Seth Godin often ask the question about marketing efforts: “Would anyone miss it if it were gone?” I moved my blog from Word Press, where there was an email subscriber list of a few hundred, to Mirror, where there is no email subscriber list. No one said a word about not getting the daily blog anymore. I guess no one missed it. Which only goes to reinforce what I have been saying. The blog is a workshop (and here on Mirror). It’s my place to bang out ideas and that’s it.

Seth Godin often ask the question about marketing efforts: “Would anyone miss it if it were gone?” I moved my blog from Word Press, where there was an email subscriber list of a few hundred, to Mirror, where there is no email subscriber list. No one said a word about not getting the daily blog anymore. I guess no one missed it. Which only goes to reinforce what I have been saying. The blog is a workshop (and here on Mirror). It’s my place to bang out ideas and that’s it.

tl;dr: Not everything that is published is polished. That is by design. You are both witness and co-creator on this journey. Thank you for being here. I was trading Twitter DMs with my friend, Dan Jeffries. If you don’t know of Dan’s work, it is definitely worth checking out. He’s a very broad and deep thinker on a variety of topics including crypto and AI. I had just returned from the Satoshi Roundtable and shared the post with him. He commented on how quickly I had turned it around, sharing...

tl;dr: Not everything that is published is polished. That is by design. You are both witness and co-creator on this journey. Thank you for being here. I was trading Twitter DMs with my friend, Dan Jeffries. If you don’t know of Dan’s work, it is definitely worth checking out. He’s a very broad and deep thinker on a variety of topics including crypto and AI. I had just returned from the Satoshi Roundtable and shared the post with him. He commented on how quickly I had turned it around, sharing...

It occurs to me that the idea of a Central Bank Digital Currency may be the most powerful element to unit the people on the Left of the political divide with the people on the Right of the political divide. If you care about privacy, are upset about the Roe v. Wade decision, or believe “my body, my choice,” then a CBDC is an affront to all of the ideas of personal, individual sovereignty that you hold year. With a CBDC, you’ll have NO privacy. It will be “my money, your choice” and the govern...

It occurs to me that the idea of a Central Bank Digital Currency may be the most powerful element to unit the people on the Left of the political divide with the people on the Right of the political divide. If you care about privacy, are upset about the Roe v. Wade decision, or believe “my body, my choice,” then a CBDC is an affront to all of the ideas of personal, individual sovereignty that you hold year. With a CBDC, you’ll have NO privacy. It will be “my money, your choice” and the govern...

I’ve had the good fortune to travel around Iceland over the past few days. If you love nature, it’s the place for you (though it’s not cheap–well, the nature is, but the rest of the country isn’t). I’ve said to a few people that Iceland is like “Disneyland for Nature.” When you’re here, you’re a bit in awe of the balance of ecosystems and environment. It’s a beauty to behold. And it makes you think. For the past 300 years, our financial system has been a “winner-take-all,’ “dog-eat-dog,” “zer...

I’ve had the good fortune to travel around Iceland over the past few days. If you love nature, it’s the place for you (though it’s not cheap–well, the nature is, but the rest of the country isn’t). I’ve said to a few people that Iceland is like “Disneyland for Nature.” When you’re here, you’re a bit in awe of the balance of ecosystems and environment. It’s a beauty to behold. And it makes you think. For the past 300 years, our financial system has been a “winner-take-all,’ “dog-eat-dog,” “zer...

What if we are, in fact, living during the “death spin” of central banking? Over 100 years ago, the Federal Reserve came into being, but what if, as Judy Shelton points out in a very powerful piece in the WSJ “The Not So Invisible Hand: Central Banks”It is time to question whether central banks have become too powerful, too prominent and too political. In the name of preserving central bank independence, lawmakers have ceded huge swaths of their own responsibility for ensuring the welfare of ...

What if we are, in fact, living during the “death spin” of central banking? Over 100 years ago, the Federal Reserve came into being, but what if, as Judy Shelton points out in a very powerful piece in the WSJ “The Not So Invisible Hand: Central Banks”It is time to question whether central banks have become too powerful, too prominent and too political. In the name of preserving central bank independence, lawmakers have ceded huge swaths of their own responsibility for ensuring the welfare of ...

There was a great book review in the WSJ the other day called ‘The Price of Time’ Review: Getting Interest Rates Wrong based on Edward Chancellor’s new book, The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest . I read a previous book by Chancellor called Devil Take the Hindmost: A history of financial speculation and blogged about it back in October 2021, so I had some basis for enjoying the way he thinks about finance. While I haven’t read the book yet, the review made a really powerful point, on...

There was a great book review in the WSJ the other day called ‘The Price of Time’ Review: Getting Interest Rates Wrong based on Edward Chancellor’s new book, The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest . I read a previous book by Chancellor called Devil Take the Hindmost: A history of financial speculation and blogged about it back in October 2021, so I had some basis for enjoying the way he thinks about finance. While I haven’t read the book yet, the review made a really powerful point, on...

I know I’m about to walk onto shaky ground here, but sometimes you just have to do it. I’m ok with the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade. But it’s not because I think abortion should be illegal. It’s because of governance systems and “rules of the game.” In my view, the Supreme Court has one job within the US system of governance: decide if something is unconstitutional or not. Their job is not to legislate. It’s to interpret and according to many legal scholars, even many progressive o...

I know I’m about to walk onto shaky ground here, but sometimes you just have to do it. I’m ok with the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade. But it’s not because I think abortion should be illegal. It’s because of governance systems and “rules of the game.” In my view, the Supreme Court has one job within the US system of governance: decide if something is unconstitutional or not. Their job is not to legislate. It’s to interpret and according to many legal scholars, even many progressive o...

Radix is about 7 months away from the biggest product release in its history. From a technology perspective, it’s a paradigm shift in the way that decentralized financial applications are built, secured, interoperate, and scale. The sad, but true, lesson of history, however, is that the best technology doesn’t always win. And this is what keeps me up at night. For a Web3 project to be successful, it needs great tech (check), a great community of believers (check), an ecosystem of dapps, and i...

Radix is about 7 months away from the biggest product release in its history. From a technology perspective, it’s a paradigm shift in the way that decentralized financial applications are built, secured, interoperate, and scale. The sad, but true, lesson of history, however, is that the best technology doesn’t always win. And this is what keeps me up at night. For a Web3 project to be successful, it needs great tech (check), a great community of believers (check), an ecosystem of dapps, and i...

There’s a post by one of the most well-respected DeFi developers, Andre Cronje, called “Building in DeFi is Hard.” In it, he’s not talking about the tech so much. Instead, he talks about the fact that everything you do is in public and subject to public comment. Marketing in Web3 is no different. Whereas in a Web2 company, if you are doing well or poorly, usually the bulk of your comments come from colleagues. In Web3, your community of token holders, who have a vested interest in your succes...

There’s a post by one of the most well-respected DeFi developers, Andre Cronje, called “Building in DeFi is Hard.” In it, he’s not talking about the tech so much. Instead, he talks about the fact that everything you do is in public and subject to public comment. Marketing in Web3 is no different. Whereas in a Web2 company, if you are doing well or poorly, usually the bulk of your comments come from colleagues. In Web3, your community of token holders, who have a vested interest in your succes...

We tend to think of wars in traditional military frameworks. Big guns. Planes. Ships. Etc. This century, however, the definition of war has expanded to include, for example, cyber warfare. I wonder if we are entering an era of Monetary Warfare. If you read Balaji’s book on the Network State, it will start to make sense that the next attack on the traditional nation-state isn’t going to, necessarily, come from another nation-state (I guess I’m talking about the US here), but rather from the “c...

We tend to think of wars in traditional military frameworks. Big guns. Planes. Ships. Etc. This century, however, the definition of war has expanded to include, for example, cyber warfare. I wonder if we are entering an era of Monetary Warfare. If you read Balaji’s book on the Network State, it will start to make sense that the next attack on the traditional nation-state isn’t going to, necessarily, come from another nation-state (I guess I’m talking about the US here), but rather from the “c...

I remember the first time I paid with my phone at a store. It was a CVS and it blew the mind of the person at the cash register. She had never seen it before. There’s probably a blog post in my archives about that somewhere. Today, of course, we’ve all seen it. Not only that, it’s become the dominant form of payment (along with the credit card tap, I suppose). What’s remarkable is how cash is disappearing. I’ve been fortunate, over the past few months, to visit Finland, Spain, Israel, UK, Fra...

I remember the first time I paid with my phone at a store. It was a CVS and it blew the mind of the person at the cash register. She had never seen it before. There’s probably a blog post in my archives about that somewhere. Today, of course, we’ve all seen it. Not only that, it’s become the dominant form of payment (along with the credit card tap, I suppose). What’s remarkable is how cash is disappearing. I’ve been fortunate, over the past few months, to visit Finland, Spain, Israel, UK, Fra...

I’ve started reading Balaji Srinavasan’s new book, The Network State. It’s basically a how-to guide for starting a “cloud-first, land-second” country. At first, you might be thinking, “this is crazy, a new country starting in the cloud and then getting land and then getting admitted to the UN?!” But it’s not so far-fetched. Global communities form every day around topics ranging from sports teams to politics to quilting. Now, with crypto, they have a way to organize assets and decision making...

I’ve started reading Balaji Srinavasan’s new book, The Network State. It’s basically a how-to guide for starting a “cloud-first, land-second” country. At first, you might be thinking, “this is crazy, a new country starting in the cloud and then getting land and then getting admitted to the UN?!” But it’s not so far-fetched. Global communities form every day around topics ranging from sports teams to politics to quilting. Now, with crypto, they have a way to organize assets and decision making...