen going forward.

Node centralization. Bitcoin suffers criticisms of miner centralization. I know a lot of individuals (even among core) think that this is a problem. Honestly, I’m not too worried about it. Perhaps that’s naive. But I see miners as highly mobile, and their equipment as highly portable. This may be giving Ethereum too long of a life, but presuming that Ethereum marches forward for some time, it will grow too large for individuals to have on their computers. This sharding (sharting?) proposal is a pie in the sky punt meant to distract from incompetence. Unlike government declaring, one cannot simply declare that something will be achieved in real life.
Hacking ennui. It will become an expectation that Ethereum just explodes once or twice a year from hacks and exploits. It will become the chain of children. No one serious or interested in finance will use it. It will be regarded as a trash chain.
The Tragedy. Ethereum is a commons. Blockchain trash is forever. The chain will become heavy with crap. Businesses that are no longer a going concern will leave their poo poo on the chain and Vitalik and his cronies will continue to say that sharding lets them maintain the chain costlessly.
Sharding will shart. I guarantee sharding will have some hilarious attack vectors if they try it. I bet that Ethereum loses a ton of history data because some hacker will find it hilarious to destroy. This will require a hard fork or something, or something, or something to fix. Whatever the case, it will be hilarious and a lot of people will lose money.
Shaudenfreude will be criticized but is virtuous. No one likes when people lose money. But at this point, Noah has entered the ark and closed the door after warning everyone about Ethereum’s problems.

Blockchains and Data Integrity

bred-red — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 18:11:45 -0400

I recently put together a quick write-up for an organization trying to figure out what “blockchain” could do for them. While I think I’m unqualified to speak technically, I put something that was a cogent, quick read that would add a little sobriety to whatever discussion they are having.

Blockchains are an incredible tool for data integrity. That said, they are not useful in most applications. The mythos surrounding the mysterious technology is likely to make one think that “blockchains” are a cure-all that will ensure incorruptible data, very simply, this ignores the actual problem that blockchain solves. I am going to attempt here to very quickly outlay the problems blockchains solve, and very briefly discuss what blockchains do not do. The goal is to cut through the rhetorical blockchain hype, and give any reader a very simple understanding of what this data structure is capable of.

Blockchains are a proposed solution to a problem known as the Byzantine General’s Problem. It’s a problem with roots in game theory and computer science that asks how a system can find agreement when there are participants who act against the best interest of the system - bad actors. While it remains an immensely interesting problem to study, it’s worth understanding that the solution has limited application. Namely, the solution is really only useful in environments where there is fear that actors have an incentive to corrupt data - which is why Bitcoin has proved itself the only substantial application of blockchain to date. As a bearer asset, a modification of data would be very profitable. Simply, if one can change the data of Bitcoin’s blockchain to show that a Bitcoin is their’s, it would come at the expense of it being someone else’s. The blockchain would pay a bad actor to corrupt the data. It is similarly profitable to hack into a bank application and change the ledger so that one has more money in their account.

This is unlike traditional digital assets which can be replicated without another’s ownership of the same digital asset being diminished. This is what makes most digital assets bad money. A piece of music or a video file, for example, might have value in and of itself. But as a digital file, one can be replicated to millions by simply copying the code. This ability to replicate a digital file is a feature in computer systems. But, unimpinged replication is not a feature of money for obvious reasons.

Before Bitcoin, banks solved this problem using centralized databases and complicated back-of-house netting solutions. While complex, this is a hyper-efficient process that has been built over hundreds of years and made even more efficient by computers. Credit cards, similarly, are able to offset the costs of policing fraud by charging merchants just a few percentage points. Banks are so efficient and have monetized their storage such that banks actually pay their patrons to store their money there in the form of interest. Moving modern money almost anywhere is virtually free if we negate the government’s imposed costs of compliance. All of this is done without a blockchain.

Notably, the cost of data integrity in Bitcoin is the cost of consensus. Consensus is backbone of the Bitcoin system. This is the reason for the “blockchain.” The blockchain which is often described as “underlying” Bitcoin’s technology is the skeleton of the system. It is not underlying, it is woven in. It is, through consensus, that the ledger’s state is agreed upon. In the case of Bitcoin, consensus is achieved through burning energy. These energy burners are independent actors who are rewarded in the currency of the blockchain based on the percentage of energy they have contributed to the network to ensure that the data integrity is achieved. The act of burning energy is a highly commoditized act and its profits are nearly $0. As such, it can be estimated that the cost of consensus in Bitcoin is somewhere around $7 million/day ($2.555 billion/year). All of this is done in an effort to protect approximately 130 gigabytes of data. Even still, it is the most efficient way discovered to achieve data integrity across an open ecosystem where anyone can participate in the making of the ledger and where the ledger contains data whose corruption would be highly profitable.

Most systems are not open as such nor do they hold such valuable data. Very few systems need a blockchain qua blockchain to ensure any kind of data integrity. Rather, a database with robust permissions, redundancy (such as RAID), journaling, encryption. and other centralized controls to ensure data integrity suffice. They have been sufficient for banks, and will remain far cheaper than any real blockchain implementation. The notion of a “private” blockchain is often conflated with the addition of some kind of merkle tree structure to a database that will allow an audit of data. Adding this sort of information is trivial. It doesn’t ensure data integrity, but, rather, allows data to be verified as original and proceeding from some original state. It is a feature that is not new, and could have and has been added to databases for many many years prior to the invention of a blockchain. Examples of public structures that merkelize data as such would be SSL certificates or Github, which is used as a repository for computer code. These are append-only databases that can be audited for verifiability. They are not, however, “blockchains.” Nor is there any reason to assume that a blockchain would be better employed in these applications than their centralized databases.

This is the same sort of line of questions that must be asked in the application of blockchain to industries such as healthcare or the movement of non-fungible assets like deeds to property. It is important to remember that while claims are made about the miracles of blockchain in its use case as a digital representation of a real world asset (like a gold IOU), it doesn’t remove the expensive part of a gold IOU which would be actually moving, storing, or securing the gold itself. Arguably, it isn’t even more efficient at administering the gold IOUs themselves. Moreover, just because a blockchain is used in the administration of these IOUs, it does not remove the element of trust required in another person’s custodianship of the represented item. Blockchains are not magic trust machines. At considerable expense, they can only ensure the integrity of the data that is in them. They do not ensure that the data in them was good in the first place or that the actors who put the data in them are good actors.

It is likely that while blockchain-based items like Bitcoin will be easily traded on futures exchanges like many other commodities (as Bitcoin is the most deliverable commodity in the history of humanity being how it does not take up space and its deliverability is verifiable), blockchains themselves are highly inefficient and won’t be a better structure than a database for the purpose of actually recording those trades. Good, old-fashioned, traditional databases will likely always be a better structure for private applications.

Peak Blockchain: Barron’s Publishes My Letter to the Editor on Blockchain... Kind of

bred-red — Tue, 18 Jul 2017 01:12:31 -0400

After writing an exquisite headline story about Bitcoin and its underlying technology - “blockchain” - I decided I’d write Barron’s a letter to the editor. I wanted to enlighten the world about all the things Blockchain could do. Here is my letter (which I assumed would never get published).

Alas, it was. Thanks, Barron’s!

There is almost no industry that blockchain will not disrupt (“Beyond Bitcoin: How Blockchain Is Changing Banking,” Cover Story, July 1). Nothing is off the table. Gold mining will use distributed ledgers to maintain a record of every ounce of gold removed from the earth. Diamond smuggling will be a thing of the past. We can put litter on the blockchain and know not just which countries are the culprits of filth but also which of those is the biggest polluter.
Provenance, contract signing, the destruction of every function of lawyers, airplane schedules, lost luggage, and the expensive back-office operations of banks. These are just some of the incredible applications of blockchain technology. Bitcoin was only the first of many to come, so-called “killer apps.” And while the permissionless movement of value is only nominally useful, as Barron’s recognized in the cover story, Bitcoin has truly proved the value of the technology on which it sits.
Joshua Unseth
Deerfield Beach, Fla.

Before all ye Bitcoin maximalists pummel me for capitulating to the rhetoric of Blockchain, I think it is important to realize that my letter to Barron’s has been edited. Now, I’m not one to criticize an edit. And I won’t start now. But I do think that, as one of the most influential people in, Blockchain, it is important that I publish the whole of my thinking. Yes, I do believe that blockchain will disrupt every area of life, but Barron’s, I’m afraid, left out the most important industry that Blockchain will disrupt. My pet cause, as it were, was left out of the article and strewn about the editing floor. It’s sad really. And while what was included is certainly true of Blockchain, it saddens me that the readers of Barron’s have been deprived of the contextual nuance I wished had been included. So here is the full article from which the selection above was taken.

Last year I was ranked the 9th most influential person in the “blockchain” ecosystem. I think that qualifies me to make comment upon your most recent Bitcoin coverstory. I’m happy to see my beloved Bitcoin gracing the cover. And I’m even happier to read about your discovery of the technology behind Bitcoin. For years, we Bitcoiners have hid the great innovation. We have crazily ranted about the doom of the American economy. We have decried the evil banksters. We have invented a currency of sorts, all in an effort to divert the public’s attention for as long as we could. Indeed, it is time for us to admit, I’m sad to say, that Bitcoin is a ruse - a farce - a well-placed placard. We have hid behind it Satoshi’s true innovation: the blockchain.
There is almost no industry that the blockchain will not disrupt. Nothing is off the table. Gold mining will use distributed ledgers to maintain a record of every ounce of gold removed from the earth. Diamond smuggling will be a thing of the past. According to Satoshi Nakamoto himself, Craig S. Wright, we can put litter on the blockchain and know not just which countries are the culprits of filth but whom within those countries is the biggest polluter. Blockchains are the answer to owners not cleaning up after their dogs. Blockchains will solve big world problems, questions we have never before been able to answer like, “wherefrom is this salmon that I’m eating right now and who is its mother?” But I am inclined to say that my favorite use of blockchain to date is its application in world of horse fraud. Horse fraud is the act of lying about a horse’s prodigious lineage. It is used to prop up the notional value of a young steed in an effort to gain a higher return upon its sale at auction. Blockchain can be put into the sperm of horses and provide evidence through a proof-of-stake based mining algorithm which horse comes from which horse.
Provenance, contract signing, the destruction of every function of lawyers, airplane schedules and lost luggage, the expensive back office operations of banks. These are just some of the incredible applications of Blockchain. Bitcoin was only the first of many to come, so-called “killer apps.” And while the permissionless movement of value is only nominally useful, as Barron’s recognized in their most recent issue, Bitcoin, I’m proud to say, has truly proven out the value of the technology upon which it sits.
While I have a strong emotional affinity for Bitcoin, a digital bearer asset that takes up no space and which has no bank or person running it, it is time for Bitcoiners to give up the ghost. We must put Bitcoin to rest and unleash the technology behind our beloved dream money. The blockchain is ready to be set free. Together, we shall disrupt the world with the technology behind Bitcoin. Huzzah!

https://imgur.com/XKS84Pc

The Value of Wealth

bred-red — Wed, 19 Apr 2017 02:08:45 -0400

“If you think about it, if you have a reasonable job, you’ll be eating at McDonald’s and I’ll be eating at McDonald’s…. You can order anything on the menu I can order…. You’ll wear the same clothes I wear…. We’ll both live in the same kind of houses…. I’ve been in the houses of people, where the houses are worth 200 times what my house is worth, and I would not be any happier in those houses at all. In fact, I’d be less happy…. We’ll probably drive the same kind of car…. We’ll watch the same television…. We’ll work on the same computer…. I do what I like every day, I hope you do what you like everyday…. Great wealth is the tiniest bit different than having a decent income. To trade a decent income for something you love doing for huge wealth where you trade off a lot of your principles would be a terrible mistake.” - Warren Buffett

I’ve been reading Buffett’s biography Snowball lately. This after reading Lowenstein’s biography of the man. I enjoy Buffett’s perspective immensely. Over the years, I’ve met a lot of Libertarians who will decry taxes or the government’s management of externalities generally. While it’s worth acknowledging that we are the earners of our own wealth, I think it’s important to remember the happenstance that got us where we are. Good parents, an amazing country, a time of incredible technological development, good school, the state of science, etc. A lot of people were not born with such advantage.

The amazing state of globalization reduces prices for all of us letting the impoverished eat a whole day’s worth of calories for about $3/day. The invention of the index fund by Bogle in the 60s, allows anyone with some extra income to take advantage of the growth of value in the economy. Innovations in mortgage lending let us all own homes that we pay off over 30 years. FDIC insurance allows us to keep money in the bank securely without having to worry about the solvency of their books.

These innovations allowed us to endure the most recent financial crisis with a fraction of the pain that would have been endured during other times in our history. If the global economy grows at a reasonable rate, consider that when global markets wipe out 40% of gains at one time, the amount of gains wiped out is more than the entire value created in the history of humanity. In some ways, humanity is saved by growth. Moreover, growth is advantageous to everyone. In a world where we the “wealth gap” is a central focus of millennials it’s worth noting the lesson articulated by Buffett. As value grows, the real gap between rich and poor is further lessened. The cell phone you use is every inch as good as Buffett’s or Gates’s. The TV you watch shows the same image.

Consider this world juxtaposed with the Rennaissance. In 1502 Chocolate was consumed by Christopher Columbus. In 1900, it was finally affordable to the middle class. Today, you can buy a small piece at 7-11 for a nickel (and it’s probably better than what King’s would have eaten). For an extra couple of dollars, one can get strange gourmet chocolates filled with weird ingredients like bacon. How much better does this make the chocolate? The experience of the wealthy eating chocolate is probably only nominally better than anyone else’s experience eating chocolate.

In 1503, the Mona Lisa was painted. Consider a world before someone could take pictures. The only exposure one would have to such exotic luxuries as gazing on the masterpiece would be the second, third, or fourth hand accounts of some monied person describing the site. Today, 5th graders who live in trailer parks can probably describe the painting because they have seen it. Its remarkableness is muted by its ubiquity. The experience of seeing it has become commonplace. Seeing the real piece is a bucket list item. But one’s life will not be significantly improved by observing the piece from behind red velvet barrier that surrounds it holding viewers off 20 or so feet.

This is the democratization of the experience of art. It makes it inclusive. And while Warren can travel to see the Mona Lisa in his private jet any time he wishes, his experience will have been only fractionally better than the fifth grader observing the piece as a picture in his history book in a classroom in the United States. Buffett’s experience may have been worse even, considering the impediments to enjoying the art piece (throngs of tourists).

When I was a child, I remember hearing about the mythical meal that Japanese people supposedly ate. “In some parts of the world, people eat raw fish.” We children would cringe and all of us would simultaneously gasp at the notion. Now, I eat sushi once a week at one of about 30 locations that have popped up within a 10-mile radius of my home. All over the United States, kids are exposed to global delicacies that were inaccessible and regionally locked just 30 years ago.

How did we get here? Well, it’s the result of progress and logistical innovations. As I consider the implications of progress, I am left wondering what good it is to be wealthy. What will the difference be in 30 years? If the value around me has grown so drastically in only 30 years, how will things change in the next 30? Will our kids rent private jets running on solar energy for the price of a car? Will the Hyperloop make travel so fast and cheap that one can live in New York and take advantage of the amenities while working in San Francisco? As the US drives modernization, what will happen to those countries less well off? They will follow right behind I imagine. I can’t help to think that this scales. As the gap between rich and poor disappears in the US, I would imagine the global implications are that countries will experience the same phenomenon. Whatever the case, this is going to be an amazing ride.

A Brief History of Bitcoin

bred-red — Wed, 25 Jan 2017 00:51:34 -0500

The End of the Bitcoin Natural Ponzi

When the World Bank released its whitepaper on Bitcoin back in July 2014, I was astounded by their stupid. Two years later, I’m humbled by their reasonableness. The abstract of the paper begins with what I think is a very reasonable definition of what a Ponzi scheme is:

Ponzis are among the most ubiquitous and least understood phenomena of economic life. They acquired a certain salience with the global financial crisis of 2008 and the crash of Bernie Madoff’s celebrated Ponzi scheme. This paper explains the structure of Ponzi schemes and argues that what makes this such a troubling phenomenon is its ability to be camouflaged amid legitimate practices. It is shown, for instance, that the common practice of giving stock options to employees could be a potential Ponzi that allows corporations to flourish for a while by borrowing from its own future. The paper discusses the need for intelligent regulation to incise harmful Ponzis (not all Ponzis are harmful) while taking care not to damage the legitimate activities that surround them.

The rest of the paper takes a look at the structure of a Ponzi, and defines them as both fraudulent Ponzis, purposely created to bilk investors, and naturally occurring Ponzi schemes that are caused by raw speculation. The paper is not sophisticated in aspect, but I think it is accidentally prescient. Since it’s release, I think that I have come around to the idea that naturally occurring Ponzis are all over the place. Gold might be one such item. It has very few uses, but is value dense, though it’s notable that its value is almost entirely due to speculation. It works well as money because of its scarcity and its nearly utter uselessness for use anywhere else. That said, it relies largely on speculative inflows.

Bitcoin has been, to date, very similar. It’s slow release schedule (mining) ensures scarcity though math + economics. But, honestly, until recently, its value has almost been completely based on inflows of money. Thanks to Libertarians, much of the value was buttressed by an ideological desire to see government crumble at the site of an alternative to fiat. Since those days, I think that the honest among us have come to understand that without government, there is no use for Bitcoin. Because, while the Libertarians provided what amounted to ideology-based price support, as Bitcoin has matured, we have begun to see its use among those who have no alternatives.

The Beginning of a Circular Economy

When Backpage’s credit processing was pulled (AMEX, VISA, Discover, Mastercard etc), Paxful’s Local Bitcoin-like exchange stepped in. The wonder of this is that the girls who sell their escort services on Backpage, are rarely in a position to pivot with regard to the way they earn money. Simply, they are captured by whatever payment mechanism Backpage mandates. So suddenly, these girls needed Bitcoin. A similar phenomenon happened years ago when the Silk Road encouraged users to buy drugs online with Bitcoin. Drug addicts couldn’t use their credit card or cash, for that matter, to buy their poison, they needed Bitcoin. This sort of necessity of use has begun to usher in a new era in Bitcoin’s history, where people’s ideologies are no longer the sustaining force. Bitcoin is seeing the development of a circular economy. And this, I would assert, is the point at which a naturally occurring Ponzi leaves the orbit of Ponzi-planet and enters the outer space of important utility. It is a thing people NEED, and not just a thing people speculate on. I’m not an academic, so I’m sure there is a lot of nuance that I’m missing here. But this is an important distinction between Bitcoin and other blockchain tokens. There are plenty of other criticisms, like Poelstra’s critiques of non-proof-of-work (POS) coins, or the possibility of the existence of 2 proof-of-work chains. These are important, but tangential, technical debates. In this article, I’m going to focus on the fiduciary side of the blockchain critiques, which I think we regularly ignore. And I’ll do it by giving my version of some history that many of you might not have been around for. I guess, in some ways, it’s a bit of accidental Gonzo journalism. I have always been a part of the Bitcoin story. And I can only really tell it from my perspective.

Bitcoin’s earliest mark of distinction is in its rise and rise. From having no articulated value to its famous, and sudden rise to over $1,000 in what seemed like no time at all in 2013. This is following subsequent sudden rises, such as the one that occurred right after Chuck Schumer declared that children could buy drugs on the internet. Shortly after, Bitcoin peaked at around $30 and suddenly dropped back to just over $1. Amidst the crash, Wikileaks declared that it was going to accept Bitcoin for donations.

Dumpy Butts and Fancy Shoes… the Beginning of Everything

There is little doubt that the rise brought with it a wave of speculators. Everyone everywhere heard the news of the once-cheap asset that had made its early adopters ungodly sums of money. Mere weeks after Bitcoin had hit $1,000, the North American Bitcoin conference was underway in Miami. Chris DeRose and I made our way to the event, one of many we would attend throughout the years. There, as Bitcoin hovered around $850, I was astounded by the newly minted millionaires of the ecosystem. Bitcoin had been priced between $7 and $14 not less than a year earlier. It had hit $100 around August. And by January had increased 8-fold.

Yet, there, on stage, a venture capitalist declared that he was an old-timer. “I’ve been in Bitcoin since it was about $100,” he said. “I’ve seen the ecosystem really evolve since then.”

The irony struck me. Everyone here wants to be an early adopter, I remember thinking to myself. While Chris and I had put in our time, we had been watching and playing with and talking about Bitcoin since before Schumer. We were here before the NPR reports. We had paid our dues. And here we were, hearing that old-timer meant arriving only 7 months ago. What’s more is that to date, I remember feeling like I had come to Bitcoin late. I had never thought to call myself an old timer. I felt like I had missed the early days having come around right after Laszlo had bought the Bitcoin Pizza for 10,000 BTC. And here, on stage, a Venture Capitalist had the tenacity to declare himself an old timer.

The conference might have been one of the most remarkable conferences in the history of the space. The rise of Bitcoin had given a number of people enough money to make the flight from wherever they were. The chairs were replete with 16 year olds dressed in new, odd, but very expensive clothes. Ridiculous Givenchy shoes, Armani suits, or clothing that could have at least passed for it, adorned the backs of everyone in the conference who had, just weeks before, never needed to cope with the trappings of wealth. What’s more, for those that could reflect honestly, many of their earnings had come from the change they had kept around after purchasing drugs on the Silk Road or other darknet markets.

The fevered pitch of anarchic dilettante was pervasive. We all discussed ending the fed, the evils of inflation, and we generally agreed that our purchase of tickets had landed us on this or another watch list of sorts. At the conference Vitalik Buterin, a young boy around whom there was no mythic glow, took the stage and described a system he was working on called “Ethereum.” A group of developers who had put together a project called colored coins did a presentation, as did Neo & Bee. Charlie Lee took the stage in another room and discussed Litecoin, what people at the time referred to as the silver to Bitcoin’s gold. And then there was the special guest. Bernard von NotHaus, creator of the Liberty Dollar. He was in between his trial and sentencing, and had made the trek to Miami to be a secret speaker. He made brazen challenges to the feds whom he said he was certain were in the room watching him and us. But his speech had almost nothing to do with Bitcoin, and amounted to little more than an anti-government screed lauding the Libertarian mentality steeped in the likes of Bastiat, Hayek, and Mises. At this point, I was familiar, and even excited about the underlying assumptions: there is good money; there is bad money; gold is good money; government taxes are theft.

The party that evening was a festival filled with pretty girls, surrounding a dumpy, tall man whose pants didn’t fit very well around his butt. He commanded a group of people as he spewed what sounded like nonsense. He was touting his new bank-killer Bitcoin-like app called Bitshares. I remember being completely perplexed by the marketing. It seemed like they had a ton of money, and I couldn’t figure out exactly what it was, but it smelled fishy. Was it a Bitcoin bank? Was it a different blockchain? No one who heard the pitch knew. But everyone seemed to think it was going to make them some money. Since then, I think that most of us have become very familiar with Bitshares. And I think this is where our story begins. Because reflecting back on this conference, I think I realize that this is where much of the modern narrative about Bitcoin began, and this is where everything went wrong… and right.

Before the conference, scams and schemes had abounded. The pirateat40 Ponzi scheme, Tradefortress and his/her problems, Bruce Wagner and the MyBitcoin.com theft, Bitcoinica, and many many smaller schemes had all come and gone. Some of the problems with getting money into Bitcoin had been solved by Gox and Shrem’s BitInstant. BitStamp had come around. Coinbase came around. And the market started to mature. To date, however, most of the scams had been Bitcoin-based. There had been a few alt coins launched including Litecoin. But they were mostly an afterthought. At the time, no one really knew what this thing was. We were all pretty convinced that altcoins had a place in the ecosystem. I remember even discussing with Chris the possibility of setting up endpoints around town at Starbucks coffee shops and using their internet to mine TorCoin. This is a fact I am a bit embarrassed to admit, but I think that it would be imprudent to wash my own history here. TorCoin’s proof of bandwidth consensus mechanism is (I’m sure) as stupid as it sounds. But back then… how could we have known?

And that’s what happened to everyone. People showed up, they looked around, and they were struck by the magical superpowers endowed to anyone with a penscient for the Dunning-Kruger complex. I summed it up years later, with the now well-used Bitcoin meme, “I Just Heard About Bitcoin… I’m Here to Fix It.”

This is the mentality of everyone who looks at Bitcoin. It’s a large, inefficient data structure, that requires massive amounts of energy to be burned in order for it to work. All of this happens to be for very good reason. In fact, I might go so far as to say that Bitcoin is big and unwieldy for the same reason that government is big and unwieldy. The problem it solves, the Byzantine General’s problem, is a corruption problem. And, as any regulator will tell you, the way to do deal with corruption is to develop massive infrastructures for rooting it out. Bitcoin is the un-regulated example of this. Its infrastructure costs are a software’s version of compliance costs. But those inefficiencies, to a newcomer, look like opportunities. And while, I think, simple abstractions like this one can get ridiculous, this is the closest I’ve come to making the necessity of the inefficiency of a blockchain simple to understand.

Larimer’s Moonshot and the Beginning of the Miami Bitcoin Meetups

When Larimer, the man with the dumpy butt who commanded attention for Bitshares back at The North American Bitcoin Conference, launched his blockchain it was the beginning of a new era in Bitcoin, I think. When Bitshares’ blockchain launched, the price began to rise. Up and up and up it went. What it was for, nobody really knew. All anyone would say is that it was a better, newer version of Bitcoin. Bitcoin was the old Model-T, Bitshares was a new shiny Ferrari. It rose to a value of just under $90 million in short order. Other coins, at the time, had reached impressive heights. Doge Coin had a much vaunted rise not so long before this, AuroraCoin was apparently worth $367 million in March of 2016, and there were numerous other coins that had made a mark on the ecosystem. But none had seemed so cultish to me as Bitshares.

It was around this same time that Chris and I began running the South Florida Bitcoin Meetups. It was our first real view into the Bitcoin ecosystem escaped from the insularity of our shared office space. We had new Bitcoiners coming every week, and we noticed that all of them would follow the same journey. They would come to get rich, asking questions about mining. We were uneducated in the subject of mining, but were pretty sure that it was not a good idea based on our having seen hundreds of people lose their shirts trying to build mining operations. It is largely unknown that DeRose and myself had strongly considered mining Bitcoins back in 2012, though we had decided against it (thankfully). We would have the occasional miner show up, and they would tell us all about their setup. The local hobbyist miners were always the most arrogant. And they always seemed to know the least about the subject matter.

Then There Was James…

James was a Bitshares believer. James was a family man. James had a wife, a kid, and was doing his best to provide for them. James got sucked into the Bitshares phenomenon, each week coming to the meetings giving us updates about the Bitshares blockchain. James was a programmer, and James knew what blockchains were. He was a competent coder who always had a strange side-project. His schemes were always hair-brained attempts at making money, but they were always pretty impressive as far as the technical abilities they betrayed. The week that Bitshares popped and rose from a tawdry market cap of around $16 million to its height of $90 million (August 15, 2014-August 26, 2014), all the believers went out and did the same thing that the Bitcoiners did at the end of 2013.

The next week, when James showed up at the next meeting, he had a new shirt on, new pants, and new shoes. He hadn’t overdone it like the 16 year olds. He was a family man after all, more risk averse. But he was given to the same proclivities to spend his gains as his 16 year old counterparts, just a bit more tempered. “I’m moving to North Carolina,” he told us. He had been hired by Bitshares to work full time on their code and he wanted to be nearer Larimer and the team. He was to be paid in BitUSD - Larimer’s attempt at a simulated federal reserve that, through a decentralized market, would peg the value of the coin to the USD. The project was soon to launch. And, while ridiculous, was one of the first attempts at what has come to be known as a “Stable coin.” It was on a different blockchain than Bitshares, which by this time had become a bit of a blockchain fart factory, and was the kind of idea a child might have.

Needless to say, James packed his bags and left for the hills of North Carolina with his kid and his wife. I don’t know what happened to him. I hope he’s doing well. But somehow, as he was a believer, holding on to his coins for dear life, no matter what the evidence would have otherwise suggested, I imagine he has ridden Bitshares from its peak valuation of nearly $90 million, all the way back down to its current value, hovering somewhere around the still surprising market cap of $12 million. At the very least, it’s back to where it was when James couldn’t afford the nice new shirt, shoes, and pants. But with it, I imagine, James probably purchased a lot of Bitshares all the way down. Somehow, while I hope he’s doing okay, I imagine that life for James is significantly harder now than it was when he was earning money from his blockchain programming.

Larimer Exits His Ponzi and Turns it Over to the Community

Nearly one year ago, Larimer announced on Let’s Talk Bitcoin, that he was abandoning the Bitshares project, and turning over the blockchain to the community. His team was moving on to an even newer project, a sort of Bitshares 2.0. Now, not so long after the initial launch of the Bitshares blockchain, it seemed that Larimer believed the original project was the new model-T of crypto. The move was unprecedented. Consider if you will, the fact that the investment in Bitshares was largely an investment in the team that created Bitshares. Larimer was who people were betting on. And for those that rode the rise in price, Larimer is still lauded as a man who can truly return value, though everyone will acknowledge that attempting to make money on the rise was a bit like trying to catch a falling knife. In his interview, as Levine points out, “this is the 3rd or 4th reinvention of the project.” Though Levine lacks the ability to understand the obvious fact of the matter: Bitshares was the first mass exit of what is probably a legal Ponzi scheme built on the back of information asymmetry.

Larimer’s team released a feature list that they said made their blockchain different from Bitcoin. And sure enough, the feature list was and is very impressive. Those who look at it will certainly acknowledge that Bitshares, on paper, is the Ferrari to Bitcoin’s Model-T. But the difference is that while Bitcoin was created in a world of 0 blockchain alternatives, Bitshares was created in a world of at least 1 alternative. The only way to purchase Bitshares and its subsequent experimental tokens like BitUSD, was to first go through Bitcoin. So it stands, that even those who wanted to purchase Bitshares, like the girls of backpage, they needed Bitcoin. Though unlike Bitcoin, no one needed Bitshares. Moreover, despite having an impressive feature list, Bitshares had plenty of other problems going for it such as its reliance on a nonsense non-work based consensus mechanism - which was its biggest feature. But like my admission that I had been taken for a ride by a proof of bandwidth based consensus, for the lot of us who were new to blockchains, how could we possibly have wrapped our minds around the claims back then? Dunning-Kruger is a disease of the human mind.

The astounding thing about these non-Bitcoin blockchains was the temerity of the believers to accept all claims without question. While Bitcoin’s solution to the Byzantine General problem was its reliance on simple, elegant Proof of Work, a young, barely 20 year old man, came along and claimed that he had also solved the problem using no work - perhaps the hardest problem ever solved in computer science. Throw in “consensus mechanism” and it was enough to draw in anyone who loved Bitcoin but who also had in their ideological framework an important place for environmentalism. Those with such a complex agree (even to this day) that Bitcoin’s proof of work is wasteful, and that we should, at all costs seek out alternatives. But the claim is to utterly misunderstand the process of proof of work. And as proof of stake (as the Larimer alternative has come to be known) has gained a foothold in the architecture of every subsequent blockchain, the criticisms of the most competent people in the room have been realized time and again: namely, all consensus mechanisms revert to work and as such, POS is nothing more than the process of obfuscating the process of that reversion. And thusly, with each new iteration, the proponents of proof of stake demonstrate the farthest reaches of the Peter Principle wherein a person obfuscates to their degree of comprehension. When there, they cease to be able to see the problems and all things are suddenly reducible (more on this later).

The Anatomy of Blockchain as Ponzi

The Ponzi scheme represents a belief in perpetual motion. People will invest in obvious Ponzis because they believe that this time, it’s different. This time, the Ponzi will go ever up and never down. But as the World Bank said, “The catch lies in the fact that there is no stopping point. Since old investors get paid with the deposits made by the new investors, you need an ever-growing pool of investors. This cannot happen endlessly in our finite world. So the tragedy of the Ponzi is that it has to crash.” Alas, the deeply seated belief of the investor in pyramid schemes of these sorts is that the inflows will never end. It is the perpetual motion machine of finance. Likewise, the belief that blockchains can work without power, which was what Larimer set out to do, is a claim equally as absurd as saying a Ponzi will continue to grow forever. It is a mechanical engineering claim that the world’s biggest problems are reducible to systems with no opportunity cost. And so it goes, the mentality of Ponzi investors and the mentality of blockchainists are the same, just in different realms.

Consider that the entire history of Bitshares was controlled by a single person. Larimer had all the information about when features would be released, announced, and, more importantly, when he was going to announce his exit from the project. He was in full control of when the inflows of money would suddenly be made less attractive. The dirty secret is that no one ever used Bitshares. Almost all of its funds were kept near at hand, where individuals could sell in exchanges. No one ever knew whether the features promised by Larimer ever worked. As such, the entirety of the value was based on the speculative interest in the feature set and Larimer’s ability to develop that feature set. For those that were competent enough to actually use Bitshares, they will tell you that the blockchain and its software have never really worked at all. None of what was promised was delivered. But it didn’t matter anyway, since no one ever needed the Bitshares blockchain. And so, filled with regret, Larimer was able to do whatever he wanted with his funds before making announcements about the project. While I have no evidence he did it, I can only assume that he and his team regularly bought before feature announcements were made, and sold before events like Larimer announcing his exit. The small team of developers were completely in control of the speculative inflows and completely aware of when those inflows would stop. And when they stopped, the team walked away from the project. And as the project slowly collapses on the believers, the team will be able to say very simply that when they left the project, everything was a-okay. And the guidance of the community that took over its development is how their blockchain lost its way.

This is the nature of blockchains. Insofar as we can agree that they are (somewhat) organic structures, built on the backs of faithful participants who host them on their computers, before a blockchain develops a circular economy it looks very much like the World Bank’s description of a natural Ponzi. And insofar as this organic structure can be conjured up in the same way a seed can be planted by a person and gives rise to a tree, a team or an individual can direct the growth and subsequent downfall of the blockchain Ponzi with little to no legal ramifications. Larimer did it with Bitshares. He’s doing it again with an even more sophisticated version of it now in his promotion of Steemit, a blockchain that solves all the problems Bitshares was plagued with - at least that’s his claim. The feature-list of Steemit, hilariously, is its Ponzi-like illiquidity mechanism which prevents users from exiting their position by locking up their funds with a promise of big returns. But this time, it’s different. This time, they will tell you, the inflows will never stop. Right?

Enter the Bankers….

(To Be Continued)

Future Bitcoin Headlines

bred-red — Thu, 03 Nov 2016 15:00:48 -0400

Hacker finds new vulnerability in ETH, network hard forks.
Overstock releases blockchain based trading platform
Overstock closes blockchain based trading platform Because Disuse
Patrick Byrne is “Let Go” as CEO of Overstock to Pursue Time with Family
Reputable Bank Partners with OneCoin
Factom Closes Series B Round
Evan Duffield Says Dash Blockchain Is Ready to Hand Over to Community
Ned Says Steem Blockchain is Ready to Hand Over to Community
Ethereum Foundation Says that Blockchain is Ready to Hand Over to Community
[Insert Name] Leaves Z-Cash Project to Begin [dumb blockchain enterprise]
Government Sends Creator of [blockchain project] to Prison for Running Ponzi
Poloniex Hacked, User Funds Lost
Coinbase Hacked, User Funds Lost
Factom Closes Series B Round
Circle Hacked, User Funds Lost
BitFinex Hacked… Again, User Funds Lost
Vitalik Buterin Leaves ETH Project in Shame
Zamfir’s Casper Doesn’t Solve Any of POS’ Problems, Foiled By POW
Perianne Boring is as Dumb as You Thought
Disney Abandons Blockchain Project
Not Even One of Barry Silberts’ Blockchain Investments Have Returned Profits
David Johnston’s Current Project Partners with [important institution that denies partnership]
Factom Honduras Deal Never Amounts to Anything
Roger Ver Says Bitcoin Will Fail if Something Isn’t Implemented Yesterday. Three Years Later, Still No Solution.
Bitcoin Price Rising Because Feature Not Implemented.
Bitcoin Demanded in High Profile Kidnapping
Regulations Curb Bitcoin Use, Price Keeps Rising
Factom Closes Series B Round
China Increases Price of Electricity
Bruce Fenton Declares New AltCoin Will Overtake Bitcoin Because of Its Glorious New Features
Economist Fooled by Ponzi Scheme
USV and A16Z Disgraced When Investors Discover They Are Promoting Ponzis to Children
Equity Crowdfunds Have Dismal Returns, Government Considering Re-Banning
Libertarians Incorporate Externalities Into Their Vocabulary, Still Have No Idea How to Manage Them
Bitcoin Becomes the Currency of Communes and Religious Sects
Inc Writes: “10 Reasons There May Be a Ponzi Shaped Hole In Your Business.”
Factom Closes Series B Round
Factom’s Last Series B Round Returns Less than Its First Series B Round
Bitcoin’s Circular Economy Might Signal It’s Here to Stay
Junseth wins Nobel Peace Prize for Dank Rare Pepe That Unifies Middle East

Suitertunity Cost, The Longitudinal Price Paid to Invest in Libertarian Ideology

bred-red — Wed, 29 Jun 2016 18:43:28 -0400

I’m always surprised by the reactions of Libertarians to market shifts. After Europe’s Brexit vote, the markets went down. My reaction: “awesome! I can buy some shares of an S&P index at a price that was not available to me last week.” The reaction of Libertarians is to point at the anomaly and say, “I told you so. You should have been in gold.”

While most people will tell you that the goal of investing is to increase your holdings, there is an inability for many to disentangle understandings of the unit of account your investment is listed in (probably $USD) and the definition of a medium of exchange. Sure, the United States dollar inflates at 2-4% every year. Sure, that means that your spending power parity is always dropping compared to the real value of your investment holdings. But for most of us, that really shouldn’t matter.

Consider that the entire reason Libertarians like gold is because they say that it is real money. It won’t lose it’s value. I have heard them say that in 1920, a troy ounce of gold could buy you a decent suit. In 1950, while the suit was much more expensive, you could still purchase it with a troy ounce of gold. And now, in 2016, the same quality suit can be purchased for the same troy ounce of gold. Apart from the fact that suit manufacturing has probably seen some advancements in the last 100 years that have driven down cost of production and driven up quality, the fact isn’t entirely untrue. Sure, in 1920, you could have bought a high quality suit with an ounce of gold, and now, you can still buy a pretty damn nice suit with an ounce of gold. Likewise, if you had held onto the dollars in 1920 and done nothing with them, you could probably sell those same dollars for a numismatic premium. But they would, almost certainly, have lost spending power. So the question we must explore is the following: who in their right fucking mind would hold cash for 100 years? And before you scoff at the absurdity of the question, consider that this is the thought experiment that has validated goldbugs for the last 50 or so years.

The opportunity cost of not purchasing gold, it would seem, is the lost opportunity to have at the end of things the same amount you began with. And if this were how I pitched you gold, you would very likely spit in my face. “What you mean to tell me is that you think I should hold gold instead of cash because in 50 years, when I pull my gold out, I will be able to buy the same number of tomatoes with the same amount of gold?” Who the hell wants that?

The Libertarians answer this by casting aspersions at the Federal Reserve. Inflation, they will tell you, is a conspiracy. These banksters, as Max Keiser likes to call them, are out to steal your money by inflating it away. Where you think you have 100 tomatoes worth of money in your bank account, they will soon make that money worth 50 tomatoes, and before long, 25 and 12 and 6 and 3 and eventually no tomatoes. And that certainly is true. That is the overall effect of inflation. But how can it be a conspiracy if the federal reserve tells you that that is what they are going to do? Why not simply plan for it?

For those that are interested in gaining no spending power when they invest, the Federal Government has bestowed upon our brow some interesting products. Most of them rely on a solvent government. But I’ll make that bet. End of the world reboot scenarios where I come back richer are uninteresting to me because while I would like for a reboot to happen and make me wealthy beyond my wildest imagination, the truth is, I’m a weak-bladdered, piss-in-my-pants when scared kind of person and wouldn’t do very well in any apocalyptic scenario. Eschaton aside, if you want an investment that will gain you no spending power, TIPS are pretty darn cool instruments. They promise to increase in value per the CPI. They are going to be less liquid than cash, but I promise you they are more liquid than gold and the slippage is going to be far less. For those that want to be exposed to the risk of theft, however, the Treasury has made sucker-coins for Libertarians. Legally defined as numismatic legal tender, a person can dump their hard earned money into $50 coins made of pure gold or silver. The American Eagle is one such coin. In some countries like Canada, you can purchase legally spendable Star Trek or Superman coins as well. While you probably can’t put these coins in vending machines, they will allow you to fulfill all your Liberty-lubbing dreams. Buy a $50 gold coin for $1200. The government will be happy to sell those to you. They will accept cold hard cash in exchange.

In a world of Brexits, maybe that is the way to go. Make sure you can buy the same number of tomatoes tomorrow that you can buy today. Maybe those are the actions of a good, responsible father. Or maybe it’s time to consider the opportunity cost of searching for the perfect, stable unit of account. There are a number of projects out there that strive to provide units of account that inflate at as close to 0% as possible. And while these projects are perfectly interesting, it’s time to acknowledge that they are, for the most part, money laundering tools. And sure, I object to the notion that money laundering is some kind of objective word where, like the Supreme Court’s porn standard, “you know it when you see it.” In reality, it’s far more complicated than that, and whether someone is guilty of money laundering is never something that we can say for sure (at least not in the United States) until a Jury of one’s peers hears all the facts of the case, goes into a backroom, punches one another in the face out of the public view, and decides whether they believe the actions of the defense constitute this somewhat mythical crime. What’s more, there are plenty of circumstances, I am willing to bet, where a jury of one’s peers would come down on both ends in similar cases. But I’m not here to discuss my understanding of legal theory, considering I know so little about it other than that it is inscrutably nuanced. But that is what stable units of account are for - which is why the criminal’s choice of exchange medium is the US dollar. It is predictable, value-dense, and easy to move from place to place. Moreover, it is fungible and globally accepted.

This is where the confusion is. Currency holds a weird position wherein it can be used as both a medium of exchange (like a beaver fur), and a unit of account (the unit that things can be listed in for exchange). Consider, if you will the notion of a beaver fur based monetary system. If beaver fur were a good, stable, unit of account, you might log into your Fidelity account and find that your stocks are listed in beaver fur quantities. “I’m so excited,” you might say to yourself, “my account has grown from my original 10 beaver fur investment to 15 beaver furs. Glory be to the LORD Jesus Christ.” And when you retire, Fidelity would go into its beaver fur warehouse, and divest itself of your beaver furs, sending you boxes and boxes and boxes in the mail. I think we can all acknowledge that there are some problems with using Beaver furs as a unit of account. Not only are they probably not stable, there is going to be a problem with their fungibility - some beaver furs will be more desirable than other beaver furs - not to mention a myriad of other problems with using beaver furs as currency. Mediums of exchange, really only work when people can derive utility from accepting them. Generally the sort of person who is going to want a beaver fur is going to find a great amount of utility in the soft fur. Maybe he is a Jewish hat maker, and he needs a steady supply of beaver furs for his operation. But for the most part, most of us do not NEED beaver furs. For most of us, the value of a beaver fur is going to involve a thought experiment asking questions of how neat a beaver fur would be to own, or whether we could get our local grocer to accept them for his tomatoes. The first question might entice each of us to own one beaver fur. But the second question, whose answer is very likely “no,” is going to ensure that most of us do not own more than one beaver fur.

The function of money is largely to allow us to exchange goods and services at a well understood cost. That cost slowly changes over time, such that your parents can tell you stories of buying gum for a nickel, but can’t really tell you stories about how, when, or why they stopped being able to buy gum for a nickel. All they know is that gum costs more now. We can all participate in this exchange because at any given moment, when the exchange is occurring, for all intents and purpose, the medium is worth the same today as it was yesterday. This is why hyper-inflation is so devastating - because this necessary assumption no longer holds. In a hyper-inflation scenario, and we’ll use Phillip Cagan’s definition, is when a medium of exchange is losing value at a rate of about 50% each month. For those who don’t want to do the math, that would mean that if you bought something for $1 on January 1, that same item would cost a little over $300 on December 31. The spending power of your money would be cut in half every 1.44 months. Simply put, the value of the tomatoes can differ day-to-day. And that imposes all sorts of extraordinary costs on everybody.

The inverse of the hyper-inflation example would be one wherein your money is always increasing its spending power. So to disentangle the medium of exchange from the unit of account itself, it seems to me that what you might want is to buy something that is denominated in something stable, like the US dollar (so we can all understand it), but whose value is increasing relative to that inflation measure - meaning simply that in 100 years, holding 1 unit of what you had will buy you many suits rather than 1.

Wouldn’t that be a glorious thing to invest in?

Consider what has improved exponentially over the last 100 years. In the last 100 years, the American economy has gotten better and better, and it has grown in incredible ways. 100 years ago, lightbulbs were new, computers didn’t exist, the internet wasn’t even in the conception of futurists, credit cards were a fictitious figment of Edward Bellamy’s imagination, air conditioning hadn’t revolutionized southern cities, and Norman Borlaug hadn’t reconstituted wheat and saved the world from hunger. Modernity has exploded with medical innovations from dick-hardening viagra to cancer-curing gene therapy. And it should be recognized that through it all, a fairly stable dollar has resided over the economy. And while we can debate whether or not it is good to have decoupled it from gold, or whether the Bretton Wood agreements are a good or bad thing, there is little denying the reality of America’s rise to greatness - and the subsequent rise of the entire world’s economy.

Wouldn’t that be a glorious thing to have invested in 100 years ago?

When I was invited into the Illuminati some years ago, it became apparent to me the benevolent economic experimentation that had been performed. Where Borlaug innovated by developing genetic modifications into wheat that more than doubled their yields, a more and more robust understanding of efficient markets has resulted in the incredible invention of the index fund. As Vanguard’s founder and former CEO John “Jack” Bogle emphasizes in The Little Book of Investing, you can purchase the entire market and participate in that glorious growth. Had you done that 100 years ago, today, you would be on your yacht having enjoyed every inch of America’s growth. So let’s consider what a Libertarian might tell you a suit cost in 1920. The price of gold in 1916 was, on average $18.99. So we’ll use that as our basis. The price today is $1,321.50. Your average Libertarian would say that these two numbers are the same, since gold’s value doesn’t change (a claim that’s stupid, but an assumption under which we’ll operate). What do you think that purchasing a broad based index in 2016 would be worth today had you put $18.99 into it? Well, the market has grown at an average of about 9.9%. Simply, an $18.99 investment 100 years later would be worth $363,414.11. So the Libertarian dream will have cost its most ardent 1916 proponents about $362,092.61 - all in the name of avoiding the Fed’s inflation. While gold bought you a single suit in 1916 and a single suit today, your S&P investment of 1 suit worth of dollars in 1916 would buy you 275 suits today (363,414.11/1,321.50). As such, you can articulate the cost of being a Libertarian in suitertunity cost. The cost of investing in ideology rather than science and math was (274 2016 suits/1 1916 suit).

Better luck next time, amirite? So while the Brexit is raging, and the world economy is on the bring of complete and utter failure, don’t forget that rantings of economic fragility are the mantra of the economic equivalent of the boy who cried wolf. Yes, the economy is always on the brink. And yes, the world will continue to function in spite of it. And yes, that means everything is out of your control. The best you can do is to make a list of everyone that tells you they own physical gold (just in case you need to kill them in an apocalyptic scenario) all the while you can buy the market through broad based indices and take advantage of global advancement of wealth. And in the event of a global financial collapse, at least you’ll be well dressed.

The Blockchain Hype Cycle

bred-red — Sun, 05 Jun 2016 17:04:42 -0400

Forgive me as I vomit.

I remember 3 and 4 years ago when many of us were discussing the possibility of Blockchain being a pretty good replacement for gold. Those of us who were making the claim were being laughed at by the more respectable, wealthy know-somethings. The tables turned sometime last year, when the bankers flooded into Bitcoin. I remember as I looked on with a palpable excitement. “The adults are here,” I remember thinking. But no. The adults, the people who were responsible and told me how stupid I was for thinking Bitcoin might even be a replacement for gold (something that many are now acknowledging) are telling me all the other things that the technology behind Bitcoin can do.

What does the man in the video above say? Health records, identity, ownership of financial assets, land registration, music and film rights, contract rights that will put lawyers out of business, authentication of Louis Vuitton bags, and even voting. If you’re new to the Blockchain rhetoric, you will be amazed by the cure-all claims of the Blockchain. And if you’re like everyone else, you’re probably going to think, golly gee, I’m way too ignorant to disagree with this stuff. Who am I to question that guy? He’s a millionaire. This hierarchical thinking has become a bit of a pitfall in the human condition.

Remember what Steve Jobs says, “remember one simple fact, everything around you… was made up by people that are no smarter than you.”

What does that have to do with Blockchain? Well, understanding that everyone is as smart as you (or if you feel dumb, once you realize that everyone else is as dumb as you), then suddenly, your inkling of charlatanism becomes more thank an inkling. This rhetoric about the Blockchain is stupid, it is a lie. The Blockchain is not a cure all. It does one thing well, and that’s that it allows the issuance of bearer assets on a central ledger. This ledger is secured by work. What that means is that it requires the burning of electricity to do calculations that are as close to useless as possible. Those calculations need to be used as proof that electricity was burned in an effort to secure this ledger. This system is highly inefficient, it is not better than a database in most cases, except where there is a high degree of censorship possibility. Financial transactions happen to have a large incentive to be censored because often by censoring them, the censorer can benefit.

How did we get to this place where the blockchain became a cure all? I’m sad to say, the adults came. They looked at this thing. They knocked on it. And they started acting like children. Meanwhile, the only people who seem to understand what the Blockchain does are gamblers, drug dealers, prostitutes, and others who are censored from being able to live in the real world with real world transactions.