Bloomberg does crypto satire. i particularly like the “ethereum may be deadwood” while “MakerDAO is exciting”. most excellent journalistic analysis.

how do you reconcile the fact that “younger generations are into experience more than they are in owning things” with “younger generations are more aware of bitcoin than their elders” ?

simply put, a payments business executing a correct payments strategy is delightful. compare that with the once payments use case involving bitcoin for example.

‪you can fool some financial regulators/prosecutors all the time and you can fool all financial regulators/prosecutors some of the time, but you can’t fool all financial regulators/prosecutors all of the time.‬

‪“perpetually wrong forecasts” is what a startup team should label its revenue/tam forecasts. that should remove any ambiguity & a serious venture investor knows this already. yet, a serious investor wants to see these forecasts to get a directional sense & see how a team thinks. ‬

by and by, the corruption of early fintech, from pure d2c to b2b, borne out of necessity after a lack of overall traction, is nothing compared with the corruption of crypto, from pure self sovereignty to financial engineering redux & manipulation because of greed.

‪losing: viewing technology purely from an efficiency narrative pov.‬ ‪winning: assessing technology from a social and ethical pov.‬

‪one of the few industries where I am viscerally against centralization is media. centralized control of media leads to destruction on a massive scale. this is why Facebook is so dangerous & this is why their planned use of blockchain/cryptography/a coin is utterly revulsive. ‬

working hypothesis: the more liquid, structured and global (scale & network connections) the market for a given asset is, the more inevitable said asset will be used for geopolitical purposes by state actors (to further trade, diplomatic, military goals) current examples: US$, oil. <filed under the unintended consequences of the tokenization opportunity driving cryptoland> …see more

today bitcoin, tomorrow tokenized underpants or which ever tokenized asset class makes it global first.

following Lavoisier’s quote, and before him Anaxagoras’ that nothing is created, noting lost, everything is transformed I have always been of a mind that risk does not get eliminated by the application of new tech or new biz models. risk gets displaced and re-arranged. further, i wonder if the same can be applied to centralization/decentralization. by applying new elements of decentralization to a system, ‪one just displaces and re-arranges a given amount of existing centralization into a different centralization paradigm. see defi movement in cryptoland.‬ …see more

this is a problem in every country and every market structure involving banks. bank market concentration brings about evil we only see after the fact. tech will not solve this issue. only legislation and regulation.

‪winning the lending battles but losing the payments wars is a doomed strategic position for banks. ‬

this “mutualisation” concept reminds me of guilds which were so important for economic activity along the ages. yet, guilds mostly benefit guild members who are divided between master craftsmen, journeymen and apprentices. the benefit is twofold: “rent seeking” & “social capital”. outsiders are usually hurt by guild practices. i do like the concept & the opportunity. the potential downsides should be analyzed too. …see more

well that was a long & fascinating read. much to mull over, especially in payments & identities. and the words of Les Grossman rose from my unconscious, “yes... and lots of tokens... playaaaa!” …see more

‪headlines one might find surprising: ‬ ‪- the internet saved the record labels‬ ‪- the internet saved the largest newspapers‬ ‪- the internet saved the largest banks‬ ‪(...add as appropriate...)‬ …see more

‪In the past 15 years, forecasters have consistently been too optimistic about the #economy - spectacularly wrong in the #financial #crisis and #COVID19 ‬ #recession

On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon blew up in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 men and setting off the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Five years later, I look back at what -- if anything -- the industry has learned.

Despite social distance requirements and the slow pace of post-lockdown reopenings, only 1 percent of the boutiques that are part of the ClassPass network have closed for good. CEO Fritz Lanman of ClassPass tells me that doesn’t mean it won’t be tough sledding for many until there’s a vaccine. Here’s his outlook on where the fitness industry is headed, the impact of digital in the longer term, and what he and his team are doing to help keep its member studios in tip-top shape. …see more

The #payroll system has long been in need of an update, since it’s technologically possible not to make workers wait two weeks for money they've already earned. Ceridian CEO David Ossip told me in a recent conversation that the global health crisis has pushed the issue into the forefront and what drove Ceridian to develop its Dayforce Wallet to make it easier for customers to be paid instantly, instead of in arrears. It's obviously a better deal for workers, but it is also a much smarter economic move for the firms that employ them. Here’s why. …see more