Suppose hypothetically you have an account at a brokerage with some valuable asset in it. You take a margin loan against that asset to fund your normal spending, or pay a tax bill, or maybe buy something at another brokerage.
Torn between "I think losing $100 million when someone beats you at security research is pretty much exactly what you signed up for doing yield farming" and "Maaaaaaaybe not the future of finance you were expecting, huh."
Suppose hypothetically you have an account at a brokerage with some valuable asset in it. You take a margin loan against that asset to fund your normal spending, or pay a tax bill, or maybe buy something at another brokerage.
And you think "Hmm, I have a large equity cushion against this loan."
Which I don't; I just feel like this is why you don't trust a CPU built out of redstone to build reliable financial infrastructure on top of.
Ill-timed liquidations can and do, but attacking someone doing something not-risky to force a liquidation is harder, because of many built in safeguards.
Two, if you regulated financial institution has a goof in your data feeds causes you to mechanically disadvantage retail...
This is not the consensus viewpoint among engineers, who do not have good calibration.
For the treasury auction? Oh heck yes I do. Expect a turf war between the money people and the terrorism people over who gets to lead the investigation.)
More from Patrick McKenzie
So the cryptocurrency industry has basically two products, one which is relatively benign and doesn't have product market fit, and one which is malignant and does. The industry has a weird superposition of understanding this fact and (strategically?) not understanding it.
The benign product is sovereign programmable money, which is historically a niche interest of folks with a relatively clustered set of beliefs about the state, the literary merit of Snow Crash, and the utility of gold to the modern economy.
This product has narrow appeal and, accordingly, is worth about as much as everything else on a 486 sitting in someone's basement is worth.
The other product is investment scams, which have approximately the best product market fit of anything produced by humans. In no age, in no country, in no city, at no level of sophistication do people consistently say "Actually I would prefer not to get money for nothing."
This product needs the exchanges like they need oxygen, because the value of it is directly tied to having payment rails to move real currency into the ecosystem and some jurisdictional and regulatory legerdemain to stay one step ahead of the banhammer.
If everyone was holding bitcoin on the old x86 in their parents basement, we would be finding a price bottom. The problem is the risk is all pooled at a few brokerages and a network of rotten exchanges with counter party risk that makes AIG circa 2008 look like a good credit.
— Greg Wester (@gwestr) November 25, 2018
The benign product is sovereign programmable money, which is historically a niche interest of folks with a relatively clustered set of beliefs about the state, the literary merit of Snow Crash, and the utility of gold to the modern economy.
This product has narrow appeal and, accordingly, is worth about as much as everything else on a 486 sitting in someone's basement is worth.
The other product is investment scams, which have approximately the best product market fit of anything produced by humans. In no age, in no country, in no city, at no level of sophistication do people consistently say "Actually I would prefer not to get money for nothing."
This product needs the exchanges like they need oxygen, because the value of it is directly tied to having payment rails to move real currency into the ecosystem and some jurisdictional and regulatory legerdemain to stay one step ahead of the banhammer.
More from Tech
"I really want to break into Product Management"
make products.
"If only someone would tell me how I can get a startup to notice me."
Make Products.
"I guess it's impossible and I'll never break into the industry."
MAKE PRODUCTS.
Courtesy of @edbrisson's wonderful thread on breaking into comics – https://t.co/TgNblNSCBj – here is why the same applies to Product Management, too.
There is no better way of learning the craft of product, or proving your potential to employers, than just doing it.
You do not need anybody's permission. We don't have diplomas, nor doctorates. We can barely agree on a single standard of what a Product Manager is supposed to do.
But – there is at least one blindingly obvious industry consensus – a Product Manager makes Products.
And they don't need to be kept at the exact right temperature, given endless resource, or carefully protected in order to do this.
They find their own way.
make products.
"If only someone would tell me how I can get a startup to notice me."
Make Products.
"I guess it's impossible and I'll never break into the industry."
MAKE PRODUCTS.
Courtesy of @edbrisson's wonderful thread on breaking into comics – https://t.co/TgNblNSCBj – here is why the same applies to Product Management, too.
"I really want to break into comics"
— Ed Brisson (@edbrisson) December 4, 2018
make comics.
"If only someone would tell me how I can get an editor to notice me."
Make Comics.
"I guess it's impossible and I'll never break into the industry."
MAKE COMICS.
There is no better way of learning the craft of product, or proving your potential to employers, than just doing it.
You do not need anybody's permission. We don't have diplomas, nor doctorates. We can barely agree on a single standard of what a Product Manager is supposed to do.
But – there is at least one blindingly obvious industry consensus – a Product Manager makes Products.
And they don't need to be kept at the exact right temperature, given endless resource, or carefully protected in order to do this.
They find their own way.
1. One of the best changes in recent years is the GOP abandoning libertarianism. Here's GOP Rep. Greg Steube: “I do think there is an appetite amongst Republicans, if the Dems wanted to try to break up Big Tech, I think there is support for that."
2. And @RepKenBuck, who offered a thoughtful Third Way report on antitrust law in 2020, weighed in quite reasonably on Biden antitrust frameworks.
3. I believe this change is sincere because it's so pervasive and beginning to result in real policy changes. Example: The North Dakota GOP is taking on Apple's app store.
4. And yet there's a problem. The GOP establishment is still pro-big tech. Trump, despite some of his instincts, appointed pro-monopoly antitrust enforcers. Antitrust chief Makan Delrahim helped big tech, and the antitrust case happened bc he was recused.
5. At the other sleepy antitrust agency, the Federal Trade Commission, Trump appointed commissioners
@FTCPhillips and @CSWilsonFTC are both pro-monopoly. Both voted *against* the antitrust case on FB. That case was 3-2, with a GOP Chair and 2 Dems teaming up against 2 Rs.
2. And @RepKenBuck, who offered a thoughtful Third Way report on antitrust law in 2020, weighed in quite reasonably on Biden antitrust frameworks.
3. I believe this change is sincere because it's so pervasive and beginning to result in real policy changes. Example: The North Dakota GOP is taking on Apple's app store.
Republican North Dakota legislators have introduced #SB2333, a bill that prohibits large tech companies from locking their users into a single app store or payment processor.https://t.co/PgyhgOhFAl
— Cory Doctorow #BLM (@doctorow) February 11, 2021
1/ pic.twitter.com/KZ8BMFQoPO
4. And yet there's a problem. The GOP establishment is still pro-big tech. Trump, despite some of his instincts, appointed pro-monopoly antitrust enforcers. Antitrust chief Makan Delrahim helped big tech, and the antitrust case happened bc he was recused.
5. At the other sleepy antitrust agency, the Federal Trade Commission, Trump appointed commissioners
@FTCPhillips and @CSWilsonFTC are both pro-monopoly. Both voted *against* the antitrust case on FB. That case was 3-2, with a GOP Chair and 2 Dems teaming up against 2 Rs.