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Saved by @SteveeRogerr

After much investigation and conversations with people on here, I’ve formed a relatively robust theory of what may be happening with Tether.

This thread will attempt to lay it out with neutral language for the purpose of discussion.
1/

 Before we start, please note that ‘robust’ doesn’t mean ‘accurate’, it just means that:

1. the theory is internally consistent
2. it accounts for participant behavior

…but it’s important to remember that this is still hypothesis-stage thinking.
2/
First, let us note that the BTC ecosystem has clearly stated goals. They believe that:

1. Bitcoin is a new global reserve money.
2. They intend to create an alternative financial system around it.

Let’s just take them at their word and assume that’s directionally accurate.
3/
Next, a postulate: most people do not understand the current monetary system very well. This is exemplified by the “BRRR” meme and other variants of thinking which presume that the Fed prints money.

That’s not how the system actually works, as discussed elsewhere.
4/
In reality, what’s happening with the Fed is a bit more subtle and involves various forms of duration swaps and clerical activities that the populace at large gives more credence than those activities actually deserve.

Money is very complex.
5/
BUT the dominant mental model of money (in particular amongst the Bitcoin and hard money crowds) is one in which the Fed prints money, and as a result inflation is inevitable.

It’s not a stretch to imagine that the alt-money replica set is using this mental model as a guide.
6/
Situational update - we are now here:

1. Bitcoin is a new global reserve money.
2. They intend to create an alternative financial system around it.
3. Their mental model of the financial system is “BRRR-centric”
7/
I’ve seen some curious resurgent apologist-style arguments about Tether printing, which go like this:

“Look the Fed does it I don’t see the problem”
“Tether is an integral part of the crypto plumbing.”
“The dollar is also backed by nothing.”

Which is interesting…
8/
Because it’s the sort of statement that would be consistent with an attempt to create an alt-money system with a BRR-centric mental model of how the Fed and reserves work.

So…. well, I suspect this may be what’s happening here from the perspective of ecosystem participants.
9/
And this is where we run into a set of issues as well: that’s not, in fact, how our monetary system creates money.

The current system has evolved, over time, various checks and balances around money creation — checks and balances that can only be evolved, not designed.
10/
In fact, most “sociocultural primes” (language, money, governance) are like this - they cannot be designed, they must be incrementally and gradually evolved.

They are woven in too deep; we may only edit them slowly.

This is why Esperanto (a designed-language attempt) failed
11/
What’s particularly curious in this case is that using a flawed mental model of the current monetary system to create a new alternate one is likely to have… well, unintended consequences.

Because it’s being designed out of whole cloth, the system constraints are unclear.
12/
In our current debt-based monetary system, there are constraints on money creation. From the supply-side, borrower solvency acts as a constraint. From the demand-side, appetite for debt acts as a constraint.

These constraints, evolved over time, create systemic equilibrium.
13/
In a ‘fresh’ system, the constraints are not clear.

Many of us suspect that Tether issuance experiences no solvency-centric constraint, and this worries us.

There is observably no demand constraint (as yet).
14/
Let's pause here and note that the alt-money participants likely do not believe they are doing anything amiss — from their perspective, they are simply replicating the tropes of the current monetary system as they understand it.

But an unconstrained system burns too hot.
15/
And it’s this heat that worries some of us observers: these systems have a tendency to self-immolate when they run hot for too long.

And that’s why putting governors on them is important.

And that’s why we want an audit to see 1:1 USD-only backing.
16/
Realtime 1:1 USD-only collateral adds a governor to this system to prevent it from running too hot, and that governor is the need to source a specific form of collateral.

Making this a requirement would be good, and prevent the system from going supernova.
17/
Unfortunately, the participants within the system are hostile to this idea, and hostile to external input generally. The “cyber hornet” moniker is apt, but unfortunately it’s ultimately also a disservice to this new ecosystem.

Problems lie ahead.
18/
What problems, specifically? Well it’s hard to say — this sort of super hot system can experience breakdowns in a number of ways.

But the lack of equilibrium will eventually be a problem, and that sort of problem has historically caused pain for market participants.
19/
And when that pain comes, it will put the ecosystem at odds with the State — for representative democracy states are wired to dislike and solve things that cause their citizens pain.

In a conflict with the state, the state will win.
20/
And this is why I’d like to see the Tether situation mopped up — it’s unsustainable.

And when it breaks down, it will lead to conflict with the State.

And conflict with the state will slow our progress toward what could be the beginnings of an exciting new monetary system.
/21

More from Travis Kimmel

Travis
Travis
@coloradotravis
@evan_lorenz Exactly this.

Plus in a gold-based system, smaller entities (SMBs or sole proprietors) could presumably even self-custody to reduce the carrying cost of gold to zero.

This is not possible with bitcoin, in which one owns a share of a collective and equally distributed liability.

The hilarity of all this, to me, is that Bitcoin makes the most sense if viewed as a Marxist worker’s rebellion.

The central promise is UBI: buy tokens that increase in value forever, granting you wealth for doing nothing.

And the cost is the future.
MACRO
Travis
Travis
@coloradotravis
It's endlessly fascinating how economic datapoints get interpreted.

When I was in charge of a P&L, the guy who ran Finance for us and I had what we called the 'shelf plan.'

There were maybe 3-4 of us who knew it existed.

What's a shelf plan?
1/

Well it's a plan you keep on the shelf (full FP&A model), that you hope you never have to use.

It reduces forward hires, cuts back various line items (typically ad spend, travel, that sort of thing).

Oh, it also has a big fat RIF in there.

That's why we don't talk about it.
2/

Why have a plan instead of winging it?

Because this is where companies (particularly young companies) sometimes err. They do little cuts - 2-3% here and there, preserving as much headcount as they can, that sort of thing.

This is incorrect.
3/

If you're at the point where you need to make material changes to your forward P&L, at 2-3% RIF will be followed by another.

And another.

And this series of progressive cuts will cripple morale, incrementally reducing the productivity of the staff you retain to survive.
4/

And so the shelf plan cuts deep.

Your goal is to go from being a peacetime machine to a wartime machine, so you gotta lean out quick. Can't do that without a plan, hence the need to have one.

~30% cut is what you need.

And then you need to tell everyone left they're safe.
5/
BUSINESS
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Travis Kimmel
Travis Kimmel
@coloradotravis
What are prices?

A layperson’s guide to understanding charts and volatility.
1/

It’s an observable fact that price has nothing to do with value. Perhaps over the long term these two converge, but in the short term it makes no sense that the price of, say, soybeans would change 3-4% from day to day.

So what’s happening?
2/

You’ve probably heard people say “markets are forward looking” and that’s sorta true, I guess.

But that doesn’t mean they’re any good at it.

It might be better to say “markets consistently attempt to look forward” because that would be more illustrative of what’s happening.
3/

When a day-over-day price makes a 3% move this is not a 3% shift in value, it’s a 3% shift in *aggregate expectations about future value.*

And that makes sense, right? Expectations are pretty ephemeral so they can move fast.
4/

Consider volatility through this same lens. When a market is highly volatile, this means that expectations about forward value are evolving rapidly.

This happened in March when everyone got scared about Covid - it broke people’s forward expectations, and thus broke markets.
5/
TRADING
Travis Kimmel
Travis Kimmel
@coloradotravis
Let’s talk about money and the State (Sovereign).

Since everyone constantly gets this wrong.
1/

So look: there never was a barter-centric state of nature.

That’s a nice story but when we look at the historical record, it’s just flat out false.

In point of fact:

- Debt predates money.
- Money predates barter.
2/

The way the Sovereign first got involved with debt was something like this:

King: “If you don’t give me 3 goats during harvest season, my soldiers will come burn your fucking house down.”

And in this way, the King originated a debt.

By fiat.
3/

But moving goats around sucks (horrible creatures) and is just sort of logistically annoying, so a new plan was devised, like this:

King: “Same deal with the soldiers and the burning and the profanity, but now it’s 50 pieces of silver instead of goats.”

Presto! Money!
4/

Money is a token that settles debts - always has been. The reason it’s useful is because it allows society to function like an abacus with N players.

In lieu of just the sovereign playing debt, these tokens are ‘debt settlement bearer assets’ which allow…well... the economy
5/
SOCIETY
Travis Kimmel
Travis Kimmel
@coloradotravis
Why do we like blowing bubbles?

(This is not a bitcoin thread, go away)
1/

So I'm not a “neurotypical” (a fact discovered late in life) and while we won't go into the details here, the net output of that fact appears to be that I'm wired to take a more… ‘zoological’ approach to understanding humanity.

Hence the quirky Animal Planet threads.
2/

The distance afforded by non-participation in certain things (the weakness) also occasionally lends itself to a bit more subtlety with pattern detection (the strength).

And so I started painting a picture about bubbles.
3/

And in my mind’s eye there formed a cluster of ladybugs. They were happy, far from from eating aphids, and content on their beautiful tree.

And then one started flapping.
4/

At first the other ladybugs ignored it, but after a time its persistence was intoxicating.

And so a few more flapped.

And as is the way with exercise, certain endorphins were released

And it felt good to flap.
5/
LIFE

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The common understanding of propaganda is that it is intended to brainwash the masses. Supposedly, people get exposed to the same message repeatedly and over time come to believe in whatever nonsense authoritarians want them to believe /1

And yet authoritarians often broadcast silly, unpersuasive propaganda.

Political scientist Haifeng Huang writes that the purpose of propaganda is not to brainwash people, but to instill fear in them /2


When people are bombarded with propaganda everywhere they look, they are reminded of the strength of the regime.

The vast amount of resources authoritarians spend to display their message in every corner of the public square is a costly demonstration of their power /3

In fact, the overt silliness of authoritarian propaganda is part of the point. Propaganda is designed to be silly so that people can instantly recognize it when they see it


Propaganda is intended to instill fear in people, not brainwash them.

The message is: You might not believe in pro-regime values or attitudes. But we will make sure you are too frightened to do anything about it.
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Billy Bostickson \U0001f3f4\U0001f441&\U0001f441 \U0001f193
Billy Bostickson 🏴👁&👁 ...
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We want to collate all references to DRASTIC in academic papers & media articles
Here are a few:
medium article by @emmecola
thorough report by @netpoette
@ColinDavdButler 's Paper
Please add any links to this thread. Tks!


2. More References
Papers by @MonaRahalkar and @BahulikarRahul
Papers by @Rossana38510044 and @ydeigin
Medium articles & papers by
@gdemaneuf & @Rdemaistre
Papers by @flavinkins (Daoyu Zhang)
Papers by "Anon" & "interneperson"
French News - le Monde
Can anyone remember any more?

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Papers & Blog Posts by @Harvard2H (Sirotkin & Sirotkin)
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If you find mentions of our individual names or "DRASTIC" in Papers or News, please forward here to this thread as links or screenshots.

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@davidboxenhorn
1. The death of Silicon Valley, a thread

How did Silicon Valley die? It was killed by the internet. I will explain.

Yesterday, my friend IRL asked me "Where are good old days when techies were


2. In the "good old days" Silicon Valley was about understanding technology. Silicon, to be precise. These were people who had to understand quantum mechanics, who had to build the near-miraculous devices that we now take for granted, and they had to work

3. Now, I love libertarians, and I share much of their political philosophy. But you have to be socially naive to believe that it has a chance in a real society. In those days, Silicon Valley was not a real society. It was populated by people who understood quantum mechanics

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5. Still, the heroes of Silicon Valley were the engineers. The people who knew how to build things. Steve Jobs, for all his understanding of people, also had quite a good understanding of technology. He had a libertarian vibe, and so did Silicon Valley
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@AuerDirk
This response to my tweet is a common objection to targeted advertising.

@KevinCoates correct me if I'm wrong, but basic point seems to be that banning targeted ads will lower platform profits, but will mostly be beneficial for consumers.

Some counterpoints 👇


1) This assumes that consumers prefer contextual ads to targeted ones.

This does not seem self-evident to me


Research also finds that firms choose between ad. targeting vs. obtrusiveness 👇

If true, the right question is not whether consumers prefer contextual ads to targeted ones. But whether they prefer *more* contextual ads vs *fewer* targeted

2) True, many inframarginal platforms might simply shift to contextual ads.

But some might already be almost indifferent between direct & indirect monetization.

Hard to imagine that *none* of them will respond to reduced ad revenue with actual fees.

3) Policy debate seems to be moving from:

"Consumers are insufficiently informed to decide how they share their data."

To

"No one in their right mind would agree to highly targeted ads (e.g., those that mix data from multiple sources)."

IMO the latter statement is incorrect.
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@bread157
@DawgLaser @GravelInstitute Rush Hudson Limbaugh III (/ˈlɪmbɔː/ LIM-baw; January 12, 1951 – February 17, 2021) was an American radio personality, conservative political commentator, author, and television show host.
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What are Exponential Moving Averages?

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8EMA = Exponential Moving Averages of the last 8 candle closing prices.

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2) The 'Claudium' was intended as a sacred complex to revere Claudius and the imperial cult. Construction began soon after the death and deification of the emperor in 54 AD, initiated by his widow Agrippina who was likely responsible for his supposed death by poisoning. #LostRome


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