Tree of History. I've added the Sassanid Persians and changed the egyptian scarab to an Ankh to make it clearer. I've also replaced the sumerian An. Added the american eagle and chinese flag to bring the timeline up to the present. I'll work on cleaning up the roman numerals to make the dates more meaningfully line up with the shields. I could also start including faces around the outside... or maybe replace the assyrian fighters with ones relevant to each era... I have to start thinking of the future part. Always fun to make some predictions. #scifi #history #timeline

Other Stuff... What would athenian Democracy look like in a virtual world? Imagine the entire electorate of a modern city - millions of people- all meeting in a virtual space for a big debate on an important issue. Of course not everyone gets to speak... but everyone can make their opinion or support known in some way. Everyone can react in a visible way showing approval, disapproval or a range of other emotions to what is being said. In the Roman Senate for example, support for a speaker would be shown physically by moving closer or further away from him. Claps, groans, cheers, nods of approval could all convey to those present how well a speech was going. Often these indirect signs were enough to show consensus or lack of it and the issue would never be put to a vote. The speaker could react in real time and adapt his position to the reactions of his listeners. What would this look like today? Social media shows how emojis, likes and other reactions can express a variety of feelings... but it is still very limited. Maybe avatars could also shift places to move closer to the position that they identify with in real time. Supporters of a speaker could also show their desire for their speaker to be given more time to speak or time to respond to a question. This would be easy to test in a multi-candidate debate with mixed reality participation. Instead of simple like/dislike you could have much more nuanced interaction with the audience. True audience participation affecting the outcome of the debate. Imagine a stadium filled with 100.000 people, plus 10 million more joining via VR. All of them able to express themselves in some way. All of them theoretically able to be given speaking time in the debate if they gather enough real time support. It could be chaos or it might be boring... but it's an experiment that I would like to see. We definitely have the tech for it. Maybe one of you conference organisers might want to give it a try... Or maybe a Nostr dev can think of a way to create a simple virtual space with the necessary capacity.

Tree of history. #history #timeline

What happened to the 4 million merchants that Square enabled Bitcoin payments for? Is there any data on how many activated or use it? Any volume numbers? @BTC Map and the shadowy supertaggers are doing great work... but surely Square must publish official internal data at some point? @Joe Nakamoto this would be a very interesting topic to do a deep dive on. Even if the news is disappointing.

Micrópolis. Más allá del Leviatán Nuevo libro de @Álvaro D. María

This crossover now changes incentives somewhat. It's not the same to ditch treasuries when you are tanking your own portfolio than to do so when you are hedged. Many countries are now in that situation. This trend will probably accelerate.

Fun with timelines. Representing history as the tree of life. It's still work in progress, many mistakes. (Yes, I'll fix the numbers...). What would you change? What other empires deserve a mention? #history #timeline

EU proposal for new taxes on digital services, gambling, crypto.

euronews

EU tax proposals could yield up to €11bn per year, Commission says

European Commission is examining proposals to finance the next EU budget through tax changes targeting digital services, gambling and crypto assets...

This is just a rework of the Tobin tax.

Tobin tax - Wikipedia

Centralised exchanges would have to comply. However it's hard to see how they could track #P2P exchanges.

Tree of life concept.

Column

Micromosaic grottesque column #timeline #history

Orazi e Curiazi

Orazi e Curiazi - Wikipedia

From @River 's excellent report on adoption. Nation state adoption.

The digital euro is on the way. #CBDC

Foundation for Economic Education

The Slow Disappearance of Cash in Europe - FEE

Under the guise of fighting money laundering, the EU is making anonymous economic activity progressively harder.

TIL the Pylos combat Agate. Amazing!

Pylos Combat Agate - Wikipedia

Coin production by metal. #history #timeline

Roman military power #history #timeline

USDT frozen by US Government. Now it's only BTC.

A very handy table summarising the stages of the business cycle, from Jesus Huerta de Soto's book "Money, Credit and Economic Cycles".

Some years ago I helped make a short monetary history documentary on two episodes of fiat money inflation in France. One of the things that contemporary writers commented on was how money printing created a new class of speculators addicted to easy debt and fast paper gains in stocks and assets. The Cantillon effect disproportionately benefits those close to the money printer, but also those close enough to power to have what we now call inside information. They were the system's best defenders and promoters. They made fortunes. I cannot help but see the parallels with the current bubbles and the Trump administration's obsession with market manipulation on all fronts. The Polymarket politicians will ride this wave as far as they can, they will milk it for all its worth. If you ever wanted to understand what GRRM meant by "chaos is a ladder" look no further than what is happening to markets every time that Trump announces a new ultimatum or a new peace deal with Iran just before markets open. Its not sustainable, it's not conducive to long term economic growth and the collapse will be spectacular. As Warren Buffet said "it's only when the tide recedes that you see who is swimming naked". The smartest in the speculator class will be able to profit from the crash as much as from the bubble, maybe even more. If you are not close to the money printer and the levers of power, you can only opt out of the game and be patient. They cannot print more Bitcoin.