Bitcoin Tech Talk #421
Interesting Stuff
History of Financial Deplatforming - This is the most thorough history of the US's global financial sanctions regime that began with Bush Sr. The main takeaway for me was that international banking started politically neutral but has over time become more and more in service to US's political interests. The article gave me a good sense of why countries are looking at alternative non dollar systems like a BRICS-led one. Bitcoin isn’t mentioned but I found myself thinking that the US's eroding of financial privacy and liberty are exactly why it was invented.
Venture Capital Destruction - This article is about the scale of VCs and the destruction that they have left in their wake, not just in their many losing bets, but even in the winning, massively successful ones. The subsidization of these companies through all the VC money, which is ultimately newly printed, especially at scale create terrible outcomes through massive market distortion. It’s a reminder that fiat money (via loans to LPs which then get put into startups through VCs) is truly destructive in ways that we don’t account for.
Accountability sinks - This is a useful concept closely related to rent seeking. The idea is that when something goes wrong in an organizational decision, there's no one to blame as there is no one really in charge. Bureaucracy has this property and increases non linearly with scale. Markets ought to punish such behavior, but when such organizations are subsidized by fiat money, they are immunized from market forces. In other words, markets are the sunlight that disinfects organizations.
Rhodesia - The story we are told of many developing countries is that there is too much corruption and lack of respect for rule of law as the reason for why they don’t develop. This article argues that it's the American hegemony's meddling specifically around the form of government that has led to their going backwards development wise. Rhodesia was a prosperous place before the meddling and a basket case after and the reason for meddling was that the form of government which required some amount of wealth to vote, was not palatable to the west. The one size fits all nominal democracy doesn’t work everywhere.
What I'm up to
Product Part 2 - I talked to Will and we dove into the process of making plans from strategy. Once again, we ar designing a way for families or small communities to run their own Bitcoin banks so people dont have to be so deeply into Bitcoin to use it.
On Ossification - The video of the debate I had with Jameson is not out yet, but I've punlished my opening statement in favor of Ossification. The main argument is that money is better when its not changing ane we need the base layer to be stable for the layers on top to mature.
Rogue Food - I will be at this conference in Dallas next weekend (Nov 7-9). Use the coupon SONG10 for a 10% discount!
Nostr Note of the Week
What I’m Promoting
Unchained Capital is a sponsor of this newsletter. I am an advisor and proud to be a part of a company that’s enhancing security for Bitcoin holders. If you need multisig, collaborative custody or bitcoin native financial services, learn more here.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Bitcoin Tech Talk to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.