The old gag used to run: “Dad, the 90’s are calling, they want their phone back.” The gag had legs because there were people (talking about this guy I know) who thought that cell phones were good for calling people and talking to them. Therefore the Nokia “candy bar” phone…

I was never on the forex desk but we sat close enough to them and hung out with them enough to pick up a few helpful ideas. Forex traders speak in strange tongues amongst themselves. Some of it appears to be Greek, or at least Greek letters. Much of it…

The price of Bitcoin in US dollars dropped around 36% at one point just over the last week. The actual percentages and where one measures them from is not the critical point. Bitcoin has had a sudden reversal of fortune despite the mathematical certainty of its supply. …

At some point a parent, teacher or other significant adult told you not to play with matches. You could burn down the house or school or gym. I cannot prove it, but I suspect that the number of times a child played with a match compared to the number of…

Bitcoin Financialization and the Minsky Cycle Bitcoin has been around for more than a decade and its total “market capitalization” passed $1 trillion, making it the fifth largest currency in the world by some base money measures (USD, EUR, JPY and CNY are the top four, in that order). And…

STOs = ICOs + Securities Regulation + New Exchanges As a long time participant in capital markets, it is always fascinating to watch the same critical ingredients recombine into new and useful products and tools. I would go so far as to propose that financial market innovation takes the form…

What if you had won the latest Internet Lottery? What if you had accumulated ten bitcoin at an average price below $5,000 per bitcoin and today they trade around the $50,000 range? Remember the end of 2017, when Bitcoin spiked up to $20,000 on a feeding frenzy amongst retail investors…

The head of JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon’s rants against Bitcoin are legendary. Some of the graphics from sites like Marketwatch.com are worth the quick Google search. But there was a method to Mr. Dimon’s madness. Blockchain technology was launched on the world with Bitcoin as its lead proof of concept…

Sometimes the rug gets pulled right out from under you. You don’t know until you hit the ground. And then it makes you think a bit about what you have taken for granted. It has been a while since someone I know has actually taken the plunge to become American…