What do you think the world will be like 50 years from now, in the 2070s? And specifically, what kind of tech do you think will surprise to the upside by that time, and become pretty dominant or ubiquitous? And what tech do you think will underperform expectations, and not exist at the scale that people now might’ve guessed would be common by then?

Some people say you should be cheerful and constructive all the time. Others say you should be more blunt and reactionary, pushing back on every imperfect detail. I like a blend of both approaches, and try to embody it. A polite revolutionary, tailored to the environment. I think we are in a moment where details matter. Send a big Lightning transaction to someone. Have an active he Nostr account. That’s all relevant.

A lot of investors would benefit from reading Stephen Mirran's November 2024 report on restructuring global trade: https://www.hudsonbaycapital.com/documents/FG/hudsonbay/research/638199_A_Users_Guide_to_Restructuring_the_Global_Trading_System.pdf He is the economist that Trump nominated to chair his Council of Economic Advisors. In that report, Mirran discusses the persistent US trade deficits, their causes, and overall it aligns quite closely with what I wrote in Chapter 13 of Broken Money: Heavy is the Head that Wears the Crown. Mirran also goes into potential solutions for it, including the risks of performing those potential solutions. Basically, behind all the headline driven stuff, that's the intellectual version of this administration's playbook. Like, the steelman argument for what they're trying to do in theory. Here's his executive summary: "The desire to reform the global trading system and put American industry on fairer ground vis-à-vis the rest of the world has been a consistent theme for President Trump for decades. We may be on the cusp of generational change in the international trade and financial systems. The root of the economic imbalances lies in persistent dollar overvaluation that prevents the balancing of international trade, and this overvaluation is driven by inelastic demand for reserve assets. As global GDP grows, it becomes increasingly burdensome for the United States to finance the provision of reserve assets and the defense umbrella, as the manufacturing and tradeable sectors bear the brunt of the costs. In this essay I attempt to catalogue some of the available tools for reshaping these systems, the tradeoffs that accompany the use of those tools, and policy options for minimizing side effects. This is not policy advocacy, but an attempt to understand the financial market consequences of potential significant changes in trade or financial policy. Tariffs provide revenue, and if offset by currency adjustments, present minimal inflationary or otherwise adverse side effects, consistent with the experience in 2018-2019. While currency offset can inhibit adjustments to trade flows, it suggests that tariffs are ultimately financed by the tariffed nation, whose real purchasing power and wealth decline, and that the revenue raised improves burden sharing for reserve asset provision. Tariffs will likely be implemented in a manner deeply intertwined with national security concerns, and I discuss a variety of possible implementation schemes. I also discuss optimal tariff rates in the context of the rest of the U.S. taxation system. Currency policy aimed at correcting the undervaluation of other nations’ currencies brings an entirely different set of tradeoffs and potential implications. Historically, the United States has pursued multilateral approaches to currency adjustments. While many analysts believe there are no tools available to unilaterally address currency misvaluation, that is not true. I describe some potential avenues for both multilateral and unilateral currency adjustment strategies, as well as means of mitigating unwanted side effects. Finally, I discuss a variety of financial market consequences of these policy tools, and possible sequencing."

The Atlanta Fed’s estimator for Q1 GDP growth, which gets updated based on various economic reports as they roll in, currently looks like a cartoon:

I'm happy to confirm here, with a cryptographically signed note, that I've regained control of my Twitter/X account as of the evening of March 3rd, eastern time.

The Matrix was the best movie in the past generation that reached mainstream appeal and awareness. Artsy movies didn’t reach that level. Bigger movies weren’t as good. You might not know what red pill vs blue pill means, and yet you’ve heard of it. Send post.

I forgot the cardinal rule of “never go grocery shopping on Sundays”. 😬

My thoughts on the crypto reserve.

During interviews, I get a lot of questions about the potential for a strategic bitcoin reserve and how it may affect price. I typically answer by talking about how I tend to take the 'under' on the prospect for a bitcoin reserve. In other words, as a base case they might recategorize currently-held bitcoin, might add a bit, etc. My lesser case is that they go and actually buy a lot, which would positively affect price, sure. I then go on about how, my long-term bullishness of bitcoin is not dependent on that, and I'd rather structure my view to assume a baseline and potentially be surprised to the upside on price within a given period, rather than focus on singular bullish catalysts and then be surprised to the downside if those specific things don't materialize. That's Lyn Speak for "I find this question really boring, please stop asking me it."

So, I had this science fiction story in my mind for over a decade, but never had time to write it due to everything else I had to work on. It was always on my long-term to-do list. When AI started to take off a bit over the past few years, I was like, "Jeez, I don't know if it'll be any good, but If I don't write this thing, it might turn into historical fiction rather than science fiction." More realistically, I'd have to keep adjusting it every five years because the future is now. But things have a tendency to align. Or maybe I just look on the bright side. Because another big component of the story is about social media causing increased social isolation if we're not careful with it, etc. Since we're doing some large construction work in Egypt over this past year, my husband and I have had to spend more time apart than ever (he's managing the project there, while I have to manage our obligations here, and we travel to each other when we can). I work from home. So, sometimes during this period I have days where I wake up, go for a walk, work, do an interview about finance online, exercise, go back to work, then go to sleep, and never speak to someone in person. Just me in the house and being the weirdo trying to get 10k steps in the sun around the neighborhood. That both gave me insight into how that type of isolation can affect people (luckily temporarily in my case), and also ironically gave me time to finally write the thing, which helped me deal with the aforementioned isolation.

The notification on my website that warns people about my ongoing Twitter/X hack is now a front page advertisement for Nostr by default. GM. https://www.lynalden.com/twitter-compromised/

The redacted version of the latest Epstein client list so far can basically be summarized with:

I'm super bullish on Presidio Bitcoin, and bitcoin physical hubs in general. Congrats to @moneyball and all others that were involved in its founding. It couldn't have a better set of founders, backers, and supporters.

Atlanta Fed's GDPNow indicator, which estimates the current quarter's GDP growth based on a rolling set of economic indicators as they come in, could currently best be described as "rekt".

Yesterday my X account was partially breached. X Support investigated it and sent me an email saying it seemed to still in my control. But now the hacker gained headway somehow. That's what I was trying to prevent by taking early action, but alas. They posted a crypto scam from it recently. X fortunately deleted it pretty quickly. I have a note on my homepage saying my Twitter was compromised. https://www.lynalden.com/ As I mentioned yesterday here on NOSTR, please disregard any messages from it until I confirm that I have control of it again. My X account blocked a lot of people as well. If I get control of the account again, the good news is I won't be hard to figure out who to unblock, since I don't block anyone.

Thanks everyone. I think I have the Twitter/X issue at least contained for the moment. I can’t access it but I don’t think the compromiser can either. If anyone sees weird posts or DMs from it, please reply here as a heads up if you can.

PSA my Twitter account was compromised. Any posts or DMs from it are not me, starting from this hour. Please let people know if you are on Twitter.

I only check the bitcoin price a few times per week now under normal circumstances, but I saw a ton of people whining about it so of course I saw the recent breakdown. I sometimes throw a few extra bucks at it on top of my normal dollar cost averaging when there are heightened liquidations. In the prior consolidation, Bitcoin peaked in March 2024, consolidated for a while, then broke down in September 2024, before breaking out to the upside about a month later. Technical breakdowns mean little. Charts are useful sometimes, but mainly for those who don’t know what they own. I like technical breakdowns when the fundamentals are still solid. It lets out froth. A lot of the post-election stuff is struggling, which is normal. That’s why I faded the hype originally. When all of it weakens, I’m still here. Still adding for the long run.

For those that are on both Nostr and Twitter, I posted a long-form thread about recent Twitter censorship that mentions Nostr:

X (formerly Twitter)

Lyn Alden (@LynAldenContact) on X

Here's a thread about social media decentralization. A couple years ago, I tried to "like" one of Doomberg's posts about a platform, and I literal...

Wawa coffee is great. They probably put crack in it or something. I don’t know. View quoted note →