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Bitcoin Unlocked

Andrew Keir

A daily letter about bitcoin & the future of money unlocked.substack.com

technology investing

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4:22

There Is Only One First-Class Asset

Bitcoin Unlocked ·

2022/03/28

Good Morning Everyone,Back at it after a week of paragliding! Lets get straight into it.As bitcoin heads toward $47,000 (relative to melting USD shitcoins) i found this video of Russian supreme leader Vladimir Putin of particular interest. The video shows Putin calling a spade a spade, and rightly calling out the end of the USD as a first class reserve asset following the sanctions by the G7 seizing Russian central bank reserves.If you have been paying attention and following along - this is not

5:05

Bitcoin For The Weekend #3

Bitcoin Unlocked ·

2022/03/18

Good Morning Everyone,Hope you have all had a great week. Before i get into a few content suggestions for the weekend, i couldn’t leave you for the week without briefly discussing a recent development between the IMF and the Argentinian Government.The short version is that Argentina are in debt to the IMF, and have had a long and contentious relationship since joining in 1956. In this time Argentina have sought and agreed to 21 emergency financial-support programs, most of them lasting fewer than 24

4:23

Commodity Prices As An Inverse Human Flourishing Index

Bitcoin Unlocked ·

2022/03/17

Good Morning Everyone,In listening to an absolutely fascinating conversation between Peter McCorrmack and Nic Carter, Nic explains something that absolutely blew me away in how he thinks about commodity prices and the true connection of these costs to the humans in the world.He explains:“Commodity price charts; they’re not just numbers on a screen. They’re a measure of human flourishing basically. So if a price of a commodity gets cheaper, humans are flourishing more, and if it gets higher humans

5:27

Saudi Arabia Hedging With The Petro-Yuan

Bitcoin Unlocked ·

2022/03/16

Good Morning Everyone,One of the most fundamental dynamics that has underpin the dominance of the US dollar since defaulting (again) in 1971 and the subsequent removal of the peg to gold, that is the removal of any tether to the physical world, is the creation of the PetroDollar system.Alex Gladstein explains this system and the historical account of its formation in his article - The Hidden Costs Of The Petrodollar. As he explains in the article:“In 1974, they sent new Treasury Secretary William

3:40

Politicians Are So Far Behind

Bitcoin Unlocked ·

2022/03/15

Good Morning Everyone,The EU parliament voted yesterday on a bill titled “Cryptocurrencies in the EU: new rules to boost benefits and curb threats”.Included in this bill was a a rule relating to Proof-Of-Work mining which reads:“ 1. Crypto-assets shall be subject to minimum environmental sustainability standards with respect to their consensus mechanism used for validating transactions, before being issued, offered or admitted to trading in the Union.Crypto-assets that are issued, offered or

0:49

Bitcoin For The Weekend #2

Bitcoin Unlocked ·

2022/03/10

Good Morning Everyone,I thought i’d keep this theme going on a Friday, and offer a few content suggestions that may be unknown to you and potentially valuable as we go into the weekend or to cue into you playlists for the next week.Instead of recommending three books, articles and pods like i did last week, which seems unlikely you’re going to be able to get through all that, I thought i’d narrow it down a little, and point to one of each which is hopefully a little more digestible - please let me

5:27

Why Commodity-Backed Money Fails

Bitcoin Unlocked ·

2022/03/10

Good Morning Everyone,Yesterday I wrote about the thesis from Credit Suisse’s Zoltan Pozsar, who is one of the most listened to and respected macro voices around. His thesis is too complex to rehash in detail again here but essentially he postulated that we could be on the cusp of a transition back to a commodity-backed monetary system essentially backstopped by China. This would be the transition of the world order away from a US dominant - US Dollar backed system - and toward a system where the

6:40

Bretton Woods III - A Major Inflection Point

Bitcoin Unlocked ·

2022/03/09

Good Morning Everyone,As commodities continue to surge in an unprecedented way, Credit Suisse released a paper on Saturday titled Breton Woods III which highlights that we are at a major inflection point as the changes to the world order appear to accelerate.At the heart of this shift is the conflict between Russia and the US, and the actions taken by the US to apply extreme sanctions in response; but it’s important to understand that those events are merely symptoms, and not the cause. The cause is

1:54

🔓 First 90 Days... Thank you

Bitcoin Unlocked ·

2022/03/07

Good Morning Everyone,This morning I just wanted to write to say thank you.Today is the three month anniversary since beginning this letter. Since beginning I have written & recorded every day (Monday - Friday) and have written 63 pieces and recorded over 300 minutes of audio spanning a massive range of topics from the nuance relating to the Bitcoin networks energy usage and it’s proof-of-work consensus mechanism to the societal and geo-political implications of the world order - and everything in

5:38

Energy Backed Bonds In A Global Energy Crisis

Bitcoin Unlocked ·

2022/03/07

Good Morning Everyone,I want to spend this morning talking about bonds, which are certainly not something i’m not an expert in. Lets begin at the beginning - According to Investopedia:“A bond is a debt or promise to pay investors interest payments along with the return of invested principal in exchange for buying the bond.”Essentially governments issue bonds as a mechanism to raise capital and to support spending and obligations. In exchange they return an interest payment, commonly referred to as a

1:37

Bitcoin For The Weekend

Bitcoin Unlocked ·

2022/03/04

Good Morning Everyone,I feel like I’ve unloaded a ton of information on you guys this week, and particularly the last two letters where fairly deep (and long) so I thought I’d keep it short today, and offer you a few links to content that i believe are super valuable.I did want to frame it appropriately before doing so, and offer my perspective on content, but more specifically books, as there is a profound asymmetry that exists that i think few tend to see.I wrote about this in more detail a while

9:34

The Double Edged Sword Of Neutrality

Bitcoin Unlocked ·

2022/03/03

Good Morning Everyone,US Fed Chair, Jerome Powell testified to congress yesterday under the title of “Monetary Policy and The State Of The Economy”. In the hearing he made some very interesting comments specific to “cryptocurrency” that i believe are worth a mention. I’m paraphrasing here- but he was asked if Russia “could” use cryptocurrencies to “get around” sanctions.He responded by saying:“I don’t have any private information on the extent to which that is happening [Russia is using

8:37

Nothing Happens For Decades, Then Decades Happen in Days

Bitcoin Unlocked ·

2022/03/02

Good Morning Everyone,The world order is changing fast right in front of our eyes. The implications of the war that has begun are far reaching and constantly evolving. The following quote from Vladimir Lenin captures my sense of the situation:“There are decades where nothing happens and there are weeks where decades happen.”- Vladimir LeninThe amount of bad information online has honestly never been higher. I’ve seen videos shared apparently from Ukraine, that was actually from a starwars movie

4:41

A Clinic On Counter-Party Risk Ensues

Bitcoin Unlocked ·

2022/03/01

Good Morning Everyone,As financial sanctions, bans and the freezing and confiscation of assets become all the rage amongst politicians and legacy media the world over in response to the Russian conflict, and in an attempt to condemn the actions of Vladimir Putin, it’s hard to cite a more significant series of events to demonstrate how Bitcoin truly fixes this.I really am amazed and completely bamboozled quite frankly, by the fact that so much of the world still fails to recognise the level of risk

5:34

Metcalfe's Law Works Both Ways

Bitcoin Unlocked ·

2022/02/28

Good Morning Everyone,As the situation in Europe continues to develop, and world leaders posture and signal to their people about how they intend to act and how righteous they are, rather than allowing our minds to be on the end of the strings of the powerful and our attention to be captured and controlled by the legacy media machine, i want to turn our attention to something far less cortisol inducing being Network effects, or Metcalfe’s Law.Metcalfe’s law named after Robert Metcalfe states that

6:32

Energy Is What Makes The World Go Round

Bitcoin Unlocked ·

2022/02/25

Good Morning Everyone,As most are probably aware, Russia invaded Ukraine yesterday. The situation is wildly complex and there are myriad potential implications, responses and higher order effects that could transpire as a result. The situation is far too complex for one person to capture in a short letter. I want to focus on a few of the themes i’m thinking about this morning and that i believe are worth paying attention to. First is that very few people want this. War is brutal, and likely results

6:01

A Run On The Banks Is The Appropriate Response

Bitcoin Unlocked ·

2022/02/24

Good Morning Everyone,When nation states have disagreements and to some extent oppose one another, there are a number of typical actions that can be taken in response as a means to try and assert oneself and desires upon the other and achieve some kind of a resolution. The most severe escalation of these actions is of course being out-right kinetic warfare - ie guns and violence - but there are other forms of war that typically precede this, including (but certainly not limited to) informational,

4:54

Sooner Or Later Everyone Will Get It

Bitcoin Unlocked ·

2022/02/23

Good Morning Everyone,I can see the initial etchings of an interesting trend that i believe is worth paying attention to. The trend is of intelligent people that did not understand bitcoin and why the world needs it, but are slowly but surely being awoken to its power and necessity and demonstrating the psychological flexibility to change their mind. Which is a competency I have a ton of respect for, but few demonstrate.One of the most notable people recently is David H Hansson who goes under the

7:14

Bitcoin Needs To Use More Energy

Bitcoin Unlocked ·

2022/02/21

Good Morning Everyone,Power projection is a concept that I have discussed before in depth - but if you are not familiar with it, I suggest reviewing in the letter linked below to have a thorough understanding of the concept and its significance.You can find it here:The concept of power projection was first introduced to me by Jason Lowery who is a member of the US Space Force and is completing his thesis at MIT on Bitcoin. Jason is absolutely brilliant. He has been sharing snippets from his thesis

4:25

Open-Source Software & Open Networks Win

Bitcoin Unlocked ·

2022/02/21

Good Morning Everyone,As the situation in Canada sadly continued to escalate over the weekend, with the police initiating violence toward peaceful protestors. The police chief was asked about their intentions for filming the protests and if they planned to use the footage they were accumulating to identify people and actively perusing them following the protest.He responded as follows:“The simple answer is yes. If you are involved in this protest, we will actively look to identify you and follow up

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