Reading Time: 11 minutes Given the incentives in capitalism, the “stick” approach to climate change isn’t working. Could a new currency provide a carrot to reframe our priorities?
cryptocurrency
Posted inComedy
Someone understands bitcoin
Reading Time: 2 minutes Despite thousands of ‘Bitcoin Explained’ blog posts, the most popular cryptocurrency remains confusing and impenetrable. We spoke to someone who believes he has a handle on it. “I think I understand it,” said Tony Mendoza, 34, of San Diego, CA. “It’s like a credit card that you can never pay off and the balance fluctuates constantly based […]
Posted inEconomics
Three bank crashes in three days
Reading Time: 4 minutes After a 68 percent drop in deposits at the end of 2022, and a 48 percent workforce layoff in January, Silvergate Capital, a major lender in the crypto industry, announced on Wednesday that it would be liquidating and winding down operations. Its stock dropped 36 percent in after-hours trading. On Thursday, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) […]
Posted inDeep Dive
2022: The year in global review, Part I
Reading Time: 8 minutes All end-of-year lists are suspect. One must embrace futility when trying to summarize what happened on a planet of eight billion for one spin around the sun. So why do we do write them? At best, to break up our routines of knee-jerk outrage at the latest inane news item, and to think more systematically […]
Posted inEconomics
Bankman-Fried arrested—Now what’s to be done about Ponzinomics?
Reading Time: 5 minutes On December 12, Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested at his apartment complex in the Albany resort in the Bahamas, after US prosecutors sent formal notice to local officials that they had filed criminal charges against him. The founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which Bankman-Fried announced was filing for bankruptcy on November 11, had been scheduled […]
Posted inTechnology
Does the FTX collapse discredit effective altruism?
Reading Time: 5 minutes Sam Bankman-Fried, disgraced founder of a bankrupt crypto empire, was a big proponent of effective altruism. Does his deception reflect badly on the philosophy he claimed to believe in?
Posted inEconomics
The crypto crisis fallout in El Salvador
Reading Time: 7 minutes When El Salvador’s president came to power in 2019, many didn’t care that the ensuing calm might have resulted from Nayib Bukele’s backroom arrangements with local gangs. The country of six million, terrorized for years in part by US MS-13 gang members offloaded to Central America, had high hopes of better days under the authoritarian […]
Posted inEconomics
FTX to file for bankruptcy, CEO of crypto giant steps down
Reading Time: 3 minutes It’s been a wild year for tech giants: between Mark Zuckerberg’s faltering Metaverse, Elon Musk’s ruinous takeover of Twitter, and significant crashes on cryptocurrency exchanges, a lot of precarious digital systems are hitting key tipping points. The latest news out of the crypto world is no different: FTX, an industry giant once valued at $32 […]
Posted inComedy
I’m about to hit it big in crypto, am so, shut up
Reading Time: 5 minutes One minor hurdle stood in my way of becoming the next crypto-millionaire and allowing me to tell all those ignorant people to eff off: How do I even buy a Bitcoin?