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Mike

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On Music NFTs

During a postprandial conversation last Christmas, one of my nieces brought up Taylor Swift’s drama with Carlyle over the sale of her back catalog. I had recently minted my first music NFT on Sound (Daniel Allan’s “Too Close”), and the potential for crypto to disintermediate industry incumbents and empower artists was top of mind. Somewhat embarrassingly, in retrospect, I grabbed an unused dessert plate, retrieved a dry-erase marker, and began to diagram two stylistic visions of the world on ...

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NFTs and the future of African startup funding

After Jumia’s IPO a couple years ago, I wrote a brief argument for why I thought African startups would surprise to the upside (see “African Startups” below). I still think this is the case, and I’m encouraged to see a growing number of venture investors and corporates (e.g., Google, Stripe) recognizing the potential on the continent.One of the historical challenges stymying company and capital formation has been the paucity — and poor performance — of private equity (PE) and venture capital ...

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The DAO of (Risk) Capital

Thousands of strangers recently came together to bid on an original copy of the U.S. Constitution at Sotheby’s. I was one of them. If you’re into crypto / web3, then you know what’s up. If you’re not, then you may have come across a story about it in The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times … but maybe you’re thinking: scam! In brief, a group of people formed a decentralized autonomous organization — a DAO — to crowdfund a bid for the Constitution (and deal with all the legal and financi...

CBDCs & ZK Proofs

Gary Gorton (Yale) and Jeffery Zhang (Federal Reserve) recently wrote a fascinating paper on the systemic risks of ‘stablecoins’ and the prospects for a central bank digital currency (‘CBDC’). I believe a U.S. CBDC is inevitable. The questions that follow are:Does the CBDC take the form of (i) a token, or (ii) a citizen’s deposit account at the Federal Reserve?How do you protect privacy?On question 1, the deposit account could enable new, powerful tools for the Fed to achieve macroeconomic ob...

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Crypto v. College

In Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” (cue snark), the builders and independent thinkers escape to Galt’s Gulch whilst a constellation of communists and conformists grind society to a halt. It’s been a minute since I read the book, but over the last couple of years the notion of Galt’s Gulch has popped up in my conversations with friends — particularly when discussing higher education for our children. Most of my friends are operating under the assumption that a conventional university education is ...

Is the Dollar Standard Ending?

Last month, world governments learned that property rights do not apply to foreign exchange reserves. Recall that before Russia’s abhorrent invasion of Ukraine, the United States government froze $7 billion of Afghanistan’s U.S.-based assets. The United States earmarked half for humanitarian aid in Afghanistan, while the balance was reserved to cover potential claims from U.S litigants who sued the Taliban for losses due to terrorism, including the attacks of September 11, 2001. In effect, th...

Thinking on a tokenized investment vehicle

At the beginning of the year, I participated in Wharton's course on the Economics of Blockchain and Digital Assets. The capstone project entailed brainstorming up an idea for a digital asset. In the spirit of building in public, I thought I'd share where my head was back in February. If this sounds interesting to you and you'd like to build it — or if you (or someone you know) is building an equity vehicle like this already — then please send me an e-mail here. This tokenized i...

Most popular by Mike

On Music NFTs

The DAO of (Risk) Capital

CBDCs & ZK Proofs

Crypto v. College

NFTs and the future of African startup funding

Is the Dollar Standard Ending?

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