Blockchain believers, we love you.  Bless your souls for daring to dream of a world beyond fiat Cantillon distortions, above centrally planned misallocations and up to an honest new world of distributed money.  

Today's FT is filled with crypto news!  In print, a mixed bag on Mikey Novogratz's Galaxy: TLDR: Galaxy was buying custodians BitGo, if/when Galaxy was OK'ed  to go IPO.  Numbers go down, Galaxy still not IPOable, & already renegotiated BitGo.  BitGo is fully off, Mikey of the Luna tattoo is still driving to IPO.

BitGo did not respond to the FT, Galaxy will not have to pay the nine figure termination fee sez Galaxy.  Galaxy lost $555mm last quarter, also failed on a BTC ETF approval. CEX Bullish is also hanging fire on SEC IPO approval.  

The REAL story:  Not in the FT, Galaxy said BitGo never delivered audited 2021 results.  Most def not in the FT, BitGo's lawyers say hell yes, Galaxy will have to pay termination fee.  What's funny - since BitGo did not respond quickly enough to the FT, BitGo is being punished by the press here lol.  All other sources agree BitGo sez Mikey WILL have to pay & pay. 

Moving along!  In the print version (the UK is the best) 

We have this misdirection by some Cornell prof Eswar.   TLDR:   Is Blockchain really the answer?  Regulators must account for systemic risk. Some degree of churn in finance is "not necessarily harmful."  Tech cannot eliminate the need for effective oversight. The crypto industry has an interest in muddying the waters.  Eswar doesn't want crypto to be legit with only "light touch" regulation. 

The real story: Eswar is pimping his new book from Harvard Press.   Link below to a recent paper.  Scr-w Eswar.  The Fiat Cantillon industry has a HUGE  interest in retaining absolute power. 

This guy is late to the party, writing a pompous primer last year with idiotic quotations like Proof of Work ... executed through a process called mining (Jakobsson and Juels 1999). Scr-w him and scr-w Jackobsson and Juels if they are just "defining" mining that late.   This schmuck critcizes BTC without saying a word about the ESG footprint of fiat.  He thinks it is a "disadvantage" that no central power can reverse transactions.  BTC has "failed", it is purely speculative, greater fool theory. It's razzle dazzle.   Some indications maybe someone used BTC in Turkey.  But somehow this butthead ties blockchain to  rogue regimes and nuclear weaponry. 

He switches to stablecoins - CBDC's could be great!! Blockchain could work for property, blah blah.  It's the same old tired horsechit.  The FT has found another hater, PC to the core.  Let's skip his true colors shown in that paper,  and focus on this article. 

Eswar completely misses the point.  Blockchain doesn't CARE if Eswar thinks it is the answer, it just is.  Oh yeah thanks Eswar, we will all just give up blockchain now that y'all have enlighted us with your reghammer wisdom.  Thanks man what would we do without you.  The truth is ONLY blockchain has created low cost, fast, safe international transactions.  Of course anyone could have done it faster, but NOONE EVER DID DID THEY you moron??   Nearly all tax evasion, sanction evasion & terrorism goes on without crypto. Pallets of cash and crooked accountants and auditors work just fine. 

Regulators CREATED systemic risk, and y'all know it, quit lying.  They created it with the 2008 crash as well, with Freddie and Fannie and the quasi governmental asleep at the wheel ratings industry.

Churn in financial firms is the POINT, the Schumpeterian creative destruction that drives wealth, not just a little issue to regulate.  Regs have killed that, and now it is STINKING beginning to smell VERY bad. 

 Noone has effectively overseen BTC for anything.  The entire idea is no central authority to be corrupted and choosing what transactions are good and what are not and who can print money and who cannot. To some extent, crypto doesn't care if it is legit with your regulation or not.  Ban it all, pal, see how that works for ya.  We are not even asking the judges, it's a solid one FU out of five for this seemingly innocuous nothingburger.   

OK clean slate, moving on. TLDR: Regulators have chilled after the last big crisis, despite recessions and Russia.  Reg hammerers are called to Crypto and Climate for the thrill of it all. 

Little people are banned from big person investments, little crypto people should get the same bans. Along with criminals, tax dodgers and terrorists. Crypto is moving fast, Mica is moving slow like 2024. EU bank head Christine wants regs on NFTs.  Doing a little light crypto reg could give a veneer of respectability. 

On Climate, regs should force banks to go green not brown. But others can fund. 

Stress tests are tough as no one foresees the correct stresses coming. Climate impact estimates range wildly as the seas rise, industries are obliterated. Maybe skipping quant climate estimates is best. 

Opportunity costs are huge.  Every second thinking about reghammering the wrong thing is a second NOT spent reghammering the right thing. 

The REAL story:  On crypto - Regulators have created a system that is CRASHING with systemic risk from printing all the money in the world every year.  How the ($#&$#(*&!!  could this article not mention inflation as a systemic risk?  WHAT a pro-regulatory POV.  Crypto is the only possible answer for many scr-wed countries with fiat in death spirals.  Go on, UK, reghammer your way on down the list of powerful countries. 

On climate, how the ($&@#($&!! can this article not mention the insanity of banning Tesla from ESG indices?    It's all a political power game like controlling the weather has been since shamans did rain dances.  The spot we are writing from was once covered with a glacial icecap, temps have been rising the last hundred thousand of years, before that sinking for a hundred thousand.  Banks doing climate stress tests are rearranging the deck chairs.  Ecology is a huge topic with us, but the West should go to where the worst pollution is and work to stop it, not just happily triple Grandmama's power bill to virtue signal.  We remember extra taxes to stop global cooling.  Where did that money go??  What is the ecological cost of war over the petrodollar?  We only ever see estimates of crypto footprints.  Two FU's out of five for this dog's breakfast of unbarking dawgs. 

CLEAN slate, moving ON!  That was it for the print crypto.  Online only,  Lex does a bit on the Merge! TLDR:  The merge will virtually (99.95%) eliminate the energy use of ETH.  Staking will pay for validating transactions instead.  Solana pays ~4%, Eth may pay 7%. Numbers went down, but ETH is jumping on the switch simulation test going well.  Delayed before, there will be a hard fork, but reducing crypto's energy use is a widely shared goal. 

The REAL story: Pretty positive and good by Lexxie crypto standards, thanks. Thanks for correcting the 99 to 99.95.   Should have used the Beacon word instead of "other" system. Mentioning Sol was a class touch.  Even classier would have been telling the people that the totally politically hooked up USDC runs (also) on Solana chain. Hey, let's call it a big W.  Two thank yous, Lexxers!!  It's working !!! 

Nextt online: Encouraged by Lex's ascension, we tried to listen to Tech Tonic, we did.  Starts with wallowing in Luna misery.  Our fearless hero then introduces herself as a crypto skeptic after covering crypto since 2015.  Wow, that's a tragedy right there, we don't want to hear anymore.  She could have NOT been a skeptic, mined BTC on a desktop and owned Bracken House for grins, lol.  She could have believed in the greatest asset ever known for around 250 a BTC for 100x.  Or, y'know, like tradfi, created a distributed diversified portfolio of blue chip crypto DCA ing in.  Now her world is built around being a crypto skeptic, we feel bad for her now. 

We move on from luna terra misery guy to making fun of Mikey Sailor with tape splices.  He LOST 6 billion in tech ya know. Now he still believes.  Then we dropped out. Think surprised Dogecoin guy, finally back to Luna wipeout guy, he still believes too.  Hey, socko ending there, two thank yous Jemima!!! Who knows!!??!   WTH, it's a schtick,  everybody's gotta have a schtick. 

Big socko latebreaking online only story!!

 TLDR: fresh  juicy details about the fall of the house of Celsius. Alex sold hundreds of millions in BTC, then bought them back at a big loss the next day!!  Alex blew nine figures of fresh funding from pension funds on a startup!! NOT in the FT - these dudes Shahar and Lior In the FT: Alex shouts "this week will define you" to the traders.  Commandeered?  the trading desk to mistime BTC's nosedive, maybe lost Celsius an extra 50MM.   Alex had HEAVY coin in the Grayscale premium game. Lost big on the trade, refused to unwind and lost bigger like $$125mm!!  Alex made huge bets based on bad info from his own known bad systems SLUGGING giant wads of BTC around!! 

In Napoleonic madness, Alex was fixated on getting the ill-fated BTC loan back from EquitesFirst early.   EquitiesFirst said they had signed a payment schedule that could not be changed without agreements to pay many lawyers. 

The latest trading mishap news should have been covered in an internal audit Alex ordered.  The audit was presented to investors along with recommending investing in more technology.  Soon after the auditor moved to a window job. 

The REAL story??  Insider details, fresh details, specific timing.  Graph marking Alex's waterloo!! Why the *$&$ didn't ANYONE like, lock into some great ETH staking deals?   Or start their own rug pulls in Dex liquidity, something ANYTHING but Greyscale?   At least Alex can always get a job working data security in Israel. Great job FT!!!   Four thank you's, Kadim from London!!??! 

That was lovely, tasty, no cat food today!  Podcast maybe a little meow mix, but that's great. We once had a mug shot (for rollerblading on the "highway" & resisting) wearing  this t-shirt, lol.    We're having much more fun!!!! 

Peace,

love

Dave