Disclaimer: This is an ongoing story and I am not privy to any facts beyond what I read on the internet like everyone else, note this is all alleged activity and everything said here is strictly for entertainment and informational purposes. There are a lot of topics that seem academic and semantic but that have really big real-world implications. One of those is the St. Petersburg Paradox and … [Read more...]
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Insurance Makes Wealth Grow Faster
The traditional view of insurance is that it is a “win-lose” proposition. There are three reasons that insurance would exist: Asymmetric information - one party knows something that the other doesn’t.Irrationality - one party (typically the insurance purchaser) is dumb.Risk aversion - the buyer of insurance knows they are making a losing bet, but are willing to do this as a way to be more … [Read more...]
A Big Little Idea Called Ergodicity (Or, The Ultimate Guide to Russian Roulette)
This is a big article. Download it as a beautiful PDF to read later! You will also get access to my popular Interesting Times newsletter where I share links to similar articles, tools and lots more. One of the most frequent questions I get from readers is “How do I win at Russian Roulette?” I’m sure you can relate. You’re standing in the dairy aisle at the grocery … [Read more...]
A Blockchain Explanation Your Parents Could Understand
Shrek: Ogres are like onions. Donkey: They stink? Shrek: Yes. No. Donkey: Oh, they make you cry. Shrek: No. Donkey: Oh, you leave em out in the sun, they get all brown, start sproutin’ little white hairs. Shrek: No. Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers. Donkey: Oh, you both have LAYERS. Oh. You know, not everybody like onions. … [Read more...]
Markets Are Eating The World
For the last hundred years, individuals have worked for firms, and, by historical standards, large ones. That many of us live in suburbs and drive our cars into the city to go to work at a large office building is so normal that it seems like it has always been this way. Of course, it hasn’t. In 1870, almost 50 percent of the U.S. population was employed in agriculture. As of 2008, less than 2 … [Read more...]
Will Smart Contracts Eat the World?
In 1994, Nick Szabo, a legal scholar and computer scientist, coined the term “smart contract” to describe the ability to embed contracts, a legal construct, into computer code. With the emergence of a blockchain ecosystem, the excitement around smart contracts has picked up. In this article, I’m going to explore what smart contracts are and why it’s valuable to combine them with blockchain … [Read more...]
When Will Crypto Crash (Again?)
When will bitcoin and the broader crypto market crash (again)? Or crash farther? I think the place to start thinking about this is why are crypto markets so volatile in the first place. Perhaps more importantly, is that volatility a bad thing? I believe there are a few reasons for all the volatility in crypto markets. We’ll start with the most obvious ones and work our way to the least obvious, … [Read more...]
Blockchain Explained: How Does Blockchain Technology Work?
This is a long article answering the question "How Does Blockchain Work?" to a non-technical reader. You can download a PDF version of this post below. The first blockchain was conceptualized by an individual (or group of individuals) known as Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. It was launched the following year in January 2009 by Nakamoto as a core component of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, … [Read more...]
What Gives Bitcoin Value? Or The Most Important Idea In Cryptocurrency
Short version: Social scalability is the core idea behind what gives bitcoin value and makes it such a powerful and important technology. “It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the … [Read more...]
Blockchain Supply Chain Use Cases: A Multi-Trillion Dollar Opportunity?
TL;DR There are a few blockchain supply chain use cases which have the potential to restructure the industry. One particularly impactful use case is making it easier for small suppliers to get more financing on better terms. Most of the blockchain applications emerging right now are effectively porting existing solutions onto the blockchain (Uber for the blockchain, Airbnb for the blockchain, … [Read more...]
Why Is Bitcoin Valuable?
On almost every dimension, Bitcoin is worse than its centralized counterparts like Paypal or Chase. This is true not just of bitcoin but almost all decentralized cryptocurrency protocols. They are slower, more expensive, harder to scale, and offer worse user experiences. So why is bitcoin valuable? Why are other decentralized applications valuable? Transactions on the Bitcoin network are … [Read more...]
How to Get Into Cryptocurrency: The Best Cryptocurrency Resources
I was getting started with cryptocurrency in 2012 when I first heard about Bitcoin. I didn’t “get it.” Terms like decentralized, distributed and disintermediation piqued my interest, but I lacked the technical understanding to really understand what I was looking at. I needed a class in cryptocurrency 101, some help getting started with cryptocurrency. I started reading up in 2015, wading … [Read more...]