Well, that was interesting.

I get many more private emails in response to blog posts than comments. Yesterday, in response to Reflecting on Ponzi Schemes, I got a few that said anyone under 35 needs a net native currency, and that’s crypto. A few others said some versions of all governments are Ponzi schemes. And I got a few that implied I hated crypto.

Earlier last year, one of my partners told me that I’d developed a reputation with other VCs (presumably our partner funds) that I hate crypto. At the time, I deflected and said that I didn’t hate crypto; I just thought there was considerable Ponzi-like behavior in crypto. I’m regularly cynical about things on our internal Slack channel and periodically post about big blowups, including in crypto.

I realize that I’m conflating speculation vs. investment. The part of crypto I don’t like is the rampant speculation. This morning, a friend of mine sent me an email about some money I owed him for a thing we are doing together. He said, “If you paypal me I’ll buy some bitcoin with it. Looks like it’s starting to firm up.”

Here were the bitcoin prices when he sent me the email and when I Paypalled him the money ($1,456.42).

1/15/23 9:51 PM MT: $21,158.55
1/16/23 7:28 PM MT: $20,879.14

That’s a 1.33% difference. It cost me nothing to Paypal him the money. It would have cost me $19.37 to pay him via Bitcoin just because of the timing (Read more...)