The main character this cycle is clearly Trump; the rest — mostly crypto influencers — are leagues behind Trump in influence and reach, think Ansem (SOL & memecoins) and Pacman (Blast) — no shade to them, it’s just a different ballgame now
With Trump likely to win in November, and with JD Vance as his Veep, it’s clearly positive for crypto regulations; this will be a tailwind for all crypto assets, especially for any coin eligible for an ETF (ETH and maybe SOL), projects attacked by the SEC (Uniswap, Stacks, etc), and yield generating tokens (POS, Defi)
The Presidential election has and seems likely to continue dominating the global news cycle for the rest of 2024, and the only crypto asset likely to get significant attention is Bitcoin; the only other asset with remotely macro-political implications is ETH with its impending ETF launch, but it’s trivial in comparison
Institutional investors now dominate new flows; the only tokens that meet their liquidity and regulatory requirements — for now — are Bitcoin and maybe Ethereum and possibly if I squint Solana
You could make a weak case for AI-related tokens to get some macro-political attention (eg, Worldcoin)
This doesn’t mean pockets of crypto won’t do well, ie, infra L1/2/3/X’s always have a bridge to sell. Likely we’ll see one or more Dogecoin-level memes, and maybe 1-2 consumer apps getting their 15 minutes (like Polymarket).
Peter Thiel – Stanford + Stanford Law, PayPal cofounder, first Facebook investor
No ticker tape parades in NYC for individuals in 21st century – now it’s for groups like “healthcare professionals”, before it was for individuals like Charles Lindbergh
Prevailing view is heterodox thought no longer allowed, scared of putting individuals on pedestal
Believes in classic libertarian values – but it can be somewhat cowardly way of saying you’re a loser, you wanna be left alone
Acceptable for him to support Ron Paul for president, much more dangerous to support Donald Trump
When do we go from wisdom of crowds to madness of crowds?
If you win 99% of election, you’re in North Korea – you haven’t arrived at absolute truth but you’re in an insane totalitarian place
West has 2 philosophical traditions – Greco Roman and Judeo Christian
Covid – all kinds of things were asserted too dogmatically – and took hairpin turns
Science fights 2 front war against excess skepticism and excess dogmatism
Science thinks of itself as more fighting against dogmatism – “choose your enemies well because you’ll soon be like them” – now “science” can seem like a dogma, post-modern
Case of Jay Bhattacharya – example of sheer insanity – tenured Stanford professor, libertarian and heterodox thinker
He wrote article saying “there’s no high quality studies that prove wearing masks is effective” – triggered people, crazed campus reaction
Nuanced nature made it dangerous – supposed to think in clean bright line ideological terms If you’re not allowed to say something, he has suspicion that not only should you say it, it’s simply true
Fauci: “When people criticize me, they’re really criticizing science because I represent science”
Science has become quite opposite from the exploration, open-debate that it should be Real science doesn’t need to be called “science” – real chemistry, physics, etc – but eg “climate science” is like a tell in poker, exaggerating because it’s not quite there
Science with capital S seems like antonym of science lower case S
20 years of telling ourselves lies about Afghanistan – that it’s going wonderful, we’re nation building, form of epistemic closure
Believes Trump had a fundamentally correct view of Afghanistan – Trump said “Afghanistan is a shit country” – not rigorous or nice thing to say, but “when you limit yourselves to saying something that’s very nice, you can’t actually talk about anything at all”
Political correctness as misdirected form of politeness
Saying anything you want to — but remain civil
Fed Reserve
Inflation is common sense and everyone can see it – gas bill, grocery bill
Another case of epistemic closure – Fed seemed like last institution to register that inflation was accelerating
One of our most sacred institutions
MMT – everyone’s gravitated towards it at precise moment it should be questioned and challenged
Economics risks being very politicized – can twist the answers and go in strange direction
Not very precise a science, but when you violate everything, things will eventually go wrong
The hour is late for fiat money – clear signal is Bitcoin / Satoshi Nakamoto
Bitcoin is revolutionary anti-fiat money thing, a late warning like Trump’s warning on Afghanistan
Broken market
Fed buying all the bonds
Inflation showing up in assets, crypto, art, stocks, bonds
If inflation is 6% and rates are 0%, that’s still 6% confiscation of your cash / earnings
Davos – he stopped attending – people are only there as representatives of corporations and governments – it hit him that there are no real individuals in the room
Davos as sense of global government, participate as part of larger structure
Wisdom of crowds – center left politically correct thing Not a truth seeking place, not maximum surface area of debate
It’s a world with no dissenting views
Doesn’t believe we’re at end of history
China
Ray Dalio says it’s like family with strict parents
He frames China since 2013 as Putin is positive role model (vs when they used to believe Soviet Union was a negative role model)
China works for one individual – Mr. Xi
Doesn’t work for anyone else anymore
Jack Ma as remarkable example
Tech companies have been clobbered
No individuals allowed, no wealthy people allowed
Back to totalitarian playbook
Quite different from China in 70s, 80s
China like much worse version of Japan – for many decades it had great model of copying and catching up, and then hit the wall – China seems like stranger more dysfunctional version of Japan
For most part, China has not overtaken us
2021 – feels like China has gone haywire, more Marxist economy, totalitarian escalation
Friend said “Xi as best thing happening to West”
Why are we in such a collectivist moment (in America)?
Something went wrong, not an idiosyncratic thing, symptomatic of bigger problem
Should have ticker tape parade for Satoshi – so much healthier sign for country – just symbolic but symbols are important
Is renewable possible? Or is it just historic decline
He believes it’s not historicism, inevitable trends – it’s individuals that matter
Advice to new grads:
Can start companies
Shortage of talent in government
Society feels increasingly on auto-pilot — but he would take opposite bet