Tag Archives: Bitcoin

from Dean Baker The Republicans and Donald Trump seem set on establishing a strategic crypto reserve. They are claiming this will somehow be an important source of economic security for the country. It’s clear that establishing the reserve will be an important way to give tens of billions of dollars to Donald Trump’s campaign contributors, but it is much harder to see how it will provide any economic security to the country. To better understand the logic of a strategic crypto reserve, it...

Source AI is not what it is supposed to be. Inspired by my son, who attends higher education, I asked chat-GPT to write an article about the energy use of bitcoin in the style of my blog post series ´The real costs of making money´. Look here. Guess what: chat-GPT did not emulate my style but… has a better style. Sadly, however, you can´t rely on it for the facts (I am impressed by the speed, however, even when superficial googling yields better results, especially when non-english...

Another day, another application for a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) rejected. Yesterday, the SEC rejected an application from Fidelity's Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust, the fifth such rejection in three months. Back in November, the SEC rejected an  application from Van Eck Bitcoin Trust, and in December it rejected applications from Kryptoin Bitcoin ETF Trust and Valkyrie Bitcoin Fund.And on 20th January, it rejected First Trust Skybridge Bitcoin ETF Trust's application.  Valkyrie had...

I haven't written about bitcoin in a long while, in part because it is somewhat irrelevant, like all notions of a future dominance of private currencies (another of Hayek's incredible blunders; more problems with Hayek here and here). Note that nation states are fine and well, and not going anywhere, and hence national currencies will remain dominant. Only a weak state without its own currency (El Salvador is dollarized; on that see here and here) would make bitcoins legal tender. But more...

Has Elon Musk Damaged His Portfolio By Buying Bitcoin?  After tweeting repeatedly for some time about bitcoin and the originally satirical degecoin, both of which have gone up massively in the past year, on Feb. 8 Elon Musk put his money where his mouth had been and had his Tesla EV company buy about $1.5 billion in bitcoin.  The immediate aftermath of this was a substantial surge of the crypto from somewhat over $40,000 to somewhat over...

Is Bitcoin Really Real Money? Ontological and Epistemological Questions  The movement to make Bitcoin into a de facto form of money has taken a step forward when Elon Musk declared that he would be purchasing over a billion btc.  Some are claiming that Musk did this to pump up an alternative asset because Tesla stock is overpriced and may fall hard soon.  But who knows? Anyway, although btc fell today, it has reached dramatic new highs well over...

Is Bitcoin Really Real Money? Ontological and Epistemological Questions  The movement to make Bitcoin into a de facto form of money has taken a step forward when Elon Musk declared that he would be purchasing over a billion btc.  Some are claiming that Musk did this to pump up an alternative asset because Tesla stock is overpriced and may fall hard soon.  But who knows? Anyway, although btc fell today, it has reached dramatic new highs well over...