LynAlden
Lyn Alden

I realized the other day that Wikipedia has an article for me now.
It doesn't mention most of my work or Broken Money, but it does mention that nothing stops this train. 🤷
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyn_Alden
https://blossom.primal.net/6f6476b72a10b242e0d8098de29992693d6a47d06f38a6bdf379a58c3292d791.png

2025-10-25 15:16:59 UTC

Russell Napier is one of my favorite macro analysts that I've learned a lot from over the years. Had the chance to meet him at a dinner the other day and discuss macro with him.
Him and I often have similar macro views and a focus on the topic of fiscal dominance and the financial repression that follows. But an area of historic difference is that he has viewed Bitcoin as unlikely to win. He has viewed it as something that governments will ultimately not allow to function once the gloves come off and financial repression gets real from the major powers.
So I discussed that with him, since while I acknowledge that threat as being real, I think Bitcoin is a solid foundation to push back with. But in addition, I also highlighted Nostr, and decentralized comms and social media in general.
Back in the 1930s-1940s when the US banned gold ownership and implemented yield curve control (hard core financial repression), information moved slowly. A lot of information was one-directional. It was hard for people to coordinate with each other at large scales.
But social media changes the game entirely. People can meme about it in real time. Government and central bank social media accounts can get ratio'd. Maybe one day they'll try to put a stop to that on centralized social media platforms, but that's why the decentralized protocols are so important. The tools are simply much better today, making that type of smooth and coordinated financial repression harder to do since all of their reasons can be dissected and dunked on in real time.

2025-10-17 01:40:42 UTC

A giant explosion went off at a military base in Cairo. Five killed. Media reports about it are pretty much suppressed- it’s probably an accident but could technically be some sort of terrorist strike as well. Tragic either way.
But what is crazy to me is that the blast was powerful enough to break one of the windows of my house many miles away. It’s crazy how powerful big explosions like this can be.
https://blossom.primal.net/3fec3280d25b4b39422042ebb99f6d4f628bedd5792766564186cc1ef5a609e6.jpg

2025-10-05 20:32:31 UTC

In a couple of decades, what percentage of people do you think will be using centralized systems for money and communication vs decentralized ones?

2025-10-02 23:00:15 UTC

Government officials often use “security” as an excuse to take your rights. They’ll increasingly say they need to surveil and control your communications and payments to keep people secure.
How about starting with the streets and trains and such? If they were actually serious about security more-so than control, they’d make sure that basic stuff is sorted out first.

2025-09-29 03:14:07 UTC

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What makes you think I was talking about the USA?
https://blossom.primal.net/bb9d9613234d1bf16d03d9a07e3c0906395cc78e43793c0b7450c0b1ff9458f9.jpg

2025-09-28 23:52:11 UTC

The left gives themselves new political powers which then get used by the right when they’re in power. The right give themselves new political powers which then get used by the left. It spirals toward more centralized government over time.
Keeping government limited is like constantly passing the marshmellow test, delaying immediate gratification for longer-run benefit.

2025-09-27 01:40:50 UTC

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https://blossom.primal.net/1df0cd5261bd4c773d00dd2c83e03645c894379301b20a30b27a11414c80f48a.gif

2025-09-23 21:02:22 UTC

Can anyone shill me on why Superman 2025 was a good movie?
I thought it was awful, but apparently I'm in the minority.
https://blossom.primal.net/1cca5fffe79d20d006c592eadd4b3cb022e914cf68d43df7f1b71386062b0f8f.png

2025-09-13 19:15:37 UTC

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Yeah, gotta horizontal flip the gif or something. Then more accurate.

2025-09-13 19:10:57 UTC

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Mood after taking a partial social media break.
#nevent1q…57jy

2025-09-02 00:21:57 UTC

I see a lot of people on Twitter who talk about Nostr but I don’t see them here.

2025-09-02 00:03:33 UTC

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For anyone who has done the primal booth hang, what are the detailed rules?
Elbows locked or bent? Overhand or underhand grip? What rules need to be met while hanging?
My husband and I have been trying and failing to build our cool basement gym for like two years. We’ve been traveling around too much between our properties, I’ve been focusing on biking, etc. But ostensibly we’ve still got some stuff down there.
#nevent1q…smwa

2025-09-01 23:00:25 UTC

I have a lowkey but strong desire to see how long I could hang on a bar at one of the @nprofile…p6dz booths amid bitcoin conferences lately.
It's such a great marketing thing. I'm literally riding my bike around a beautiful neighborhood today like, "I wonder how long I could hang if I really wanted to, though."
Back in my martial arts days, we did pull-up contests. I touched 21 (ironically) at my absolute retarded peak where all I did was optimize for that like an absolute psycho, but couldn't do so today. Not even close.
Never was I measured to just hang, tho. I feel like I could hang for a while and ignore the pain, which is why I'm like, "I want to go to one of these events, seems fun."
I've been so busy at home that I keep turning down events and writing weird stuff, but in the meantime I'm mentally I'm like, "how long could I hang, tho."

2025-09-01 22:31:54 UTC

When someone asks you what Nostr is like.
https://blossom.primal.net/8fe51cea505295f503f6f0f0dd01de6df9eec6b36be9a8b97d907a9a1cb2af38.png

2025-09-01 22:25:13 UTC

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When people ask where the alpha is on Nostr, here it is.

2025-09-01 20:39:26 UTC

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Meh, a “wash your penis” bot is too obvious.
If someone makes a “wash your vagina” bot, it’d be controversial, given the complexity. Seems intuitively right to wash it, given we do everything else, but then it kills beneficial bacteria, starting a cascade, and various studies saying “ackchyually” you should not. So you test things yourself, both ways, then you get into all sorts of science of soft washing and so forth, trying to optimize. Your husband throws out an opinion, too.
Now, giving insights into that would be a proper bot.

2025-09-01 20:28:14 UTC

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Seems about right.

2025-09-01 19:25:49 UTC

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Which short book?

2025-09-01 19:20:05 UTC

GM.
Some people say that everything is good for Bitcoin. I almost, but not quite, agree.
Everything that fails to land a critical hit, is good for Bitcoin. What doesn't kill it, usually makes it stronger. The bigger and more robust it gets, the more resilient it is against even the idea of a critical hit, and that has required work. When threats materialize, programmers program, financiers finance, and podcasters podcast.
Bitcoin is a growing, robust ecosystem that responds to threats and hardens against them. Sometimes at the base layer, often at higher layers. It doesn't put too many premature resources against threats that aren't currently hurting it, but can swarm massive resources in response to something that does start to hurt it. Nobody's in control; it's a well-designed swarm of incentives trending toward life, and in this case life means functional operation as a permissionless and high-quality global ledger to store and transmit value (i.e. electronic cash).
I've long since viewed it in that self-healing way, since it's a similar lens to how I view the established macroeconomic system as well. People continually underestimate a lindy system's response functions against threats, for both good systems (like Bitcoin) and bad systems (like central banking). It took me a bit of time to be convinced that Bitcoin was lindy, but once I did, I haven't seen any reason to waver.
Bears doubt its robustness. Bulls consider it highly robust. I'm a bull. It's not that I consider it invincible though; it's that I consider it as having a high probability shot at resisting forces against it, and a better shot than any of its competitors.
And for those who don't know, my background is in electronics engineering with a control systems focus in my early engineering career, so the fact that I became enamored with the robustness of a decentralized money's inbuilt control system and the ecosystem surrounding it was no small hurdle. It probably contributed to my skepticism early on, but once my skepticism was satisfied, it instead contributed to my conviction.
I agree with those who say that one day state attacks will be the biggest threats against Bitcoiners. Not against Bitcoin's existence itself, most likely, but against its permissionless and private usage.
The defense against that comes from those writing high quality code that gives people tools to resist, educators and financiers that help expand them, as well as jurisdictional arbitrage as high-conviction people can and do move around between legal jurisdictions toward freer ones.
It'll be a longer process than many expect, I think. But the ecosystem is built for it, and attracts the best people to deal with it. And Nostr is currently part of its epicenter.

2025-08-27 20:27:20 UTC

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I remember this, filmed a couple years ago.
Just things one did during a bear market.
#nevent1q…3rk3

2025-08-25 02:30:14 UTC

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Oof.
Would be happy to see him here on Nostr.

2025-08-25 01:28:52 UTC

There are those who say Bitcoin doesn't scale, and build blockchains with more throughput at the cost of more centralization (generally in the form of it being way harder to run a node), and then also point to Bitcoin as having low fees as a criticism.
The limiter it turns out, 16 years in, is not how many people *can* self-custody bitcoin. It's how many people *want* to.
Not everyone wants to deal with the technicalities of their own car, and not everyone wants to handle the technicalities of their own money. Quite few, in fact. It's always a subset for these types of things. People who are hardcore over their area of knowledge.
I leave my car details to pros down the street who I know the name of, and handle my money myself. There are those who handle their own cars but leave their money details to others.
Bitcoin currently processes about as many transactions per year as Fedwire, which handles $1 quadrillion worth of gross settlement volume per year for the US and for a good chunk of the world (in context, it's approximately 200 million $5 million average-sized transactions). That's actually a crazy stat. Bitcoin is casually this open-source global Fedwire with its own scarce units, and unlike Fedwire anyone can permissionlessly build on it or transact with it, for low fees despite it being a +$2T network. And if it gets clogged there are all sorts of permissionless layers above it with certain trade-offs.
Some people say paper bitcoin holders detract from the network. I say the opposite- their willingness to hold IOUs helps add to price stability and network size without clogging it. That leaves more room for cypherpunks to develop with, and work on. And those who finance them.
This has been foreseen as early as Hal Finney in 2010, when he wrote about bitcoin banks (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2500.msg34211#msg34211).
We live in a sweet spot by most metrics. A golden age. Historically, so few recognize it when they have it so good.
Bitcoin is big enough to be of interest to many, and yet is still niche enough in a global context to have low base-layer fees. Suitcoiners are happy to add to its scale, and yet cypherpunks can also build, and users can transact right on the base layer, and move to Lightning and Ark and BitVM and Liquid and any sort of trade-off they want if fees get high.
And you're bearish, anon?
The real battle, though, is the ongoing government crackdown on privacy.
Bitcoin itself is in a pretty good technical place. It's a great tool. Certain conservative low-risk covenants might make it better, but even the existing design space is great and still expanding.
The US, Europe, and China cracking down on privacy is the threat. The headwind. And they're all expected. They're not surprising, but they're indeed fierce. That's the real battle- for the hearts and minds of people to embrace why privacy and permissionlessness are good traits.
In this ongoing funny contrast between podcasters and developers, that's the ideal role of podcasters- to spread the good news of what developers have built. To educate people. To tell them what's now possible thanks to developers. To articulate why cypherpunk values are good to a broad non-technical audience. That's where the overlap is. In overly-simplistic D&D terms, those with high CHA try to spread the work of those with high INT. It's not so much that "governments" are the problem. Governments often at least partially represent the people. If you convince a lot of people that privacy and sound money are good things, then you defang the problem. And you also challenge them legally in jurisdictions where it makes sense.
The technical foundation is good. The development of the past 16 years has been amazing, and it has brought us here. The scale has reached institutions, which is expected, not a threat. The actual threat is not treasury companies; it's anti-privacy regulations by governments. And more deeply that's a social issue, given how many people accept it. A vast amount of people believe privacy is only important for bad people who have something to hide. There's a ton of education work to do on it. Privacy is good. It's the default. But most people don't realize it when it comes to money.
We're winning. For 16 years ya'll have been amazing. But we'll need another 16 years more. More developers. More podcasters. All of it. We're a $2 trillion in market cap entering into a global fiat network of hundreds of trillions. And as their own institutions melt down from their own failures, their own top-heavy demographics and false promises, they will look for scapegoats. They will look toward those who are winning, and say they are the enemy.
When interviewers ask my price predictions, I tend to be conservative. That's mostly a liquidity assessment, and a rotation from OGs to new buyers. Price growth does take time.
But under that surface, I also have the benefit of being a general partner at among the largest bitcoin-only venture funds. I see what people are building, and I'm bullish. And for those who are working on stuff that doesn't align with profit, entities like the HRF and OpenSats are doing great work. Across all of the options, people are building great things.
I couldn't be more bullish on the ecosystem that's in place. All of you.
Let's go.
Good evening.

2025-08-24 18:13:59 UTC

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Both great, but first one is better.

2025-08-24 18:12:43 UTC

GM
My August public newsletter has now been published:
https://www.lynalden.com/august-2025-newsletter/
This issue covers: macro impacts from tariffs (ie a slightly slower but still unstoppable fiscal train), upcoming Fed easing, and the latest newsletter portfolio snapshot.
https://blossom.primal.net/dda9ad1604a35b913bfadf3c6b5488af5da26157d7f337208fdb2fb194cd355f.png

2025-08-23 13:01:56 UTC

Gm.
What’s your favorite movie made in the past five years?

2025-08-23 03:04:13 UTC

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The way I look at it, whether writing fiction or nonfiction, it’s not about writing what the audience wants- it’s about successfully landing what’s in your head into the audience’s head.
That means understanding the audience. If there are inadvertent frictions between you and the audience, the work is less likely to spread the entertainment, ideas, themes, and so forth as the creator sees it.

2025-08-22 20:58:52 UTC

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I think there's a difference between accidental decisions, intentional decisions, and pandering to everyone.
-For example I don't think it was a particularly intentional decision to have so few women in original Star Wars. It seems to have just kind of happened, which was pretty common in that era. And having a few more probably would have been a net positive given the setting (unlike, say, Saving Private Ryan where it would make no sense and would just make it worse). And just using the few existing women with tiny roles a bit more like Mon Mothma (the literal leader of the rebel alliance with near-zero screen time) would make sense. In fact, as more content for the expanded universe was written, more women were included throughout it, because in that setting it naturally makes sense.
-In contrast, modern movies usually do one of two things. Either they try to be generic and appeal to everyone equally (bad decision) or they set out trying to exclude from the start (eg something written for everyone except specifically straight white men to preach about that as main plot which most people aren't too interested in) which is also a bad decision and usually lazily/poorly done.
When I refer to conscious exclusion, it's not really setting out with the goal in mind to exclude someone, nor is it intentionally trying to write to everyone. Instead, it's trying to be aware of decisions made. Like yes, it will exclude people who don't like complexity, violence, or bad language. And that's because eliminating those things would directly detract from the story that's being told, which is the audience it's for.
As an example, in one of my stories, a character refers to another character as a retard pretty early on. No beta readers personally had a problem with it, but about half of them specifically highlighted that it *could* be a problem for some readers. I'm aware of it, and consciously sticking with it. Because that's how that character thinks. She's a pretty mean person. She wouldn't change her language for others, and so as a writer I'm not going to change her language for others either. That'll likely get me a 1-star review somewhere on Amazon in this environment, but it is what it is.
Dragonball Z is an interesting case. A show written mainly for young Japanese men, but like most Japanese content it has a global following. As you pointed out, plenty of black men like it (along with plenty of non-Japanese men in general), though it has a pretty tiny female audience. Bulma was a main character for a while but gradually became less important as power levels creeped up. Android 18 was somewhat relevant for a period of time. Eventually there were so many characters but hardly any important women anywhere. That might have been part of why I gradually lost interest in it; I don't know. Just a few more would have been helpful, especially given that the characters all basically fight with magic anyway.
Dragonball Super eventually introduced several more women including super saiyans, probably to more consciously address that a bit, to my original point. That's a case of adding something without really detracting from anything, since it didn't really detract from Goku or anyone. It's like, a fighting-focused Dragonball plot is naturally going to appeal to more young men than young women, but there's some low-hanging fruit to pick of having a few prominent female characters to bring in the subset of potential women watchers that are into fighting-focused plots too, kind of like Naruto and Bleach did and as Dragonball Super did.

2025-08-22 20:04:18 UTC

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Yeah Firefly is an example that just nails it, and rightfully earns a cult following.

2025-08-22 17:26:36 UTC

In the entire original Star Wars trilogy, no two named female characters ever spoke to each other.
In fact there, were only four named women across the trilogy, throughout six and a half hours of content spread across multiple worlds, and for most people they can only name Leia.
I'm not bringing it up as a criticism; just an observation. Sometimes guys wonder why their girlfriends/wives don't love their favorite fiction quite as much as they do.
It's not to say a given story *should* have more characters of XYZ demographic, but basically if a guy tunes into a movie and no two guys ever speak to each other in it, and it's ladies everywhere with hardly any men around, you'd basically just get the vibe pretty quickly that this wasn't written with you in mind at all. If you like it, that's great, but it's kind of by accident since you just weren't really considered as part of it being put together. I do like Star Wars, for example.
I love the Breaking Bad show, too. The premise didn't appeal to me on the surface (middle-aged guy with cancer, young drug maker guy, and to the extent that there are women in the show it's mostly the wives of the important characters), but my husband told me it was great so I watched it with him and loved it. Wouldn't change a thing about it.
And then of course, since we can't have nice things, over the past decade the attempts to put more diversity into fantasy or science fiction have been pretty ham-fisted. Rey is a trash character, basically. Almost any attempt with this sort of stuff is lazy. Books have generally done it better because it comes from one author's mind rather than some committee.
I think part of why the TV show Arcane was so well-received (especially the first season) was that it had a ton of different characters in it but it wasn't *about* that diversity. It just happened naturally as a byproduct of good writing and care. A bunch of very different characters dealing with themes that are about technological progress vs safety, economic disparity and sovereignty, extremism to achieve goals, etc. Young and old, male and female, rich and poor, all different colors. Rather than feel forced, it just seems obvious in that setting.
I've put some thought into this when writing fiction. Men and women, and people of various cultures, do have a ton in common in the fiction they like. Probably more than most realize.
-My number one priority is to just write good stuff and tell the story I want to tell. By default there are a broad range of characters in a story like that, at least in my head. Otherwise it would feel boring. Unless I was writing a specific period piece (something like Saving Private Ryan set in WWII battle zones where obviously it would almost all be men), I'd have to go out of my way to write a story where no two men ever speak to each other, or no two women ever speak to each other. That would take effort.
-My second consideration is to of course think about my audience (which a lot of current media trends ironically don't do- they just create a piece to fulfill their own grievances and forget about the main demographic that would actually want to watch/read what they made). How would different people experience it? That's where beta readers are helpful, but also just a basic 101 test of imagining like five different people reading it and getting the vibe of whether it's written with them in mind, or not. The goal in that case is certainly not to write for everyone (eg most stories I think of tend to be quite dark and violent, and with substantial complexity, which is a combo that already excludes a lot of people), but to at least be aware of the types of people I might be writing for. The natural state of things in a sufficiently complex setting is a broad range of character types.
Basically when I exclude types of readers, I want it to be a conscious decision rather than "huh, I hadn't considered that."
https://blossom.primal.net/083ef3c2e91ce07f29d96596fa36f0f6cf9c52a3560c9bdffa737d3ab29c60cd.png

2025-08-22 15:57:52 UTC

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Anyone who touched grass this week would be like, "Bitcoin was volatile this week? What volatility?"

2025-08-22 15:55:59 UTC

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I've had relatives over and got sick this week, so I've been on social media lot less.
Bitcoin went down like 7% in a week and mNAV of treasury companies compressed from frothy levels, and people were freaking out for some reason across Twitter/X.
Meanwhile people keep building cool things on it. I like the coin.
#nevent1q…lqyt

2025-08-22 15:48:56 UTC

What if quantum mechanics could impact the macro-scale world, such as in Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment? And someone wrote a thriller about it?
Anyway, here's a brief non-spoiler review of Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. A book popular enough to get a TV adaptation.
https://blossom.primal.net/bb7a8b1c6150d25ebea733860333258efcecc300e18dda5b10f81a080c3f2c31.jpg
Dark Matter is a thriller about the many-worlds hypothesis, ie that the universe continually branches into a multiverse of all things that could happen, as they do indeed happen in different simultaneous timelines. In this case, technology allows a man to move across those timelines, with various ramifications that follow.
The writing/prose quality was great. No complaints. And it was a page-turner for sure, as any good thriller is supposed to be.
Characters were mostly solid. A handful of character decisions/arcs seemed wasted/unfulfilled (a therapist character in particular), but I have no major complaints.
In terms of plot, I liked the premise and the first two thirds. The final third kind of lost me. I won't go into spoilers but basically there's a twist that, while I like it on the surface, was handled in a way that came off as sillier than was probably intended. And a conflict that could have been tighter and more personal was expanded beyond what it needed to be.
Admittedly, pure thrillers generally aren't my favorite genre, since I like a bit more meat on the bones to think about afterward versus a book that optimizes for constant non-stop tension. I don't like ultra-long series that drag things out unnecessarily, but I do like sufficient length and thematic complexity beyond what most thrillers offer. A sci-fi thriller can potentially hit a sweet spot, but from reading two Crouch books so far, I generally deviate from his vision in the final third; not a big fan of how he's tended to land things in the end, and yet paradoxically I would be happy to give like 20% more page time as a reader if it would help flesh them out more (whereas publishers are generally like "no, gotta tighten that word count up for a thriller".
I did enjoy the reading experience, overall. I'd say it was a 4/5 in-the-moment experience for me, but drops to 3.5/5 in terms of long-term impact and thoughtfulness. If I was more a fan of the thriller genre I'd probably keep it in the 4+ range.

2025-08-15 14:27:24 UTC

Most people I see who talk about robots quickly replacing humans out in the field (eg not white collar work, not assembly line work, but blue collar work out in the world) haven’t had any experience with what those jobs actually entail.

2025-08-14 13:49:01 UTC

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The price-related episodes of WBD get the lion’s share of views, but it’s episodes like this with @nprofile…rtlf that are the lion’s share of the value. Give it a listen.
https://blossom.primal.net/94bc073b396479293eea2d21d5f4167152d143752b9372ccbc53484ea9ea9c9c.jpg
#nevent1q…4h9w

2025-08-13 13:51:50 UTC

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Most likely Q1 2026.
Currently being edited!

2025-08-13 13:50:49 UTC

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Yep, that’s this book.

2025-08-11 18:10:44 UTC

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And my spells.
https://blossom.primal.net/9f05ad46bf5b14b1d3573e987650f7ea20a8bc09921b3c3cbc48c22acdbff6de.mp4

2025-08-11 14:48:48 UTC

I’ve found it. My least favorite book I’ve ever read. And here’s a review.
Digital Fortress by Dan Brown.
It’s a techno-thriller about encryption, published in 1998.
Now, it’s certainly not the worst book out there, by a long shot. There are AI-generated slop books, there are indie books that are scribblings by madmen, etc. But this is the worst book out of ones that I’ve actually read cover-to-cover. It’s from a major publisher, and a best-selling author. Amazon rating 4.3, Goodreads rating 3.7. So, it’s a serious book and people do like it. When it came out as Brown’s debut novel, it was a flop, but Brown’s later giga-best-sellers (eg the Da Vinci Code) retroactively made this book a best-seller too by association. So, I’m punching up here; not punching down.
https://blossom.primal.net/96051a7f5ee53e611ea4394b2c74c928b8b3f0ea9ba607abc1bed635ca3fd3bc.png
I’ll start with the good. The opening premise is interesting, and it’s a page-turner, as Dan Brown books all are. There’s a story here. Not a great story, but a mostly coherent one. Some of the antagonists are presented with sympathetic, complex motives, although in some cases that evaporates when convenient. In every other aspect, I was basically hate-reading it, as though watching a car wreck that I can’t turn away from. So, I’m going to give the book 2 stars out of 5.
Non-spoiler Premise:
During the 1990s, the NSA tried to stop strong encryption from existing. However, this was a ploy to feign weakness. In reality (according to this novel), they purposely “lost” the crypto wars because they secretly built a supercomputer that could break strong encryption. So, the whole world went on thinking it now had strong encryption, and the NSA could secretly break it all and surveil all encrypted stuff. However, one day (around 1998 when the book was published), some ex-NSA genius Japanese cypherpunk named Ensei Tankado (with strong Satoshi Nakamoto vibes, written a decade pre-Bitcoin, basically the only cool character in the story) seemingly creates a form of truly strong encryption that even this supercomputer can’t break. Everyone freaks out about it. Twists and turns ensue.
Non-spoiler Review:
In my view, this book is weak on multiple levels, from characters to plot to theme to the literal writing.
Most of the protagonists in this book work for the NSA. They’re trying to make sure strong encryption doesn’t exist in the wild. As the reader, it’s written such that we’re supposed to mostly be rooting for the NSA here, or at least certain good elements within the NSA, but seeing their beliefs get *mildly* challenged. In this narrative, all sorts of terrorist attacks have almost happened over the years, and were prevented only because the NSA could surveil all their communications that the terrorists thought were encrypted.
The book is often given credit for bringing up the ethical conflict regarding surveillance by letting the cypherpunk characters in the book (of which there are basically two, the Japanese guy who is cool and another guy who is an asshole) make their case and test the NSA. So, it supposedly “makes you think”. But it’s the super-basic 101 version; the cypherpunks point out the obvious “who watches the watchmen?” argument and protagonists are like, “hmm”. Which is more fair from a normie point of view in 1998 than now, but it's still not groundbreaking. Meanwhile, most of the plot and the stakes are around the NSA protecting itself and its powers. The NSA protagonists, to the extent that they reflect on the ethics of what they’re doing at all, do so for like a page and move on.
The primary protagonists are cartoonish. They're the type of descriptions that get satirized today. One is Susan Fletcher. She’s utterly gorgeous (everyone around her is in love with her and mentally undresses her when she walks by), and she’s the head of NSA cryptography in her 30s. She’s got a 170 IQ (the author makes sure to tell us, because people around her all know her IQ), and she’s very kind. She is presented as having no flaws. (As a reader though, I think she’s kind of a moron, which seems unintentional by the author.)
Her co-protagonist boyfriend, David Becker, is a super hot genius linguist that speaks a dozen languages, the youngest professor at Georgetown, super athletic and nice (obliterates everyone on the squash court and then treats them to a meal afterward). Romantic, friendly, thoughtful, but also humble enough to not fully realize that everyone views him as super hot. Becker has no flaws. Actually, Susan thinks Becker has precisely one flaw- he always insists on paying when they go on a date even though she makes more money than him. He’s “slightly too chivalrous” basically. He has a minor insecurity around his compensation because his linguistics field happens to pay less than Susan’s code-breaking and yet he’s the man in the relationship so has a provider instinct. That’s his flaw. He doesn’t overdo it, or make particularly bad decisions because of it, and isn't sexist. That’s like when someone in an interview asks you what your flaw is, and you say sometimes you work too hard.
The plot is all about this new unbreakable code, an action-adventure to find the private key, insider threats (not all NSA characters are kind), twists and turns, etc. I won’t spoiler it, but I found it rather boring despite occasional glimmers of interest. As soon as something would start to build some momentum, it would soon be fumbled. The opening premise itself was interesting (NSA tricked people into thinking they had strong encryption so they could just casually read it all- and the potential ramifications), but beyond that, nah. For the most part (a few nuances aside I can't mention for spoiler reasons), the stakes are that if the protagonists lose, it just means people would be able to communicate with each other without the NSA surveilling them. The horror. Some spoiler things do add a bit more stakes to dial that up, but then the themes around that are not fleshed out enough. And there are a bunch of plot conveniences, too many blatant miscommunications, etc.
With all of that, I at least expected it to be smoothly written. But it’s not.
-There are huge info dumps of exposition. Just page after page of context inserted in there. No attempt to drip it in smoothly with dialogue or have a character think it for a specific reason. It’s just like, we meet David, then we get three pages of David’s backstory. We meet the NSA Director, then we get three pages of his backstory. We meet Takado, then we get three pages of his backstory. We learn about the NSA’s codebreaking supercomputer, so we get three pages of backstory about how it came to be, etc. My editor would murder me if I wrote like this. It's so blatant, I almost respect it. Just chad info dumps everywhere.
-The point-of-view is inconsistent. Books are usually written either in first person, or in third person limited (ie you can see the thoughts of one character at a time like first person but it’s written in third person), or in third person omniscient (ie you can see the thoughts of all characters). This book moves between third person limited and third person omniscient haphazardly. Sometimes in a scene, you’re in one character’s head, then in another character’s head, and then back again, without a line break that is normally used to designate a shift in point-of-view. Some portions become vaguely omniscient, but then it goes back to third person limited. And then sometimes there *are* line breaks to change points-of-view, even though the point-of-view regularly changes without line breaks anyway. Some authors might try some artsy head-hopping methods and experimentation, but this isn’t that. It’s just sloppy; I detect no particular pattern about the “rules” of the narrator- it’s not true third person limited, nor is it consistently omniscient, but rather it is just kind of whatever the author wants it to be at a given time.
-Word choice and sentence structure are weak. Action scenes are mostly boring.
Attached is an example of the writing from near the start of the book, to show what I mean. Susan’s going to her NSA job, and we have a point-of-view line break to a guard just to tell us, the reader, how hot and smart Susan is. Then we go back to Susan, who thinks about David, and without a point-of-view line break we’re in David’s head now to get pages and pages of his origin story for how he met Susan.
Anyone else read this? I lost five IQ points for doing so.
https://blossom.primal.net/13d7d898b790cb02b7506cba0760793ddcfb61fce93ad7c5ce6dd1f8a94701a1.png
https://blossom.primal.net/8f3d890406cbbd7c0f0bccf9c78df05e43479f492f5fccd1786bccf3bb75559b.png

2025-08-06 15:17:31 UTC

A big conservative political podcast (seven figure YouTube subscribers) asked me to come on and talk about bitcoin (sat next to them on the plane out of the May conference in Vegas, which sparked their request).
Last week when I went on the show, they decided to emphasize a talking point of why tariffs are great and will usher in a golden age, and some questions about bitcoin.
When asked about tariffs, I generally disagreed that they would be bullish or usher in a new golden age, mentioned that the past three months of data doesn’t show a decline in import prices which means it has been a tax on Americans, and eventually we moved to discussing bitcoin.
They ended up not airing the talk, and instead ran the clip with someone else who agreed on the tariff points. Waste of time, basically.
It’s a reminder that a big percentage of what you see in heavily politicized media is about narrative framing and talking points rather than genuine attempts to discuss or explore. It reminded me why I normally decline to go on political shows; I had only agreed to this one because the catalyst was in person and so the agreeable side of me was like “sure, why not”.
Well, that’s why not.

2025-08-03 20:40:46 UTC

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One of the complexities in politics is that there are multiple decisions that seem useful in the short-term but erode long-term value.
Being able to appreciate that long-term value and its various bulwarks is important for dealing with short-term things.
The basic exercise is to imagine your least favorite politician. Any power you give to your favorite politician today has a decent chance of landing in the hands of your least favorite one eventually. Still want to hand that power over?
Another classic example is the first amendment. Some hateful idiot is saying all sorts of bad things. The best answer is, “look, what he’s saying is awful, but we need to let him say those things and for people to counter-argument them rather than suppress them. If he is wrong, the long arc of debate will show that to be true. Because otherwise that power can one day be used against good things, too.”
#nevent1q…2xvz

2025-08-02 17:32:51 UTC

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I expect demand for the preferreds, especially STRC, to drive down yields.

2025-08-01 18:40:15 UTC

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They would pause the preferred dividends before selling the bitcoin.

2025-08-01 14:42:59 UTC

The latest manufacturing purchasing manager's index report shows higher prices and lower activity/employment in the US manufacturing sector.
https://www.ismworld.org/supply-management-news-and-reports/reports/ism-report-on-business/pmi/july/
https://blossom.primal.net/11a8692bed967492c12428f3c28a95c2cf6d6f2cc600f388ab709e3895bd4117.png
A sampling of business survey results shows ongoing issues with tariffs:
“Fairly flat quarter over quarter, but with us being in the safety and security sector (and with U.S. Customs and Border Protection as a customer), the recent bill that passed should result in an increase in business in the coming months.” [Computer & Electronic Products]
“Sales continue at unprecedented growth, driven by data-center construction. Customers and the sales team continue to demand lower pricing, which drives down gross margins in face of input price increases, primarily from aluminum imports.” [Chemical Products]
“These tariff wars are beginning to wear us out. It’s been very difficult to forecast what we will pay in duties and calculate any cost savings we’ve had this year. Also, tariffs have disrupted our customs import bond. There is zero clarity about the future, and it’s been a difficult few months trying to figure out where everything is going to land and the impact on our business. So far, tremendous and unexpected costs have been incurred.” [Apparel, Leather & Allied Products]
“Currently, higher interest rates still depress the construction industry for new construction projects. Tariff policies are uncertain, which slows down (1) our investment in new projects, (2) component sourcing for new products, (3) blanket orders and (4) replenishment of large inventory quantities. Instead, we’re working to shift suppliers to lower political risk countries or develop domestic sources. We are impacted by the higher tariffs on costs of raw materials and components both sourced domestically and from overseas, and we expect expenses will be higher in the third and fourth quarters as we consume the inventory received with new and higher tariffs or update costs from domestic sources in the second quarter.” [Machinery]
“Sales softening more than usual during the summer. Negotiations with non-U.S. manufacturers are strained as we are reluctant to issue POs for deliveries three or more months into the future with prices that include current tariffs.” [Fabricated Metal Products]
“In the health-care world we continue with ‘business as normal,’ but we are increasingly searching and assessing geopolitical risk mitigation options.” [Miscellaneous Manufacturing]
“Tariffs are causing complete uncertainty around sourcing strategies. A sit-and-wait game for now.” [Electrical Equipment, Appliances & Components]
“Sales are about on par with 2024, but nowhere near budget forecast. Tariff concerns seem to be growing as the year progresses.” [Nonmetallic Mineral Products]
“Business is steady, with solid bookings and backlog. Still uncertainty about tariffs and associated inflation.” [Furniture & Related Products]
“Energy capacity, specifically in the grid operated by PJM Interconnection, continues to be one of the major concerns for business continuity and growth in this region. The procurement of power and rising natural gas prices in this region due to past green energy policies, coupled with future projected allocations for artificial intelligence data centers, adds additional stress to the PJM system.” [Primary Metals]
“Cautiously stable. Tariff impacts are still being monitored. Some increases have been implemented while monitoring other products.” [Transportation Equipment]

2025-08-01 01:51:44 UTC

Strategy had their earnings call today and I was one of the analysts able to participate in the Q&A with the executive team.
Although most people are focused on bull market stuff, I decided to aim my question more toward bear market scenarios and stress testing.
Here's the transcript for that portion if you're interested:
________
Lyn Alden, Research Analyst: So, thank you for the opportunity. So, Strategy navigated the 2022 bear market successfully. And so my question is going to relate to stress testing as it relates to these mid-term BTC ratings. Given that Strategy’s credit products are backed more by assets and capital access than operating cash flows, are there certain bitcoin bear market assumptions or thresholds, either such as in terms of drawdown magnitudes or lengths of time where capital markets might become inconducive for new capital issuance, that you’re planning for as you design these forward leverage ratios, and for your overall capital structure? Thank you.
Michael Saylor, Executive Chairman, Strategy: You know, I think that if we if we equitize the convertible bonds and we go to all preferreds, you can imagine, for example, you have a $100 billion of Bitcoin. You have $50 billion of preferred in an extreme like, the extreme case of 50% leverage case. And if that $50 billion was a debt liability coming due in three years, that would be a lot of risk. And if it was a debt liability coming due in twenty five years, it’d be less risk, but it’ll still be something. But if it’s an if it’s actually equity, if if it’s $50 billion preferred equity, it never comes due.
And so now you have a different kind of risk. In that particular case, Bitcoin can draw down 80%, and you’re fine. It can draw down 90%. So I actually think if you look at our our structure, as we migrate to preferreds, we end up with this clock, you know, very, very robust antifragile capital structure where the principal never comes due. And then you have to ask the question, well, where is the liability?
And the liability is in the dividend. You notice when Andrew showed the the liabilities, he showed you three tranches. He showed you the interest liability, the cumulative liabilities, and the noncumulative liabilities. That’s because the interest has gotta be paid or you’re in default. The cumulative doesn’t have to be paid, but if you don’t if you suspended, it accumulates, so it’s still a liability.
And then the noncumulative, you could suspend it, and it isn’t a liability. So when you add all that up, you know, you you imagine that you’ve got $50,000,000,000 and you have even if you had a 10% dividend, that means you’re down to $5 billion. So on a $100 billion of assets, you’ve got $5,000,000,000 of dividend liabilities, but some of them are more collapsible than others of them. But so you say to yourself, well, what happens if Bitcoin falls 95%? You’d still make you’d still meet those liabilities most likely.
You you might in you know, you might in a 95% drawdown, you might suspend something. But you can see, you know, for the most part, no one really contemplates, you know, more than the 80% extreme craze case of the crypto well, I guess the crypto winter is, like, 75% or something. You would know. $66,000 to 16,000, I guess, was, like, the peak to trough. Call it 80%.
I think that our structure is is smooth, and we wouldn’t miss a single dividend payment on an 80% drawdown. On a 90% to 95% drawdown, in theory, you might suspend something for a little bit of time, but you would eventually get back current on it. So, you know, so I think in terms of robustness, it’s it’s pretty robust. And if you compare it to the fragility of a credit conventional bank, you know, we’re think about the leverage we’ve got in order to generate our earnings. We’ve got maybe 1.2 leverage.
Typical banks got ten, twenty x leverage to get their earnings. So this model is is orders of magnitude less less risky than a conventional banking model. Phong, Andrew, do you guys have anything to add on that?
Phong Le, President & Chief Executive Officer, Strategy: I can add, Lyn. We we we we’ve had the benefit of being a Bitcoin treasury company for five years. We went through a crypto winter in 2022 with a much more fragile debt structure and capital structure. We had a Silvergate margin loan, that was Bitcoin backed. We had a secured note that had onerous, you know, clauses, and and and so, we learned a lot from that.
You know? And and at that point in time, our most pristine debt were our convertible notes. And now I think we’re much more prepared for a Bitcoin drawdown because over time, we won’t have we already don’t have, secured notes. We don’t have a margin loan. Over time, we may not have convertible notes.
And to Mike’s point, we we will be relying on perpetual preferred notes that don’t ever, come due. So, I think we learned a lot, during this period of time, and and we hope to to share that with everybody out there.
Lyn Alden, Research Analyst: Thank you.
Michael Saylor, Executive Chairman, Strategy: And, of course, the point is we did survive the 80% drawdown with a much weaker capital structure. So, so this capital structure is is bulletproof compared to that one. So, so I think we’re good to 90%. And if it goes below 90%, then we’ll shuffle a few things around. It’ll be colorful.

2025-07-30 19:59:51 UTC

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Construction spending on manufacturing facilities is slightly down vs six months ago. Not up.
And it takes many years to move supply chains at scale.

2025-07-30 13:38:18 UTC

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Construction spending on manufacturing facilities isn’t up this year.
There’s a whole host of reasons why manufacturing isn’t big in this country. So, for the most part it’s just a tax on something that, at best, can change *very* slowly.

2025-07-30 13:18:44 UTC

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Effective marketing.

2025-07-30 13:07:32 UTC

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I mean, I do this for a living and looked at the data. Consumers and businesses are currently splitting most of it. Import prices aren’t down at all.
Also if you ask most AI models “based on as broad analysis as possible, who is paying the bulk of the tariffs: us consumers, us businesses, or foreign exporters?” it’ll tell you mostly the first two.
But happy to see your counterpoints.
https://blossom.primal.net/f36313daf2cdc5c55766d852ca7a12412a4b10c953b7c07dba066782b8be60c3.png
https://blossom.primal.net/2a7e29f4b7236e91c2317b4948954fc6a0ec44254a286ba66f75fa9057d9da6b.png
https://blossom.primal.net/c8ae057dac2eb65e5cbde4576673a556be0009a8ff52db33195810aafbdb97af.png

2025-07-30 12:26:28 UTC

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Aggregate import prices (which are measured pre tariffs) aren’t down at all.
https://blossom.primal.net/c8ae057dac2eb65e5cbde4576673a556be0009a8ff52db33195810aafbdb97af.png

2025-07-30 10:56:50 UTC

Federal spending is up. So there is a pretty big focus on generating new revenue to pay for it.
Most analysis so far shows that tariffs are being paid primarily by U.S. consumers and U.S. businesses. The foreign share (in the form of price cuts) is pretty low.
One of the impressive things about Trump is that he managed to convince a nontrivial percentage of conservatives to cheer for higher spending and new taxes to pay for it.
https://blossom.primal.net/d80752eb6f4bf0736515f1ea42277aec1bf20aec90b2f332a242984988a69eec.jpg
https://blossom.primal.net/9fe84e0e842d7d122fe322ca6284475f3a2029af3e6d5072308e48a684f85271.jpg

2025-07-26 14:25:40 UTC

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For context, that’s twice the average annual return of the stock market, a little over half the way in. And that’s after something like a 130% gain in 2024.
It’s not a raging bull market, no. I’d love to see some random god candle up to $150k. But for an asset as big as a mag7 stock to be up this much isn’t bad at all.

2025-07-26 13:57:34 UTC

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It's a healthy bull market, imo. And now that bitcoin is a $2T+ network, it's normal for it to move like a more liquid asset should.
And it's still up like 8x from the 2022 low. The S&P 500 is up less than 2x.
#nevent1q…z2xe

2025-07-26 01:43:07 UTC

I ran the first chapter of my fiction writing through some AI tool out of curiosity to see if it could give me any tips, and it was like, "you could use more inclusive language than 'manhunt'" so I was like, "nevermind, this was a horrible decision, back to my human editor."
https://blossom.primal.net/962c4a0947b6b2041c3e52f25520993907a150c5ae82d1a06b1f325b47be3abc.png

2025-07-25 12:29:09 UTC

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Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.
https://blossom.primal.net/f26d7e310b2e9b8954af4affbefb79f8f8d098a7136c5a15bc68a0cacd87943b.jpg

2025-07-21 17:26:19 UTC

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Yeah I read it, and its two sequels. Huge fan of the first one; the other two are solid too.

2025-07-21 13:18:06 UTC

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Well, a decent chunk of my posts over the past year have been about narrative structure in fiction, book reviews, and stuff like that.
#nevent1q…wy0q
#nevent1q…wy0q

2025-07-20 22:00:53 UTC

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I mean, I actually know some people from there who escaped.
It’s not like it’s some secluded utopia. The prison camps and poverty and such are real.

2025-07-20 16:52:57 UTC

With every year that goes by, I’m kind of low-key surprised that North Korea is still a thing.
Third generation dictator, hasn’t been revolution’ed yet, basically the most closed out country in the world.

2025-07-20 15:05:20 UTC

The latest altcoin narrative is ironically altcoin treasury companies.
Ethereum, Solana, Doge, Litecoin, etc treasury companies.
Just like past cycles, they’ll have their day in the sun and then roll over into obscurity again.

2025-07-19 00:53:13 UTC

My accountant going through my Nostr zaps like
https://blossom.primal.net/9fbb7eed3e7e27fc5bb3dffff2e8c8e7aff12f5a92f2b533b528d0ca682b9a7f.jpg

2025-07-16 14:00:44 UTC

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Well put.

2025-07-15 15:22:24 UTC

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I’ve done it. It helps to have the body already fat-adapted with prior fasts or intermittent fasts, so that it’s in a good metabolic state to exercise while fasting.
When people first start fasting/keto or otherwise adapting the body to burn fat over sugar, it can go through a sickly period until it’s adapted.
I also pay attention to electrolytes.

2025-07-14 20:37:09 UTC

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Couldn’t zap since you don’t have a wallet set up.
Welcome back to Nostr, though.

2025-07-12 15:32:40 UTC

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I did. It showed it anyway lol.
Probably with enough tries I could get it not to, but I have limited time/patience.

2025-07-12 15:22:24 UTC

Tried to recreate some customized meme templates with AI, but it keeps showing my left ear even when I tell it not to. Pretty bearish on the AI overlord scenario coming anytime soon.
Anyway, how's your Saturday going?
https://blossom.primal.net/11ee8fd28f389b80a20ad505e76c46da8c06f8d13fca6ca95f7e71cb483580b7.png https://blossom.primal.net/0e8885265d33fc8765349bab26e26f9fad2555bb53492b4a57362dcfe6bfbcc1.jpg

2025-07-12 14:53:58 UTC

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No it doesn’t affect my fiscal dominance thesis.
But it does digitize the Eurodollar system and make dollars more globally available.

2025-07-12 14:52:26 UTC

I’ve crossed 100k followers.
So, I want to give a heartfelt thanks to all the bots that made that possible. 😂

2025-07-12 14:40:55 UTC

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I muted a couple spam impersonators. I figured maybe some clients could incorporate that signal into their algorithms or something.
I don't mute anything of actual substance (even bad substance).

2025-07-12 14:37:21 UTC

I watched the movie KPOP Demon Hunters. That critically-acclaimed and audience-loved hit new kids/teens movie streaming on Netflix.
The reason was two-fold. One was so that I know what the hell my niece is talking about next time I hang out with her. Two is so that I understand why certain things are succeeding as Disney/Pixar keeps floundering in failure.
While Disney/Pixar keeps making flops, Sony Animation has been rocking it with hits like Into the Spiderverse, Across the Spiderverse, and KPOP Demon Hunters. With a lower budget than what Disney/Pixar typically comes in with, Sony makes something that is higher quality and earns more money.
A few thoughts on why KPOP Demon Hunters was so successful:
-It's not the plot; the plot is pretty mid even among the field of kids/teens movies. Unique though.
-Funny/likable characters.
-Great animation.
-Music is way better than competitors. Catchy enough that they're succeeding as singles on their own.
-The writing is self-aware, but resists doing the constant quips that a Marvel movie does.
-The writers focus #1 on entertainment. There are positive themes in there, but unlike Disney/Pixar that recently forgot how to make an enjoyable film and focus so much on some theme, Sony actually makes fun films that also have themes like heroism/authenticity, etc.
https://blossom.primal.net/ccd41843af3a4ed34b16ca90fd47b3687b1b708787c45f1b2c9f4aacf4cc7c93.png

2025-07-12 14:20:25 UTC

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-I was homeless as a child, grew up in a trailer park, then paid my way through university with student loans and part time work for an engineering degree.
-In my engineering career, I started as a design engineer of a facility and solo-leveled up to being the head engineer 7 years in. I just kept asking for additional work to help alleviate bottlenecks, started running the technical finances, and then when it came time to apply for newly-vacant senior jobs, I had the best experience for it because I was already doing most of it.
-In my finance career, which I did in parallel as a side gig, I just started writing online and then it blew up into a massive business, dwarfing my engineering management work and basically forcing me to leave and focus on it. Even the idea of starting a business was just me googling about it; nobody in my life suggested I do this or served as an in-person example that it's possible.
And yet, I would not for a second think I did this alone. I didn't change my own diapers as a kid. I didn't teach myself English or math. When I was half-deaf from severe ear infections and not learning to speak clearly, it was surgeons who fixed it. Parents gave me love and motivation, if little else. Teachers taught. Occasional articles I read convinced me to do things (start a blog, study bitcoin, etc) often so subtly and cumulatively that I can't point to which ones. It's not like I just manifested in the savannah and hunted for game as an infant and then leveled up to where I'm at now; there was an inherent support network along the way; giants with shoulders to stand on, often without making it obvious.

2025-07-12 01:11:47 UTC

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Currencies have their little local monopolies. Globally traded goods like commodities, gold, bitcoin, and that sort of stuff is mostly priced in the largest and most liquid global currency: USD.
Unless or until something grows large enough to flip it.

2025-07-11 18:06:12 UTC

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If it gets sufficiently euphoric, I'm going to eventually suggest he trims a bit or takes out his initial cost basis, since he'll be more comfortable (and able to get through a bear market) with some degree of diversification even if it lowers longer-run returns.

2025-07-11 18:04:32 UTC

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Little monies are always priced in big monies. Nothing surprising there.
https://blossom.primal.net/126ad953b436d4f253427fe6e8cc6cd7f32174900e8b8e55aad35ebe365ca479.png

2025-07-11 17:59:57 UTC

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Optionality is in a great place. Thanks to the work of many, there are great options for all those problems.
Can't make people use them. Can lead a horse to water but can't make it drink.

2025-07-11 16:55:08 UTC

We’re in the part of the cycle where my father in law is very satisfied with the performance of his bitcoin and texts me about it.
https://blossom.primal.net/32397b8f609125643193747f47a050529461fb40e1c74f5d534d01def3fcf5d2.jpg
https://blossom.primal.net/0010693071cdccaf5f02c99eeeb831c6a800477e37f6bdcc82fccbe5f4abad25.jpg

2025-07-10 14:33:01 UTC

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I think the combo of both is important.
Meme-only arguments lack depth.
I view memes as signposts and long-form articles/discussions as useful deep dives. The memes help point to which longer things are worth taking the time to consume.

2025-07-10 14:19:12 UTC

Unironically, the side that is more often correct in a given debate usually has way better memes. It's a decent (albeit not foolproof) heuristic. And it applies to humor more broadly, with memes basically being the haiku form of humor.
-When you find something funny, it's often because you subconsciously agree with it, at least partially. Sometimes you're trained that you *should* agree with a given side, but humor just cuts through it and reveals that really you kind of don't, and in some way forces you into an honest moment.
-Creating a meme requires condensing an argument into a short context. While outright lies are easy to make short (i.e. you can just say a false thing that requires the other side to take time to unpack), actual arguments are not so easy to make short, especially if they're also going to be funny. A meme that has any sort of point to it generally has an argument embedded within it, even if that argument takes the form of an observation or other simple thing. Outside of highly technical contexts, arguments/observations are generally easier to condense if they're true.
The side of a given debate that reliably can make short, funny arguments is typically on to something.

2025-07-10 13:59:09 UTC

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Based on the video, I always like to imagine he's some Jason Bourne level badass.
https://youtu.be/LF5z3NsKKus

2025-07-09 22:25:58 UTC

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Yep.

2025-07-09 22:22:47 UTC

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Yep.

2025-07-09 22:20:12 UTC

https://blossom.primal.net/797c500f868a4cf2ff831b69fc8170c2b743761e0c7096abe86cd367e4d69500.png

2025-07-09 19:57:18 UTC

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Notably, Egypt has recurring summertime electricity shortages, and despite being literally in the Sahara desert has been unsuccessfully trying to substantially increase its solar energy production.
Solar power and storage is often not the super-cheap sustainable panacea that theory-crafters make it out to be.
https://worldsustainabilitycollective.com/why-has-egypts-solar-policy-failed/
https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2022/09/01/why-egypts-plans-for-solar-power-are-left-in-the-shade
https://blossom.primal.net/40170b18769514735a16c8a845955e507444fa36c9f2041b6c8ccca7c9ef7e4a.png
#nevent1q…xsv6

2025-07-09 19:28:19 UTC

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OPEC controls a minority of oil, but a sizable chunk, which collectively helps them keep the price higher than it otherwise would be if they didn’t coordinate.
In other words, OPEC theoretically incentivizes non-oil energy sources by increasing the cost of oil. It doesn’t hinder other energy sources.

2025-07-09 19:06:47 UTC

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Activities that increase soil quality and quantity are carbon capture practices.
I’m a soil maxi.

2025-07-09 19:04:37 UTC

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It’s expensive and nontrivial to do, though. In a far enough future we might have more of it (I did a deep dive on this for sci fi purposes).
There are multiple countries in the world; there are no global energy monopolies. Any sufficiently capitalized company can work on this and undercut others. China in particular is a very pragmatic jurisdiction when it comes to energy and their answer is usually “all of the above, at scale, and cheaply”. So if a company invents something cheap like that, China would be a massive customer. So would many others.

2025-07-09 18:53:54 UTC

Price often condenses information and provides clarity.
For a while, solar/wind proponents have operated with two simultaneous but generally conflicting narratives.
-One narrative is that solar/wind are more environmentally friendly and should be subsidized. To the extent that they don't grow sufficiently fast, it's because we're not doing enough to artificially boost their adoption.
-The other narrative is continually remind how cheap solar/wind have become. Proponents will post charts/studies showing that solar/wind are cheaper than other types of energy, and that it "just makes sense now". In practice, a lot of caveats are often excluded.
The thing is, price usually cuts through confusion on these types of matters. Especially price over a significant amount of time and space, rather than just price in a snapshot of time and locality.
If solar/wind are indeed cheaper than other energy sources, why aren't they being built in place of others? Why isn't it a no-brainer for any megacorp to just install terawatts of them all over? For example, the percentage growth of solar power in India over the past 5-10 years is impressive, but in terms of raw numbers, way more coal power was brought online during that period than solar. The answer is often that they're *not actually* cheaper in an all-inclusive sense. And if they're not cheaper, why is that? The answer is often because they're more materially intensive, less durable, and not as environmentally friendly as many proponents argue, either. That cost (panels, turbines, batteries, maintenance, decommissioning, and replacement) is going somewhere, and usually quite materially.
That's not to say that solar/wind don't have uses (they do), but their usage is often hamfisted into places where they're not the most economic choice, and where they are not the most economic choice, it's often because they're not necessarily the most environmental choice either.
Price is often ignored or fudged in analysis, but it really does provide a powerful signal in aggregate that's worth paying attention to.
https://blossom.primal.net/4a83e20495faf6e4ca8a8f751ab10fbbfc46cd2a3398f6110928935f7bbabc17.png

2025-07-08 15:48:18 UTC

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Winter in NYC. 🥶

2025-07-08 15:46:59 UTC

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This fund is for startups. Seed and series A. Companies building solutions for bitcoin users.
Some startups are profitable and do retain bitcoin as a a treasury asset (as is normal for good money) but focusing on treasury companies specifically is a rather different type of market.

2025-07-08 13:17:03 UTC

https://www.axios.com/2025/07/08/ego-death-100-million-bitcoin-companies

2025-07-07 14:02:05 UTC

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People can give it a shot.
So far, the model that seems semi-successful is emphasizing hubs. Like Bitcoin Beach, Bitcoin Jungle, etc. A dense little spending area.

2025-07-06 22:07:58 UTC

I have a new article about bitcoin treasury corporations, whether they're good or bad for Bitcoin as a network, and a note on the overall store-of-value vs medium-of-exchange debate:
https://www.lynalden.com/bitcoin-stocks-and-bonds/

2025-07-05 00:05:51 UTC

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Winning power is hard.
Stepping away from power is legendary.
#nevent1q…wzjn

2025-07-04 21:15:54 UTC

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‘Merica 🫡

2025-07-04 20:13:05 UTC

GM. Happy 4th.
Whenever I use ChatGPT as a research tool, especially whenever related to AI research (either for investment research purposes or my sci fi writings), I am aware of the momentary irony (AI is telling me about AI), I randomly throw in weird questions since it's already primed on the topic:
https://blossom.primal.net/79381655180ab9e5d79963852d02b8b8e2530071573a7c6b1872e9cf6f494f5d.png https://blossom.primal.net/83dd47dc9285191ced233f2e66bd92e56a94dd84be1c980420256c5ffba294a4.png

2025-07-02 02:26:12 UTC

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It seems it's the season to make 8k word pieces great again.
#nevent1q…mrvz

2025-07-02 01:58:15 UTC

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In my sci fi novel draft (currently in editing), this is a topic that comes up a handful of times.
Much of the social media in the book is key-based, and some analysts are dealing with overwhelming AI slop and examine social graphs and such.
I don't portray it as a silver bullet (very expensive misinformation attacks like the ones they are dealing with in the book can exploit existing social graphs and build new ones), but the analysts nonetheless use social graphs to fish out some of the drowned truths.
#nevent1q…4x8q

2025-07-02 01:53:14 UTC

It's actually been a while since I wrote a long article. My public newsletters and premium reports are typically in the 3k-6k word range.
I've got a 7k+ finished piece coming out this weekend. Haven't done one of those in a while. I've got another 8k+ piece written in the pipeline that I'm still tweaking.
Trying to avoid some of the insane 12k-20k type of pieces I wrote in 2020 during the money-printing mayhem (although at least those later became the basis of Broken Money).
https://blossom.primal.net/3e594be7eb3734968768b9af67f50546250f037d9fec7d1467dc9a5be7c7672f.jpg

2025-06-28 02:16:59 UTC

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With Chrome and adblock, I get none.