Ep. 181 Chicks Love Altruism
On this episode of the Unhashed Podcast, we cram a lot in: exchange outflows, Fort Worth & 3 ASICS, Strike skepticism, financial porn, Fidelity boomer #bitcoin, trusted Zcash, El Salvadorean data, legal tender in CAR, clueless EU regulators, free speech, Mora et al, & SBF as a model man.
Over the last 30 days, nearly 80,000 bitcoin, worth over $3 billion, has left exchanges with the largest outflows coming from Coinbase. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/markets/bitcoin-continues-to-flow-out-of-exchanges
Bitcoin Core 23.0 was released! https://twitter.com/bitcoincoreorg/status/1518598487205720064?s=20&t=bUtcQ8hfU3FX33joK96quw
Fort Worth, Texas has become the first city government in the U.S. to mine bitcoin. The city has accepted a donation of three S9 miners from the Texas Blockchain Council, in partnership with Luxor Technologies and Rhodium Enterprises. Fort Worth will run a trial period of six-months as they learn the industry in hopes to become a leading hub for mining.
Jack mallers bitcoin 2022 announcement
Pornstar Cherie Deville is creating a new porno in order to teach men about the dangers of investing in speculative crypto-assets and NFTs. She writes in the Daily Beast “ When I socialize with men, I used to hear them discuss sports gambling. Now, they brag about investments in cryptocurrencies, NFTs, meme stocks, buzzy SPACs, and shady tech ETFs. I would approve of these so-called assets if I knew my bros only spent what they could afford to lose, but my dude friends keep telling me, “These are the best investments I can make. I’m going to make a killing. I’m putting all my money in this coin, and you should too!” “You should have a diversified portfolio of index funds and ETFs,” I say. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Cherie,” they reply. “You need to watch this YouTube video and do your research!” I’ve done my research, and I’ve found that people who invest in speculative manias lose their shirts. Everyone from the Securities and Exchange Commission to researchers in Taiwan see that most day traders lose money. Most professional traders lose money, too. Between 2011 and 2021, the S&P 500 index fund outperformed “top” hedge funds. The average joe should put their investment funds in a Roth IRA or IRA invested in diversified index funds and ETFs. Under no circumstances should anyone invest their entire retirement in a new cryptocurrency promoted by an Instagram model or obnoxious tech CEO. When I sent this actual research to my male friends, they were uninterested and told me I was behind the times. Men are basically pussy-blind to cryptocurrencies. So, I decided to teach them a lesson or two with my actual pussy. On Tax Day, I’m releasing a porno called Suze Whoreman. In the film, a heterosexual couple struggles because the male keeps wasting money on NFTs. His girlfriend takes him to see a financial adviser, thinking she’s the lesbian finance icon Suze Orman, but it’s Suze Whoreman (played by me, of course). I then dominate the male until he starts investing in index funds and ETFs instead of ape-branded crypto junk. By the end of our fuck session, he’s an index fund-addicted Boglehead. The video sounds ridiculous, but we need to act silly to straighten out male finances. Men love crypto, monkey NFTs, and speculative assets because they appeal to men’s risk-prone brains. According to the National Library of Medicine, 150 studies show that men take more risks than women, and men are twice as likely to gamble as women. Men refuse to listen to investment advice because it’s boring. Meanwhile, gambling addiction specialists told CNBC that Robinhood (day trader’s favorite app) resembles a casino. Women are OK with boring advice (Fidelity Investments found women invest 40 percent better than men), but we need to teach men in a way that will get their attention. And what do men love more than gambling? Sex. I’m educating through porn because it will get males’ attention.
And on the note of investing in crypto assets, Fidelity Investments has become the first retirement plan provider to allow cryptocurrencies in the 401(k) accounts that it services, starting with Bitcoin (BTC). This investment option will become available by mid-2022 to 23,000 employers that use Fidelity to administer their retirement accounts. Since Fidelity has $11.3 trillion in assets under administration (AUA), making it the largest retirement plan provider in the U.S., this move represents a major milestone in the mainstreaming of crypto.
The Notorious whistle-blower Edward Snowden acknowledges he was the sixth person who participated in an elaborate 2016 ceremony that led to the creation of zcash, a leading privacy cryptocurrency. Zcash has a history of known exploits that have since been patched where an attacker could have minted an infinite amount of counterfeit Zcash—as well as any other cryptocurrency that relied on its cryptographic technology—and no one would have been the wiser. Bryce “Zooko” Wilcox, CEO and cofounder of the Zcash company, told Fortune, “We don’t believe that there was any exploitation of the vulnerability” on the Zcash blockchain, he said, noting that very few people knew the cryptography well enough to have discovered and exploited it.” Though there would be no way of knowing if Zooko had used the exploit himself. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2022/04/27/edward-snowden-revealed-as-key-participant-in-mysterious-ceremony-creating-2-billion-anonymous-cryptocurrency/?sh=3dd4ba363b24
Fernando Alvarez (University of Chicago) and David Argente (Pennsylvania State University) have published a study tracking bitcoin adoption in El Salvador following its recognition of bitcoin as legal tender. The abstract reads: This paper studies the potential of a cryptocurrency to become a medium of exchange. We use evidence from a natural experiment: In September 2021, El Salvador became the first country in the world to make bitcoin legal tender, and all economic agents were required to accept bitcoin for all payments. The Salvadorean government also launched an app, “Chivo Wallet,” which allowed users to digitally trade both bitcoin and dollars, and gave major incentives to download it. We conduct a representative national face-to-face survey to obtain information on bitcoin’s usage and effects. Leveraging this data, we document how, despite the government’s “big push” and a large fraction of people downloading Chivo Wallet, usage of bitcoin for everyday transactions is low and is concentrated among the banked, educated, young, and male population. We also estimate the fixed cost of adopting the new payment technology, the importance of strategic complementarities for users, and the elasticity of substitution between mobile payments and other payment methods.
The Central African Republic (CAR) has approved Bitcoin as legal tender - just the second country to do so. CAR is one of the world's poorest countries, but is rich in diamonds, gold and uranium. It has been wracked by conflict for decades and is a close Russian ally, with mercenaries from the Wagner Group helping fight rebel forces. Lawmakers voted unanimously to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, said a statement from the CAR presidency.
https://twitter.com/DamienSomerset/status/1519399857600966656