51–60 of 138 posts
> A cryptocurrency lender backed by Peter Thiel and Coinbase Global Inc. suspended withdrawals, trading and deposits on its platform, citing volatile market conditions and financial difficulties facing key business partners. > The platform, Vauld, said Monday that it froze the operations after users pulled almost $200 million over the last three weeks. A sharp decline in cryptocurrency prices that began with the coll…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Matt Levine always likes to say that cryptocurrencies are relearning hundreds of years of financial lessons in just a few short years. He describes the current crypto crisis as a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis. Every single problem that cryptocurrencies face are extremely well known and studied phenomena in traditional economics. It is all very predictable.
Seems more like the U.S. Bank Panic of 1907.[1] "The panic might have deepened if not for the intervention of financier J. P. Morgan, who pledged large sums of his own money and convinced other New York bankers to do the same to shore up the banking system. That highlighted the limitations of the US Independent Treasury system, which managed the nation's money supply but was unable to inject sufficient liquidity back…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> this bank has no FDIC insurance, no backstop, nothing This was partly true in the S&L crisis [1]. And for depositors in e.g. Cyprus or Iceland in '08. The difference, however, was depositors in S&Ls and Cypriot and Icelandic banks were legally depositors. The banks' assets were insufficiently liquid to accommodate them en masse . But those assets had value. And that value went, almost first and foremost, to the dep…
>(Given Coinbase's debt trades comparably to Russia's [2], the smart money is betting users will get nothing in a failure.) The intention of your comment is to paint coinbase debt as worthless, but after doing some research I came to a different conclusion: that russian debt isn't as worthless as I thought. Right now 10 year russian bond yields are at 9.15%[1], which is only a little over 6 percentage points above th…
the reason russian bonds is considered worthless is due to politics, not due to the lack of or capability to pay from the russian gov't.
Politics can change on a dime, but a company's financials isn't gonna improve suddenly without warning tbh.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Matt Levine always likes to say that cryptocurrencies are relearning hundreds of years of financial lessons in just a few short years. He describes the current crypto crisis as a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis. Every single problem that cryptocurrencies face are extremely well known and studied phenomena in traditional economics. It is all very predictable.
If that's true, at that rate crypto will blaze past traditional finance in only a few years, and be hundreds of years ahead of traditional finance in a couple decades. Sounds pretty good to me.
I've been in and out of crypto since 2014 or so but I've never been more bearish than 2021. When the majority of my Twitter feed became visionaries predicting web3 it all seemed destined for pain. There are billions of reasons to embrace the idea of a platform shift but when everyone can see it coming a mile away they're probably either wrong or a deep trough of sorrow away from it working out.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Matt Levine always likes to say that cryptocurrencies are relearning hundreds of years of financial lessons in just a few short years. He describes the current crypto crisis as a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis. Every single problem that cryptocurrencies face are extremely well known and studied phenomena in traditional economics. It is all very predictable.
If that's true, at that rate crypto will blaze past traditional finance in only a few years, and be hundreds of years ahead of traditional finance in a couple decades. Sounds pretty good to me.
Thiel is a smart investor but even smart investors lose money on some investments. "backed" can have many meanings. I would imagine he has some kind of stop-loss on his exposure to risk here. And indeed, its "Valar Ventures" which has invested, an indirect vehicle. Note: I dislike the guys politics, but that has nothing to do with an objective assessment of his financial investment chops. Same with Andreessen, he doe…
Thiel is not too smart. He’s smart. As smart as Steve Bannon? In fact I cannot differentiate who’s talking if you play their podcast interviews. Thiel has a sputtering of good ideas, and he was in the right place to invest in some successful ventures, but he’s not some once in a life time visionary. As of now, it looks like he’s nothing but a hypocritical selfish vindictive rich asshole with a blood boy (every adject…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thiel's hedge fund Clarium Capital lost a fortune.
Yes, but his position overall is still high-net-worth surely? I'd be delighted if the wunderkid of the libertarian right lost his shirt, but I suspect he's still ahead of where he was 10 years ago, and in the long run is going to continue to make a shedload of money. Clarium lost bigtime. No disagree. He has about 5 other vehicles as I see it. His roth IRA alone is going to be fantastic. I wouldn't use him as my fina…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thiel is not too smart. He’s smart. As smart as Steve Bannon? In fact I cannot differentiate who’s talking if you play their podcast interviews. Thiel has a sputtering of good ideas, and he was in the right place to invest in some successful ventures, but he’s not some once in a life time visionary. As of now, it looks like he’s nothing but a hypocritical selfish vindictive rich asshole with a blood boy (every adject…
What’s… what’s a “blood boy”? Almost afraid to ask here…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> any particular location may be more desirable relative to others, e.g. a gorgeous view, away from factories or highways It's politics, usually, keeping the factories and highways away. More fundamentally, the notion that a piece of paper (the deed) gives you certain rights (but not others) over some land is totally made up.
This is true. It’s also true that “your body” is just a social construct. The rabbit hole of “property is just an idea” doesn’t end well for humans who seek agency.