Finally a review of the Putin interview that avoids projection of one's own virtuous opinions about him and Carlson.

Thematic Markets | Marvin Barth | Substack

Differentiated, value-added insights into the themes driving the global political economy and markets. Click to read Thematic Markets, by Marvin Ba...

Tough to beat the feeling of relief when what you thought was the Sword of Damocles hanging over your head turns out to be one of those pool noodles.

I don't transact much onchain. But today I took advantage of low fees to do some housekeeping. I'll own it - I giggled like a little girl each time I broadcast a signed transaction....

A lot of the content soars high above my head, nevertheless I really enjoy following the discussions on delvingbitcoin. There's something there for everyone to learn.

My daughter was able to spend time with her great grandmother before she passed. An enormous gift to both of them....and to me. My daughter has a sense of where she came from, so I feel really good about where she's going.

As much as a lot of Bitcoiners find it distasteful, we need to get the community engaged in the policy fight. We all still live in communities, with friends and family. And Galt Gulch doesn't actually exist. We're going to organize and make out voices heard this year.

Every time I think I'm clear, there's another something who claims I owe this or that. It's exhausting, and I count myself among the fortunate. It really pains me to see how good people are struggling. There is a profound injustice to it.

I spent a lot of my professional life overseas, primarily in developing countries. One of the constants in these places was failing or unreliable institutions, subject to the whims of elites. Institutions are supposed to represent order and allow people to reliably inform their behavior. When they start to fail, the societal corrosion becomes exponential. Our "elites" seem to fail to understand the implications corrupting institutions out of parochialism, ideological motivations, or plain old greed. It's not as if humanity hasn't heard this song before on many occasions throughout history.

Based on stock market performance, the only thing that functions in our economy are industries that involve people sitting in front of computer screens...

A sound message from the past from the Roman Polybius - learn humility, or the lessons that fate teaches you will be harsh.

We have friends who believe the recent EIA request of Bitcoin miners isnt a source of concern, as this data is already publicly available. I ask you to then consider why they are asking. The people who spent taxpayer dollars conceiving, creating, and producing this survey are not your friends. If you think their motivations are somehow altruistic, you kinda deserve what you get. If "advocates" tell you there's nothing to see here, block them. They are either stupid or liars.

I feel just a sliver of guilt because I have become a total lurker on X. There are still a lot of great accounts I follow, I still like posts, and I enjoy following these people for their perspectives. But I don't write anymore on X. I give what I have to give, paltry as it might be, to an audience I feel part of and hope to see grow.

I'm looking for a way to satisfy an impulse buy option for a Nostr Tshirt .

The prescience of Altas Shrugged borders on disconcerting.....maybe this is just a function of the lack of imagination of those who pretend to want to save us.

Caught up with some friends who work in cyber security. They're not Bitcoiners, but they have a good understanding of how the protocol functions. We had a long discussion about security, and how Bitcoin could be attacked from a purely technical perspective. One issue that took up a lot of discussion was the DNS seeds and hard-coded seed nodes, and whether those represented a vulnerability. We all went back and forth. I asked AI, and I thought the answer was quite reasonable.

In case anyone forgot…..

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