cryptocurrency

AMA with Adrian Grenier. Wednesday 2/4 at 7:00 PM CT

Entourage star who at the top of the Hollywood game pivoted to an integral spiritual path and farmstead

AMA with Adrian Grenier. Wednesday 2/4 at 7:00 PM CT

Entourage star who at the top of the Hollywood game pivoted to an integral spiritual path and farmstead

AMA with Adrian Grenier. Wednesday 2/4 at 7:00 PM CT

Entourage star who at the top of the Hollywood game pivoted to an integral spiritual path and farmstead

AMA with Adrian Grenier. Wednesday 2/4 at 7:00 PM CT

Entourage star who at the top of the Hollywood game pivoted to an integral spiritual path and farmstead

AMA with Adrian Grenier. Wednesday 2/4 at 7:00 PM CT

Entourage star who at the top of the Hollywood game pivoted to an integral spiritual path and farmstead

A Plausible Oncoming Financial Storm. So, the economic situation might end up pretty dire if the following is correct. I'm posting this line-of-thought in case someone wants to sanity check it.

"To boost the British economy, I'd tax all foreigners living abroad."
-- Monty Python's Flying Circus

My read on the current economic order is that America is an empire. Now empires are supposed to extract tribute, and America might at first glance not appear to do that. But I claim it does. Instead of direct taxation the mechanism seems to be:

* Use a combination of diplomatic carrots and military sticks to make the dollar the world's reserve currency.
* Inflate the dollar by "borrowing" from the federal reserve (read: printing more dollars but with extra steps).
* Spend the printed money to subsidize American citizens in a bunch of ways to haphazardly offset the effect of the inflation being a pretty regressive taxation regime by default (medicaid, social security, food stamps, government jobs, etc.)

Now my fear is, if the Trump administration messes up our foreign policy badly enough (e.g. by unnecessarily hitting allies with the tariff stick, and showing signs that they will not in fact defend countries like Ukraine that the US had agreements with) the dollar might lose its reserve currency status. If this happens, we might be in for some pretty nasty levels of inflation (because, what happens if all those foreigners and corporations start dumping their dollar reserves?)

Anyway, I'm curious what people think of this line of reasoning.

#deeptakesonhottakes

Trump is doing his part to make money great again (by embracing Bitcoin). Preamble:

At this point I've spent a few thousand hours studying Bitcoin. It's a fascinating rabbit hole and a subject I've become passionate about. Here are some of the conclusions I've reached:  

1. Bitcoin is by far the best form of money that humanity has come up with so far. It’s accessible to anyone with an internet connection (truly global and egalitarian), its supply is finite (something we’ve never had before) and it separates money from state, which is really good for a number of reasons. To name just a couple: it curtails governments' ability to wage endless wars (that are, at least in part, funded with the creation of new money/debt) and it prevents them from constantly inflating the money supply and devaluing the value of each unit of the currency (the scourge that we all know as ""inflation"").  
2. Since it's still in the early days of its valuation, Bitcoin's "price" (exchange rate might be more accurate) in the short-term is very unpredicatable and volatile. But in the medium to long-term, it's becoming more and more valuable by orders or magnitude (hundreds of dollars, to thousands, to tens of thousands and soon hundreds of thousands per bitcoin). This makes it an excellent savings vehicle for the long-term. It's also a form of money that is unconfiscatable which can be extremely useful to people living under totalitarian governments, fleeing war zones, etc.
3. Everything else in ""crypto"" besides Bitcoin is at best, a startup with a yet-to-be-proven use case and in most cases more like a scam. This can be quite infuriating to those of us who understand Bitcoin because every single crypto scam only serves to further confuse the mainstream and to make people assume that Bitcoin must also be a scam.

Deep Take:

Trump has just announced that the US government will create a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, meaning they will be holding (and likely buying) bitcoin as a strategic asset, similar to how they hold gold, oil, etc. As much as I might dislike Trump and many of his policies, I think this is something that can have incredibly good long-term consequences for the world.  

I do think it’s a shame that since it's Trump doing this, progressives and people on the Left are probably even less likely to adopt Bitcoin. I imagine for most people who don't like Trump it will just seem like another of his crazy/dangerous schemes. I think that's a shame because when used as long-term savings technology, adopting Bitcoin can be enormously empowering financially and in terms of enhancing personal responsibility. I've lived this in my own experience and it's something that I wish for others. 

Nonetheless, I’ve always considered myself more of a progressive and I still took the time to look into Bitcoin, so it's definitely possible. I hope others on the Left can manage to be independently-minded enough to not miss the boat. I also think that only someone as “out there” as Trump could have allowed something as revolutionary and "against the grain" as a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve to happen in the US government. Evolution, as they say, works in mysterious ways.

Trump is being advised by Wall Street veterans like Howard Lutnick (Commerce Secretary) and Scott Bessent (Treasury Secretary) who understand Bitcoin and its potential future value. And yeah, they're probably mostly in it to make money. Lutnick, by his own admission, owns hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of Bitcoin. But that's not the point. The point is that Bitcoin is like a Trojan Horse. I'm pretty sure people in the US government and Wall Street (and subsequent governments around the world who adopt a similar strategy) will do their very best to co-opt Bitcoin. They'll try to take it over and neutralize it as a threat to their monetary monopolies. But Bitcoin has proven its anti-fragility time and again. Not only does it ""refuse to die"" but every time it's been attacked, it comes back stronger and even more resilient. I fully expect that to continue.

And so by taking the first steps towards the US government adopting Bitcoin (and thereby legitimizing it in the eyes of the world), Trump and co. are accelerating the transition from government-backed inflationary currencies to a form of money that can’t be inflated or manipulated by anyone and can be used by everyone. It's going to be a long and messy transition, but I think it's a very, very good thing for humanity's future. As the saying goes: ""even a broken clock is right twice a day." : )

#DeepTakes

Trump is doing his part to make money great again (by embracing Bitcoin). Preamble:

At this point I've spent a few thousand hours studying Bitcoin. It's a fascinating rabbit hole and a subject I've become passionate about. Here are some of the conclusions I've reached:  

1. Bitcoin is by far the best form of money that humanity has come up with so far. It’s accessible to anyone with an internet connection (truly global and egalitarian), its supply is finite (something we’ve never had before) and it separates money from state, which is really good for a number of reasons. To name just a couple: it curtails governments' ability to wage endless wars (that are, at least in part, funded with the creation of new money/debt) and it prevents them from constantly inflating the money supply and devaluing the value of each unit of the currency (the scourge that we all know as ""inflation"").  
2. Since it's still in the early days of its valuation, Bitcoin's "price" (exchange rate might be more accurate) in the short-term is very unpredicatable and volatile. But in the medium to long-term, it's becoming more and more valuable by orders or magnitude (hundreds of dollars, to thousands, to tens of thousands and soon hundreds of thousands per bitcoin). This makes it an excellent savings vehicle for the long-term. It's also a form of money that is unconfiscatable which can be extremely useful to people living under totalitarian governments, fleeing war zones, etc.
3. Everything else in ""crypto"" besides Bitcoin is at best, a startup with a yet-to-be-proven use case and in most cases more like a scam. This can be quite infuriating to those of us who understand Bitcoin because every single crypto scam only serves to further confuse the mainstream and to make people assume that Bitcoin must also be a scam.

Deep Take:

Trump has just announced that the US government will create a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, meaning they will be holding (and likely buying) bitcoin as a strategic asset, similar to how they hold gold, oil, etc. As much as I might dislike Trump and many of his policies, I think this is something that can have incredibly good long-term consequences for the world.  

I do think it’s a shame that since it's Trump doing this, progressives and people on the Left are probably even less likely to adopt Bitcoin. I imagine for most people who don't like Trump it will just seem like another of his crazy/dangerous schemes. I think that's a shame because when used as long-term savings technology, adopting Bitcoin can be enormously empowering financially and in terms of enhancing personal responsibility. I've lived this in my own experience and it's something that I wish for others. 

Nonetheless, I’ve always considered myself more of a progressive and I still took the time to look into Bitcoin, so it's definitely possible. I hope others on the Left can manage to be independently-minded enough to not miss the boat. I also think that only someone as “out there” as Trump could have allowed something as revolutionary and "against the grain" as a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve to happen in the US government. Evolution, as they say, works in mysterious ways.

Trump is being advised by Wall Street veterans like Howard Lutnick (Commerce Secretary) and Scott Bessent (Treasury Secretary) who understand Bitcoin and its potential future value. And yeah, they're probably mostly in it to make money. Lutnick, by his own admission, owns hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of Bitcoin. But that's not the point. The point is that Bitcoin is like a Trojan Horse. I'm pretty sure people in the US government and Wall Street (and subsequent governments around the world who adopt a similar strategy) will do their very best to co-opt Bitcoin. They'll try to take it over and neutralize it as a threat to their monetary monopolies. But Bitcoin has proven its anti-fragility time and again. Not only does it ""refuse to die"" but every time it's been attacked, it comes back stronger and even more resilient. I fully expect that to continue.

And so by taking the first steps towards the US government adopting Bitcoin (and thereby legitimizing it in the eyes of the world), Trump and co. are accelerating the transition from government-backed inflationary currencies to a form of money that can’t be inflated or manipulated by anyone and can be used by everyone. It's going to be a long and messy transition, but I think it's a very, very good thing for humanity's future. As the saying goes: ""even a broken clock is right twice a day." : )

#DeepTakes

Partisan Politics: The Ultimate Smokescreen? The Left demonizes the Right. The Right demonizes the Left. The media, for the most part, only stokes this rivalry. Both sides are up in arms, believing that they have to keep the other side from winning at all costs.

Meanwhile, governments and central banks everywhere keep issuing more money, devaluing its purchasing power in the process (causing inflation). They do this to finance wars, to bail out banks, to fund massive bureaucracies and social programs and/or to stimulate the economy. They do this regardless of which party is in power.

And they do it because they can. Because our money used to be backed by gold or other scarce commodities, now it’s backed by nothing. Therefore its supply can be inflated at will (and this is what the original meaning of the word inflation alludes to).

I don’t think they do it out of malice. They likely often have the best intentions, and entire economic theories have been created and are espoused by Nobel-winning economists and academics to justify why they do it. But at the end of the day, the power to issue money out of thin air is just too great for any person or group to wield responsibly. It inevitably gets misused and abused.

And it has disastrous consequences. Most people around the world are getting poorer in real terms, regardless of how hard they work, because their purchasing power is being inexorably eroded. And most people don’t fully realize that this is what’s happening. They intuit that something’s fundamentally very wrong, but don’t really know what it is. Stress, depression, anger, frustration and despair run rampant, and are usually misdirected.

And so governments of every stripe and their central banks keep diluting everyone’s purchasing power, effectively stealing our time and energy. You work to earn money, and the money you earn buys you less and less over time. This isn’t an accident, and it isn’t because of corporate greed, or because illegal immigrants are taking what’s yours. It’s the result of deliberate governmental monetary policy, and it’s a global phenomenon.

And they get to keep doing this because almost everyone is too busy fighting the other side to even notice or understand that it’s happening.

Trump is going to be President (again). The assassination attempt is definitely helping propel Trump to the presidency (aka the belief that God is ordaining Trump to be president, thus saved him from harm), though Elon Musk’s immediate endorsement after the assassination attempt (and $45 mil per month committed pledge to his election) has probably done even more to cement this election than the bullet. I was totally missing the tech community’s massive upset over Biden admin’s stance on AI regulation and crackdowns on acquisitions by big tech. Somehow, I thought everyone was alarmed about AI. It’s much more complex than I realized.

Both candidates are too fucking old to be president. One is a crazy and too old. The other is selfish and even more too old.

Eyes opened, looking at four years of dramatic course correction (is that the right word…correction?) I believe life is trustable and I wonder if I’ll be alive to see the good that will come from this huge swing. Feeling a need to distance myself, emotionally, get out a bowl of popcorn, to watch the show, trusting something…

Learn about Bitcoin. Your future self will very likely be grateful you did. I think understanding Bitcoin is in everyone’s best interest.

Although everyone’s heard about Bitcoin at this point, I think it’s still mostly misunderstood (and misrepresented).

I also think it’s here to stay, and will become increasingly significant and enmeshed in all our lives in the coming years and decades.

Also, learning about Bitcoin necessarily involves learning about money, and I think the subject of money is also widely misunderstood (to everyone’s detriment).

My experience engaging with the subject of Bitcoin has been extremely enriching. Yes, my net worth has grown because of it, but that doesn’t even seem like the most valuable thing I’ve received. Here are a few things I’ve gotten out of it:

-Holding bitcoin through the euphoria of its highs (in dollar terms) and the despair of its lows, has helped me develop levels of equanimity and resolve that I frankly didn’t know I had in me.

-Learning about things like Austrian economics, sound money, fiscal responsibility and libertarian principles has, I think, made me a more genuinely integral/integrative thinker. It has tempered my natural left-leaning idealism with what feels like a more grounded, common sense simplicity.

-Understanding the story of Bitcoin (and of its pseudonymous creator) has shaken me out of a cynical malaise that I didn’t know I was in, where I was assuming that it was almost impossible to have any significant positive impact on the world.

-Thinking of my savings in bitcoin terms instead of dollars/pesos has made me view my life on a much larger time scale, thinking in years and decades instead of days or months (while still living in the immediacy of the moment).

So, I want to invite you all to learn about Bitcoin. I’ll share a few great places to start below, and I’m down to converse about it anytime (it’s one of my favorite subjects).

I don’t think links work in these posts yet (just sent that feedback) so I’ll just name the resources, you can easily find them by googling:

*The Legendary Treasure of Satoshi Nakamoto by Tomer Strolight. This is a fantastic blog post on Bitcoin’s origin story. It’s philosophical, it’s spiritual, it’s awesome. And it’s now also been adapted into a great short film on YouTube, so just search for it there, it’s on Swan Bitcoin’s channel.

*How Money and Banking Work (and Why They’re Broken Today). Another fantastic short film on YouTube, by financial analyst and author Lyn Alden (who, by the way, I’m pretty sure is operating from integral awareness, though she’s probably never heard of Ken Wilber or integral theory). The short film is a summary of her excellent book Broken Money: Why Our Financial System is Failing Us and How We Can Make It Better.

A couple of awesome introductory books are:

*The Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous (if you lean more conservative or libertarian)

*A Progressive’s Case for Bitcoin by Jason Maier (if you’re more left-leaning).

*And finally, if you’re ready for the deep dive, there’s a free online college-level course at Saylor Academy that’s called PRDV151: Bitcoin for Everybody. That was the course that REALLY helped me grok this vast subject.

When you do decide to dive in, let me know how it goes!