Posts Tagged ‘cryptocurrency’
“Fortune favors the brave”*…
Cryptonauts
History is filled with almosts. With those who almost adventured, who almost achieved, but ultimately, for them it proved to be too much. Then, there are others. The ones who embrace the moment, and commit. And in these moments of truth . . . they calm their minds and steel their nerves with four simple words that have been whispered by the intrepid since the time of the Romans. Fortune favours the brave.
Adam Tooze been mulling these lines ever since he first saw the commercial for crypto.com done by Matt Damon during a football game back in the autumn of 2021:
Now he unpacks the backstory…
The phrase “fortune favors the brave” is generally attributed to Pliny the Elder, the obsessive scholar and Roman Fleet commander. He uttered it on the fateful night of August 24 79 AD when the volcano Vesuvius erupted and buried Herculaneum and Pompeii. As recalled 25 years later, at the request of Tacitus, by his nephew Pliny the Younger, Pliny the Elder ignored the advice of his helmsman and steered directly towards the eruption, hoping to pull off a famous rescue. Instead, he was overwhelmed, lost control of the situation and finally, in ridiculous circumstances, succumbed to the fumes, becoming one of the thousands of casualties…
You might say that evoking Pliny’s famous phrase was more apt than Damon or crypto.com realized.
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But Vesuvius does not belong only to the classical tradition. In the 18th century, the volcano would become one of the quintessential sites of the romantic sublime…
A fascinating “close read” of an influential TV spot, its intellectual antecedents, and its (intended and unintended) message: “Fortune Favors the Brave: the making of crypto ideology, Vesuvius, and the romantic sublime,” from @adam_tooze.
* Pliny the Younger, “quoting” Pliny the Elder
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As we iron out the irony, we might recall that, on this date in 2008, the Dow Jones Average fell 8%, continuing a slide that had begun with the collapse of Lehman Brothers and other smaller financial firms. The DJI was at 8,149.09, roughly the midpoint (in both timing) of the sub-prime lending crisis and the Dow’s 54% fall to 6,469.95 (in March, 2009) from its peak of 14,164 on October 9, 2007. The recovery, of course, took much longer.
“This City is what it is because our citizens are what they are”*…
Joel Stein on the ascendance of Miami…
The last time Miami was relevant, it wasn’t important. In the 1980s, Miami provided nothing more than drugs, clubs, pastel blazers, jai alai gambling and, most notably, a hit TV show about all four.
But now Miami is the most important city in America. Not because Miami stopped being a frivolous, regulation-free, climate-doomed tax haven dominated by hot microcelebrities. It became the most important city in America because the country became a frivolous, regulation-free, climate-doomed tax haven dominated by hot microcelebrities…
How a refuge for the retired, divorced, bankrupt, and unemployed has evolved into a “paradise of freedom”: “How Miami became the most important city in America,” from @thejoelstein in @FinancialTimes. (A “gifted” article, so should be free of the paywall.)
An apposite look at ascendant cities worldwide, but especially in Africa: “Africa’s rising cities” (also “gifted”).
* Plato
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As we investigate epicenters, we might recall that it was on this date in 1986 that figure skater Debi Thomas, a Stanford undergraduate, became the first African American to win the Women’s Singles event in the U.S. National Figure Skating Championship competition. She went on to win a gold medal in the World Championships later that year, and then (after battling Achilles tendinitis in both ankles) to earn a Bronze in the 1988 Olympics.
Thomas then attended medical school at Northwestern, and has since practiced as a surgeon.
“Create more value than you capture”*…
A thoughtful consideration of Web 3.0 from the always-insightful Tim O’Reilly…
There’s been a lot of talk about Web3 lately, and as the person who defined “Web 2.0” 17 years ago, I’m often asked to comment. I’ve generally avoided doing so because most prognostications about the future turn out to be wrong. What we can do, though, is to ask ourselves questions that help us see more deeply into the present, the soil in which the future is rooted. As William Gibson famously said, “The future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.” We can also look at economic and social patterns and cycles, using as a lens the observation ascribed to Mark Twain that “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.”
Using those filters, what can we say about Web3?…
There follows a fascinating– and educational– analysis of the state of play and the issues that we face.
Tim concludes…
Let’s focus on the parts of the Web3 vision that aren’t about easy riches, on solving hard problems in trust, identity, and decentralized finance. And above all, let’s focus on the interface between crypto and the real world that people live in, where, as Matthew Yglesias put it when talking about housing inequality, “a society becomes wealthy over time by accumulating a stock of long-lasting capital goods.” If, as Sal Delle Palme argues, Web3 heralds the birth of a new economic system, let’s make it one that increases true wealth—not just paper wealth for those lucky enough to get in early but actual life-changing goods and services that make life better for everyone.
“Why it’s too early to get excited about Web3,” from @timoreilly.
See also: “My first impressions of web3” from Matthew Rosenfeld (AKA Moxie Marlinspike, @moxie, founder of @signalapp).
* Tim O’Reilly
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As we focus on first principles, we might recall that it was on this date in 2007 that Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone at MacWorld. The phone wasn’t available for sale until June 29th, occasioning one of the most heavily anticipated sales launches in the history of technology. Apple sold 1.4 million iPhones in 2007, steadily increasing each year; estimated sales in 2021 are 240-250 million.
“Organizing is a process; an organization is the result of that process”*…
19th century railroad stock offers were the cryptocurrencies of their time: confusing, risky… but with the promise of converting “old” wealth (mostly land riches) into the wealth of the future
Many crypto enthusiasts are looking at blockchains as a way to correct the sins of the past (government over-reach, lack of sound money, expensive middlemen, centralized businesses, etc.)
The truly important question should be way bigger than this: How can crypto-powered businesses create new types of abundance? How will blockchains drive our standard of living forward exponentially? How will we see the creation of tens of trillions in new value like we did with the stock market in the last 150 years?
The answer lies in how crypto can transform the tragedy of the commons into the wealth of the commons…
“Midas List” V.C. Mike Maples traces the provenance of cryptocurrencies and the blockchain from the railroad IPOs of the 1870s (which helped launch an explosion of global economic growth) through the work of Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrum to argue for crypto’s promise as a remedy to the Tragedy of the Commons: “Crypto Commons.”
[Readers looking for an on-ramp to understanding crypto-tech and the blockchain may want to start with Steven Johnson’s blissfully-clear “Beyond the Bitcoin Bubble.”]
* Elinor Ostrum
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As we address asset allocation, we might recall that it was on this date in 1936 that Henry F. Phillips received several U.S. patents for the Phillips-head screw and screwdriver– a system in which a matching driver with a tapering tip conveniently self-centers in the screw head. Phillips founded the Phillips Screw Company to license his patents, and persuaded the American Screw Company to manufacture the fasteners. General Motors was convinced to use the screws on its 1937 Cadillac; by 1940, virtually every American automaker had switched to Phillips screws.
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