What if game currencies were built on sound money principles? What does such a virtual world feel like before it's realized in the real world? These musings have led to combining AI + software + game theory + finance skills together over the weekend to build a primitive game that has some some surprising depth.

Frontier Crown

Frontier Crown

A tick-based multiplayer frontier economy with fixed-supply gold, lineage invites, market trading, survival gathering, and Warden boss hunts.

Is it weird that I find Trump's praise Allah funny? why do people getting so twisted about it?

Fascinating perspective yesterday, catching up with an old schoolmate and talking economics, considering his critique that Austrian economics only works in an ideal world with no cartels, monopolies, or any information asymmetry. In other words, you can argue it's better to regulate fractional reserve banking than to ban it - like liquor/weed/drugs/prostitution. You need Keynesian economics and Monetary theory for that. The incentive for usury/riba/ribbis (interest on sound money) is too great. I asked him to consider that bitcoin may not solve usury, but it provides just enough transparency to make fractional reserve banking impossible and that's enough, because there is no market need for banking intermediation when money settles at the speed of information. Bitcoin as a technology resolves this great "idealism" in the work of Hayek and it cannot solve human laziness - we risk going down the path of the Gold Standard if we do not insist on Proof of Reserve and shared-custody for all institutions and self-custody for ourselves.

I thought banks are where you keep your money safe. I was 14 in 2008 when I learned this wasn’t true. Surely that was a fluke and we patched things properly so it would never happen again right? Nope. We didn’t. It’s just a matter of time, and it must necessarily happen again.

Oil money moving to defence spending is drying up liquidity in markets. Private Credit is struggling as the automotive and logistics side took the first hit. Loss-making AI infrastructure debt is next. Public market P/E ratios are going to have a reckoning, but most impacted will be annuities and insurance floats. Wall Street is already selling default swaps like they did in 2008.

Perception is a matter of profit and loss in business. Mass adoption has not hit Bitcoin yet. People know that fiat money doesn't serve that - that battle has been won. They got stuck in Gold though. As Safdar put it, Lemmings lol! The gap between Gold and Bitcoin is just one of incentives. People still trust their institutions and are willing to pay a premium for lower perceived volatility, regulatory clarity, and established rails. Even with regulatory clarity I suspect there will be a lot of resistance to move money onto a Bitcoin Standard. It is a natural inertia to change. So, I'm resolved to do what Isaac Newton did with the Royal Mint in the 1700s - accept both Silver and Gold, but provide a better rate for Gold. At Grynvault, we will let customers choose Gold or Bitcoin as the unit of account, and offer a discount on all fees if they choose Bitcoin.

Told a close friend of mine to stop thinking of bitcoin as an investment, and just sell a cup she doesn’t use on marketplace to actually own something that isn’t part of the system. It’s a symbol and a north start that eventually guides you towards a way of life that has integrity and sovereignty. She finally connected how this is a powerful protest against systemic injustice and a way to exit powerfully.

Yusss I concur and support and feel strongly about this as well, honestly the best thing to happen to me last year and the best continuation and source of inspiration for people to be with and work with View quoted note →

crunchy tiramisu is underrated

Gold has already been demonetized... and cannot serve as a financial medium in a digital age. BTC will 2x in gold terms in the next 4 years to prove this point, 4x in the next 8 to attain stability, and 8x in the in the next 12 years to cement it, 16x in 16 years to upend it, and all bets are off that: it grows 32x in gold terms in 20 years and we all live on a Bitcoin Standard.

No amount of money printing will save Japan. Every business cycle should have forced a reset, and low interest rates should have encouraged business. Instead, it ended up protecting weak firms, redirecting capital to scarce assets, and exported it to earn better yields elsewhere. The Bank of Japan didn’t just stabilize the system, it anesthetized it. The economy forgot how to renew itself, wages stalled, and productivity along with it. Risk-taking brings little reward, so a whole generation grows up just expecting things to stay more of the same. People don't stop having children for cultural reasons, it's more often tied to economics. When the future feels flat, people stop building toward it. When you suppress volatility, you think you're eliminate downside but the truth is you actually wipe out all the upside.

What's the Bitcoin Standard case for Japan? Stop printing and let deep deflation revitalize the economy? Perhaps a more gradual transition the way El Salvador is doing? Genuinely curious - would love to get your opinions, or be pointed to a video if you've already talked about this @Peruvian Bull

When Muslims envision greater sovereignty through Bitcoin, what is the realistic hope here? Is it mere personal financial dignity, community resilience, or is it possible to prophesize something greater?

people don't want to follow someone who isn't too sure of themselves, but the world might be a little better off if we stopped pretending to be so sure of ourselves

Is Bitcoin your Unit of Account?

Do you ever look at companies doing something you've tried or have experience in and just want to yell at them because you know it's not going to work and you know why? I expect some of my advisors and investors may have felt this way about paths I've taken with the company before as well. It's just you also know that explaining it to the guys isn't actually going to help them understand it till they go through it themselves. Also you could have been wrong or they understand something you don't, but that really is not the case, 9 times out of ten. Business cycles... makes start listening better myself though.

Told my dad I’m starting the Hudhaifi madhab as a progressive salafi 🤣. He’s disappointed, but generally accepts my views as defensible and questionably valid. I love him a lot and enjoy our intellectual headbutts. He’s a gentle heart with a discreet smile and a kingly frown. Overall I feel he grew up with a portraying of faith and God from a colonial Christian lense as many in his generation did. Fear God, know Good vs Evil, and be rewarded or punished. He would deny this, in his own sweet way. My experience of Islam has been more an exercise in compassion, truth, integrity and workability though. He would claim that to be his own experience as well, and I would agree, but the “fear” drive is still there. Recently I recognized that we actually bring our politics into understanding of the faith as well. I hold a more socially liberal, economically conservative take - with strong Ibn Arabi vibes. My dad is more socially conservative, while economically liberal with evangelical old school tablighi vibes.

In Bitcoin Standard, @Saifedean Ammous explores how Keynes saw gold mining as a wasteful and unproductive activity. The irony is we ended up with a banking system hiring millions to mine debt currency. Blockchain and tokenization is just more of that, "efficiently" done. Gold innately did the job of managing liquidity and information asymmetry in markets that we now have several layers of FX, hedging, banks, swaps and central bank accounts do. Bitcoin as a unit of account, and savings technology will scale like Gold never could. "Information Markets" become laughable on a sound money standard as they cease to provide any of the littel value they currently do. They are seen for exactly what they are - gambling, just as interest on loans would be clearly seen as usury.

I don't trust all this passkey stuff yet, am I being irrational and close-minded? Why are they everywhere? I feel more secure with a myriad of gibberish passwords with the most secure ones just in my head outside of even my suuuper long lastpass / 1password pile

my investors say I’m too honest… makes me scared of what else they invested in lol