Podcast appearances and mentions of stephen diehl

A version of this essay was published by firstpost.com at https://www.firstpost.com/world/ftx-saga-and-many-implosions-in-us-especially-in-big-tech-11709111.htmlElizabeth Holmes, the formerly celebrated founder of Theranos, got hit with a jail term of 11 years, according to the Wall Street Journal. That was a startling end to what looked at one time like a huge Silicon Valley success story.But it was not the only Big Tech or big company story. The following stories also come from the WSJ:Along with these, there have been stories about massive layoffs: Meta axes 13% of its workforce, or about 11,000 people; Amazon lays off 10,000 staff, mostly those in core areas such as engineering and marketing; and Google (Alphabet) is under pressure from activist investor TCI to do much the same for cost-cutting reasons. All this may add up to a “techno-winter” (if not a general recession), one might think; surely the “crypto-winter” is already in progress. But is that really true? I believe there are three separate things going on, and it does not make sense to mingle all of them and seek solutions. The first is just plain old-fashioned grift; the second is the normal churn in business models; and the third is whether crypto makes sense.There are always major scams in the US: examples include Enron, Bernie Madoff, and the Lehman Brothers meltdown. There is the spectacle of supposedly sensible people (e.g. bankers and venture capitalists) being completely bamboozled by a smooth-talking person with a spreadsheet, with the result that lots of investor's (and taxpayers') money goes down the drain.Elizabeth Holmes seems to have hoodwinked the whos-who of not only Silicon Valley's VCs, but also name-brand politicians and captains of industry and got them on her board of directors. I mean, George Schulz and Henry Kissinger: it doesn't get any bigger than this. Exactly what did these luminaries see in the company? Some earth-shaking vision, I suppose. To be honest, I too wondered if Theranos did have a really disruptive technology that would upend the market for diagnostic blood tests. But after an expose in Bad Blood by a WSJ reporter, it was clear that the company was really a house of cards (see my column on this in Open Magazine, where I explored, among other things, Holmes' ‘reality distortion field').It is now clear that Theranos was a scam built up by Holmes and her then-boyfriend, Ramesh ‘Sunny' Balwani, a Pakistani-American entrepreneur who was much older than her, who was also president of the company. Holmes got sentenced to 11 years, Balwani got 13. Bernie Madoff, and Jeff Epstein also got long sentences. Bernie Madoff is a champion of sorts, for he ran the largest Ponzi scheme in history: $64 billion.Now Sam Bankman-Fried is giving Madoff a run for his money. His crypto exchange, FTX, valued at $32 billion just a fortnight ago, is worth virtually nothing at this time, and billions of dollars worth of customers' money has… disappeared. John Ray III, the lawyer brought in to clean up FTX during bankruptcy proceedings (ironically the same person who did the Enron clean-up), said he couldn't believe the ‘unprecedented mess' he found there. The point is that despite all the fuss about crypto-currency, it is increasingly evident that Sam Bankman-Fried ran an old-fashioned fraud: “pump and dump”. The crypto bit was merely window-dressing to give sex appeal to the whole gig. And it worked, too. Major investors like the blue-chip VC firm Sequoia Capital were so thoroughly taken in that the purported reactions of their partners is simply astonishing, if true. Here's a screenshot of an alleged Sequoia memo. There's worse: another tweet purports to show that two partners, a male and a female, reported being sexually aroused on hearing Bankman-Fried's pitch about FTX's world-beating vision to control all money (it is too embarrassing and too crude to quote):Is crypto a scam? Stephen Diehl, author of Popping the Crypto Bubble says so in this interview with the Financial Times. He calls post-2016 crypto the Grifter Era, and that's not far from the truth. It's like the carpetbaggers have arrived and set up shop. I am personally of the opinion that crypto may have some value, only that the killer apps haven't been dreamt up yet; I do believe the underlying blockchains are useful, although successful rollouts and use cases are still too few.But the point is that the FTX meltdown has relatively little to do with crypto per se. It was just a device to dress up a rather standard, old-fashioned fraud or Ponzi scheme. We have seen this sort of thing going even way back: remember the Dutch Tulip Bubble, and the South Seas Bubble. You have fast-talking hucksters hoodwinking gullible investors, who lose their shirts.It would be unfair to blame crypto for the greed and indiscipline shown by the FTX founder, or the lack of governance and regulatory control which let insiders essentially loot investor funds. For example, here's Bankman-Fried and Nishad Singh plundering away:The other angle that's remarkable is the fact that the meltdown happened just days after the US midterm elections. Coincidence? Hard to believe, because Sam Bankman-Fried had been a major donor to the Democratic party: he donated some $30 million directly to them, and then perhaps a few hundred million to the ecosystem around the Democratic party, especially the media. Said media then lionized Bankman-Fried beyond all reason, as though he were some messiah.Once again, the media, sadly, is not covering itself with glory. They didn't do any investigative journalism; and now that the skeletons are tumbling out of the closet, they should be kicking themselves for having missed out on a juicy story. But the omerta of left-leaning, ideological journalists is a wonder to behold. This is what the WaPo is worried about now? Not fraud?The ‘effective altruism' school of thought that SBF (Sam Bankman-Fried's handle) allegedly espoused is probably another scam, even though it's dressed up in fashionable ESG and DIE memes.Sam Bankman-Fried was the second-biggest donor to the Democratic party before the 2022 midterms (George Soros was the biggest). The website Gateway Pundit quoting someone else (ok, they might have a beef with Democrats anyway, so take it with a pinch of salt) paints a staggering picture of SBF's political and government connections, which is in itself highly suspicious. All this cannot be mere coincidence. Did SBF materially affect the midterm election results? I hope the Republican-controlled House of Representatives will launch an investigation. Frankly this smells like a Deep State operation. I am sure there is a Ukraine angle as well. More generally, is the US business model facing a crisis? ‘Greed is good', declared Gordon Gekko in Wall Street. Does modern corporate greed have an origin? In this interview with the Stanford Business School, David Gelles, author of The Man Who Broke Capitalism squarely blames ‘Neutron' Jack Welch of GE for what he claims is a toxic culture of profit at all cost in US corporations. That may or may not be fair to Welch, but anyway slash-and-burn, as well as short-termism and ideological metastasis seem to be the watchwords of many US CEOs these days.It would be difficult to accuse Elon Musk of seeking undue profit in his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, which probably is worth much less than that sum just weeks after Musk took it over. But the issue there is, as is probably the case with Disney too, that there is too much ideology permeating the firm. Disney's recently fired CEO was seriously into woke causes. What Musk has done is to sweep away the wokeness in Twitter, thereby possibly allowing it to fulfill its purported role of ‘digital town square'. Under the previous dispensation, it had become basically a far-left bubble, because anybody who didn't fit into their world-view was simply deplatformed, defenestrated, silenced, censored: the very antithesis of Freedom of Speech. I published this podcast long ago about how the explicit silencing of TrueIndology was a watershed event in the suppression of online speech in India. Shadow banning, reduction of followers, and other malign acts were common against anybody that the Twitter powers-that-be didn't consider to fit their views, which in India meant anti-Hindu perspectives. Despite all the noise in the media about how Twitter has gone down the drain, it is entirely possible that Musk will not run it into the ground. Advertisers who are now staying away will most likely return. The savage layoffs don't seem to have materially affected the actual performance of Twitter on the ground, as it were: so was there a lot of waste? Wokes are known to live well off Other People's Money, as in the very case of FTX (in the Bahamas), per the WSJ.I am betting that Elon Musk will be able to return Twitter to some semblance of a business model, not run it in the ground. After all, the platform does offer value to its subscribers, even long-suffering shadow-ban victims such as me (I have often found people I've never heard of have blocked me: I am apparently on mass-blocking lists) still find it useful.It is not clear, though, if the ‘greed at all costs' attitude of US business will survive. It is clear, for instance, that they have surrendered America's industrial capacity to China in the last 30 years, all in return for short-term profits from the ‘China price'. This is suicidal in the long run, as they are beginning to now realize. There has to be some introspection.It may be too grand to claim that Western business will now go through a sea-change, a once-in-a-generation shift to something more accountable to national interests. This is especially hard when the Deep State is so ascendant, and its friends in the military-industrial-complex thrive on war in Other People's Countries.But these woes are coming at the very time that we are seeing the limits of globalization and to the excesses of Wall Street and Silicon Valley VCs. The US business community, and regulators, should consider FTX and Theranos to be canaries in the coalmine: there are useful lessons in their failures.1675 words, 22 Nov 2022.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com

This month, Shobita and Jack talk about the recent concerns about academic culture in the science and technology studies community, how to understand FTX's recent implosion, and the bizarre logics of effective altruism. And we chat with Boston University law professor Aziza Ahmed about how the politics of knowledge are shaping abortion politics in the United States.- Darren Tseng, Stephen Diehl, Jan Akalin (2022). Popping the Crypto Bubble: Market Manias, Phony Populism, Techno-Solutionism. Consilience Publishing.- Concerned.Tech (2022). "Letter in Support of Responsible Fintech Policy." - Aziza Ahmed (2022). "These are the gray areas for women's privacy now in a post-Roe world." CNN Opinion. August 4.- Aziza Ahmed (2021). "The Future of Facts: The Politics of Public Health and Medicine in Abortion Law." University of Colorado Law Review. 92: 1151-1162.- Aziza Ahmed (2020). "Weaponizing Objectivity: The Politics of the CDC." Ms. Magazine. October 28. - Aziza Ahmed (2020). "Will the Supreme Court legitimate pretext?" SCOTUSblog. January 31.- Aziza Ahmed (2017). "Abortion in a Post-Truth Moment: A Response to Erwin Chemerinsky and Michele Goodwin." Texas Law Review. 95: 198-203.Transcript available at thereceivedwisdom.org.

One of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, FTX, recently imploded spectacularly. Its CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, had been called "the next Warren Buffett" and was a Democratic megadonor as well as a major funder of the "Effective Altruism" movement. Overnight, Bankman-Fried saw his fortune and his company wiped out, and he is now under criminal investigation. To explain what happened, and why we keep seeing spectacular frauds in the crypto industry, we are joined today by Stephen Diehl, a longtime critic of crypto who has been warning for years that crypto assets can suddenly implode and that unregulated crypto exchanges like FTX are a terrible place to keep your money. Diehl is the co-author of the new book Popping the Crypto Bubble, an accessible explanation of how cryptocurrency works and why it's a terrible idea. He and his co-authors show how the history of financial bubbles and manias helps us understand crypto-hype today. In this episode, Stephen discusses the credulity that allows con artists like Bankman-Fried to flourish in the crypto industry, and that dupes supposedly savvy investors into believing in the digital equivalent of magic beans. We also discuss the complicity of financial journalists in promoting con artists as altruistic geniuses who can be entrusted with one's retirement savings. "To anyone who does due diligence, this thing [FTX] is papered in red flags. It's a Bahamanian shell company set up in the least regulated environment on the planet, with no board of directors, no governance, completely opaque financials set up by a 28-year-old and apparently staffed by 17 kids all living in a frat house in the Bahamas. But the investors in this thing were some of the most sophisticated funds on the planet! … Apparently none of them did any due diligence on this thing." — Stephen DiehlThe FTX Super Bowl commercial with Larry David is here. The Bloomberg interview in which Bankman-Fried seemingly admits he is “in the Ponzi business” is here. For more on the subject, read our interviews with Molly White and Nicholas Weaver, or read "Why Cryptocurrency is a Giant Fraud." A delightful 1901 illustration of financial speculators being tormented in Hell can be viewed here.

On November 11th 2022, crypto giant FTX collapsed into bankruptcy. In this episode, Stephen Diehl and Rufus Pollock explore what happened, what went wrong, and what we can learn. They look back on the past 6 months in the crypto industry, examining other prominent crashes, namely Terra Luna, Celsius and Voyager, and Three Arrows Capital, and their contagion effects. Stephen and Rufus then look at what remains of the crypto industry. What's next to fall? Find the episode notes here: https://web3.lifeitself.org/notes/post-ftx-collapse Stephen Diehl is a software engineer, writer and Web3 expert. He has written many articles about the topic on his blog at stephendiehl.com and has been featured in several podcasts on the topic.

If you've ever found yourself on Crypto Twitter, you'll be familiar with the hype machine that keeps the industry's thousands of projects going. Rallying cries of “WAGMI” — an acronym for We Are All Going To Make It — and “To the Moon!” abound, found in tweets from accounts with colorful, graphic profile pictures and usually a hashtag or two. But there are always two sides to a coin, and if you've come across a Twitter display name featuring the Tulip emoji, you might find a crypto skeptic instead. A reference to the Dutch tulip mania of the 1600s, these figures – technologists, academics and writers among them – are working to counteract crypto's steady rise to the top with a dose of reality. Stephen Diehl is a software engineer by trade, a leading crypto skeptic and now co-founder of the recently established Center for Emerging Technology Policy. He joins this episode to break down crypto's promises of a brighter tomorrow, and when he thinks it might actually be closer to myth.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the fifth episode of the latest season of Tech Tonic, FT columnist and host Jemima Kelly looks at crypto regulation, and why there's so little of it. It's a story that takes her to the heart of US cowboy state Wyoming, where the crypto industry appears to be writing its own laws. And as the US midterm elections ramp up, we hear about how crypto lobbying has taken hold of Washington DC too. Jemima talks to Rob Jennings, co-founder of CattleProof and the Wyoming Blockchain Coalition; Caitlin Long, head of Custodia Bank; Dennis Kelleher, co-founder of Better Markets; and Stephen Diehl, co-author of 'Popping the Crypto Bubble'. Check out stories and up-to-the-minute news from the FT's technology team at ft.com/technology For a special discounted FT subscription go to https://www.ft.com/techtonicsale Presented by Jemima Kelly. Special thanks to The Banker's Asia Editor Kimberly Long and The Banker podcast. Tech Tonic's senior producer is Edwin Lane, our producer is Josh Gabert-Doyon, and Manuela Saragosa is executive producer. Our sound engineer is Breen Turner, with original scoring by Metaphor Music. The FT's head of audio is Cheryl Brumley.Clips credits: WNET, CNBC, Ford Motor Pictures, Wolfgang BayerRead a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cryptocurrencies have been hyped in Super Bowl ads and promoted by everyone from Bill Clinton to Glenn Greenwald to Spike Lee to Larry David to New York City mayor Eric Adams (who has pledged to turn the city into a "crypto hub"). But times are tough for crypto. As the New York Times reports, “the crypto world [recently] went into a full meltdown... in a sell-off that graphically illustrated the risks of the experimental and unregulated digital currencies.”One of cryptocurrency's most vocal skeptics is Nicholas Weaver, senior staff researcher at the International Computer Science Institute and lecturer in the computer science department at UC Berkeley. Weaver has studied cryptocurrencies for years. On today's episode, Prof. Weaver explains why he views the much-hyped technology with such antipathy. He argues that cryptocurrency is useless and destructive, and should “die in a fire.”Nicholas Weaver's YouTube lecture on crypto can be found here.Nathan's take on cryptocurrency is here and his take on NFTs is here.The writings of crypto skeptic Stephen Diehl make an excellent supplement to this interview.A slightly cleaned-up transcript of this interview can be read here.Note: Prof. Weaver's audio is of mixed quality for the first portion of the podcast but gets better as the episode goes on. Edited by Tim Gray. 

Welcome back to another limited series of Rational Reminder Podcast, focused on learning about cryptocurrencies. Our journey about cryptocurrencies has led us to speak to various experts on the subject, all of whom see some benefits to cryptocurrencies and the underlying blockchain technology. However, what does a skeptic think about cryptocurrencies and the benefits to the current financial system? In today's episode, we speak to Stephen Diehl, a software engineer who works with financial technology within the finance sector and is an outspoken cryptocurrency skeptic. His engineering background, coupled with his experience working with financial technology, provides a unique perspective on the future of cryptocurrencies. We move through the episode learning about public blockchain technology, different consensus mechanisms, what potential problems blockchain technology can solve, whether crypto can improve the current financial system, if Bitcoin really is decentralized, what drives crypto prices, reasons why crypto will not work, what makes it similar to gambling, and more. Tune in today to hear a unique opposing view of cryptocurrencies and DeFi technology with expert and skeptic, Stephen Diehl!   Key Points From This Episode:   A brief breakdown of public blockchain technology. [0:03:28] The current problems that public blockchain technology is trying to solve. [0:04:16] Proof of work consensus and how it tries to eliminate the need for a trusted third party. [0:05:44] Some of the downsides associated with the proof of work concept. [0:07:41] How other consensus mechanisms have improved the proof of work concept. [0:09:21] What the costs associated with proof of stake relative to proof of work are. [0:11:09] Problems that both consensus methods have regarding recentralization. [0:12:07] What other problems blockchain technologies can be used to solve. [0:12:50] The problems in the financial technological system that public blockchains solve. [0:14:29] Why finality of payments associated with cryptocurrencies is not a good thing. [0:15:42] What limitations can blockchain technology remove regarding international money transfers. [0:17:06] How to prevent double-spending under the current financial system. [0:20:34] What Stephen thinks drives the value of cryptocurrencies. [0:21:15] Whether Bitcoin is decentralized in Stephen's opinion. [0:23:19] Reasons why concentrated mining power does not cultivate decentralization. [0:24:46] How permissioned blockchains can improve on the pitfalls of public blockchains. [0:25:40] A discussion about the potential benefits of private blockchains. [0:27:15] We learn what a smart contract is. [0:29:49] Outline of other useful applications for smart contracts. [0:31:25] Examples of illicit activities associated with cryptocurrencies. [0:32:08] Code is law: deferring to code for implementing law. [0:33:17] What Stephen thinks is the value of the underlying blockchain technology. [0:34:32] Stephen explains what Web3 is and if it improves the financial system [0:37:05] We find out if there is anything about crypto technologies that excite him. [0:41:06] The most compelling argument for crypto that Stephen has heard. [0:43:08] He explains what he means by suffering stemming from cryptocurrencies. [0:44:40] Stephen shares his experiences as an outspoken crypto skeptic. [0:45:26] How he began working with researchers from the London School of Economics. [0:47:03] Discussion about the narrative of cryptocurrencies and why Stephen is outspoken on the subject. [0:50:33]  

Chelsea speaks with software engineer and cryptocurrency writer Stephen Diehl about the current crypto crash we're seeing, and what that means for the future of crypto specifically, and the economy more broadly. Thanks HelloFresh for sponsoring this episode of The Financial Confessions! Go to HelloFresh dot com slash TFC16 and use code TFC16 for up to 16 free meals AND 3 free gifts! https://www.hellofresh.com/tfc16 For a limited time, get 40% off a Calm Premium subscription at https://calm.com/tfc MORE FROM STEPHEN DIEHL: Stephen Diehl Twitter: https://twitter.com/smdiehl Website: https://www.stephendiehl.com/ TO FIND US: The Financial Diet site: http://www.thefinancialdiet.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thefinancialdiet Twitter: https://twitter.com/TFDiet Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefinancialdiet  Join this channel to support TFD as a small business AND get access to awesome perks: https://youtube.com/thefinancialdiet/join  

Episode #7 of our ongoing deep dive into #crypto and #web3 with Rufus Pollock and Stephen Diehl. This week we're exploring the thesis that Bitcoin (and crypto more generally) is an anti-authoritarian force and can help undermine tyranny. To view notes, references and key concepts from this episode, visit: https://web3.lifeitself.us/notes/bitcoin-as-anti-authoritarian To learn more about our Making Sense of Crypto & Web3 series visit: https://web3.lifeitself.us/ Stephen Diehl is a software engineer, writer and Web3 expert. He has written many articles about the topic on his blog at stephendiehl.com and has been featured in several podcasts on the topic. To learn more from Stephen Diehl: https://www.stephendiehl.com/ https://twitter.com/smdiehl

In this episode of our Making Sense of #Crypto and #Web3 series, Stephen Diehl is joined by economist and data scientist, Matthew Ranger, in a discussion on crypto assets from a macroeconomics perspective. You can learn more about Matthew and his work here: https://www.singlelunch.com/ To learn more about our Making Sense of Web3 series visit https://web3.lifeitself.us/

In episode #6 of our series of deep dives into #crypto and #web3, Rufus Pollock and Stephen Diehl explore the interaction of climate change and public goods problems. They focus on KlimaDAO as an example of an attempted solution to solve a public goods problem within the climate space using a Decentralized Autonomous Organization. To view the notes from this episode as well as references and key concepts, visit: https://web3.lifeitself.us/notes/collective-action-problems-and-climate-change To learn more about our Web3: Possibilities & Challenges series visit https://web3.lifeitself.us/ Stephen Diehl is a software engineer, writer and Web3 expert. He has written many articles about the topic on his blog at stephendiehl.com and has been featured in several podcasts on the topic. To learn more from Stephen Diehl: https://www.stephendiehl.com/ https://twitter.com/smdiehl

Episode #5 in our ongoing deep dive into #web3 and #crypto. This week, Rufus Pollock and Stephen Diehl explore the claim that blockchain can be a vehicle for increase in financialization through the development of more complex, blockchain based financial products. To view the notes from this episode as well as references and key concepts, visit: https://web3.lifeitself.us/notes/fintech-incrementalism-and-responsible-innovation To learn more about our Making Sense of Crypto and Web3 project visit: https://web3.lifeitself.us/ Stephen Diehl is a software engineer, writer and Web3 expert. He has written many articles about the topic on his blog at stephendiehl.com and has been featured in several podcasts on the topic. To learn more from Stephen Diehl: https://www.stephendiehl.com/ https://twitter.com/smdiehl

Episode #4 in our ongoing deep dive into #web3 and #crypto. This week, Rufus Pollock and Stephen Diehl explore a more utopian aspiration of crypto and web3: a transition from the existing US-led international order to a world in which blockchain technology and technocracy are the new foundations for global human governance. To view the notes from this episode as well as references and key concepts, visit: https://web3.lifeitself.us/notes/post-state-technocracy To learn more about our Making Sense of Crypto and Web3 project visit: https://web3.lifeitself.us/ Stephen Diehl is a software engineer, writer and Web3 expert. He has written many articles about the topic on his blog at stephendiehl.com and has been featured in major news outlets and podcasts. To learn more from Stephen Diehl: https://www.stephendiehl.com/ https://twitter.com/smdiehl

Episode #3 in our ongoing deep dive into #web3 and #crypto. Rufus Pollock and Stephen Diehl discuss financial products known as securities, their relationship to crypto tokens and the regulatory framework that exists around these structures. To learn more about our Web3: Possibilities & Challenges series visit https://lifeitself.us/web3/ Stephen Diehl is a software engineer, writer and Web3 export. He has written many articles about the topic on his blog at stephendiehl.com and has been featured in major news outlets and podcasts. To learn more from Stephen Diehl: https://www.stephendiehl.com/ https://twitter.com/smdiehl

Episode #2 with Stephen Diehl in our ongoing deep dive into #web3 and #crypto. We discuss the view that crypto are just risky assets and that unfettered and unregulated financial markets are desirable ("Free markets are good and the less regulation the more free ..."). To learn more about our Web3: Possibilities & Challenges series visit https://lifeitself.us/web3/ Stephen Diehl is a software engineer, writer and Web3 export. He has written many articles about the topic on his blog at stephendiehl.com and has been featured in major news outlets and podcasts. To learn more from Stephen Diehl: https://www.stephendiehl.com/ https://twitter.com/smdiehl

This episode is about the narrative of Bitcoin and the Neo-Metallist thesis i.e. that a gold-standard was good and a Bitcoin standard would be even better. Alongside host and Life Itself Co-founder, Rufus Pollock, we invite Stephen Diehl, a software engineer, writer and Web3 critic, who has been outspoken on cryptocurrency, NFTs and Web3. Learn more: https://lifeitself.us/web3

SEASON 1: OIL, GOLD, CRYPTO & FASCISM: HOW WE GOT HERE AND HOW TO FIX IT Bitcoin first emerged on the world stage in 2009, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. But the story of where cryptocurrencies came from goes back decades. Dave talks with software engineer and prominent cryptocurrency critic Stephen Diehl about the libertarian roots of crypto and NFTs, why it's anti-democratic, how it radicalizes and preys on people, and why we need to pop this corrosive Ponzi scheme sooner than later. Mentioned in the show: Stephen Diehl's Blog: https://www.stephendiehl.com/  Twitter: https://twitter.com/smdiehl Line Goes Up video by Dan Olson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g  Crypto Skeptics (Twitter List by Dave Troy) https://twitter.com/i/lists/1470046292336336900?s=20 Keywords: cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Ethereum, stablecoins, NFTs, libertarianism, Austrian economics, gold, Ponzi schemes, CBDC, MMM, Executive Order, Eric Adams, Francis Suarez, Mavrodi, Mussolini, Steve Bannon, Brock Pierce, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, January 6th, insurrection, class collaboration, federal reserve, anti-Semitism, DOGE, FJB, coal, energy, renewable, eugenics, Pioneer fund, Bell Curve, China, yuan, ruble, hybrid war, crime, money laundering, oligarchs, Putin.

As the podcast celebrates episode 100, Paris Marx is joined by Jacob Silverman to discuss the huge drop in crypto prices, the coming threat (to crypto) of interest rate hikes and regulation, the human impact of crypto schemes, and where things may be going next.Jacob Silverman is a staff writer at The New Republic and writes about crypto with the actor Ben McKenzie. Follow Jacob on Twitter at @SilvermanJacob.Tech Won't Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, support the show on Patreon, and sign up for the weekly newsletter.Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.Also mentioned in this episode:Jacob and Ben McKenzie wrote about Tether. Zeke Faux also wrote an essential article on the stablecoin, and Jacob recommends Crypto Critics Corner.Crypto prices have plunged, and that's hurt regular people.New York's Attorney General reached a settlement with Tether last year.VC firm Andreessen Horowitz is making a big lobbying push in Washington, DC to get favorable crypto regulations.Matt Damon and Spike Lee are among the celebrities to take crypto money and help pump the industry.US regulators are looking at crypto regulations, and Biden administration is planning an executive order to move it forward.China banned crypto mining, Russia proposed a ban on crypto, and many countries have suffered power outages due to crypto mining.Stephen Diehl wrote explained how crypto is about arbitraging securities regulation.Diane Jeantet wrote about a massive series of Bitcoin pyramid schemes in Brazil.Support the show (https://patreon.com/techwontsaveus)

Stephen Diehl is a London-based software engineer working in the financial sector that has written and been outspoken about why Web3 is economically and technologically a terrible idea. In a 40-minute interview with Jon Henshaw, the two discuss the religious fervor surrounding Web3, why crypto is repeating history and will end badly, and how Web3 is already primarily centralized. They also discussed the Metaverse's potential impact on future generations and the promise no-code technology might have on society.

Hey guys! I have the privilege of speaking with Stephen Diehl. Diehl is a London based software engineer and an outspoken critic of cryptocurrencies, Web 3.0, NFTs, and pretty much that entire ecosystem that seems to be so rampantly bullish. This episode's objective is to present a possible bear case to the crypto, Web 3.0, NFTs Maximalists and to the people that are on the fence and want to know more about the technology and its dark side. Check out the time stamp below: [1:20] Researching Crypto. [8:20] The Albanian Pyramid Scheme Crisis [13:00] The Case Against Crypto [14:00] The Technology Does Not Solve Any Problem [26:00] The History of Private Money [38:00] What Type of Asset are Cryptos? [45:00] Staking Crypto for Yield? [49:00] What is Web 3.0? [54:00] Play-to-Earn [58:00] Technical Issues: Computing, Bandwidth & Storage. [1:07:00] NFTs [1:20:00] Why create Solutions to Problems that Does Not Exist [1:26:00]Closing Question and more from Stephen Diehl If you're a fan of Stephen's thinking and want to learn more, check out his website (here) and Twitter (here). Also, a big thanks to the following sponsors for making the podcast a reality! Quartr Quartr is revolutionizing the way investors interact with IR departments, listen to conference calls, and engage in investment research. The best way to think of Quartr is like Spotify for investor conference calls. Quartr is 100% free and includes markets from 12+ countries (with plans to expand in the future!). Investors can easily request new companies, and Quartr is quick to add them. You can learn more about Quartr by visiting their site, Quartr.se If you're interested in changing the way you research companies, download the app today and give it a try on Apple and Android. Tegus Tegus has the world's largest collection of instantly available interviews on all the public and private companies you care about. Tegus actually makes primary research fun and effortless, too. Instead of weeks and months, you can learn a new industry or company in hours, and all from those that know it best. I spend nearly all my time reading Tegus calls on existing holdings and new ideas. And I know you will too. So if you're interested, head on over to tegus.co/valuehive for a free trial to see for yourself. TIKR TIKR is THE BEST resource for company financials, transcripts, and insider ownership data. I use TIKR every day in my research process, and I know you will too. They have the widest selection of global company data, a terrific leadership team, and a bright future ahead. Try them out today at TIKR.com/hive.

Stephen is a software engineer working in the financial services industry and feels an obligation to speak out against the dangers that crypto could pose to the global economy and society at large. Lyn Alden on the Petro-Dollar: https://youtu.be/sTKObw_-OBY Keith Dicker explains why the US Dollar is King: https://youtu.be/gLmoJYqZuks Jim Rogers on the Rise of China: https://youtu.be/SfLaJtXfx3w Paul Kingsnorth critiques Neo-liberalism: https://youtu.be/HJViqeBovvQ First Interview with Simon Mikhailovich: https://youtu.be/Na9SA84JJ1E Jeff Booth on Tech Deflation: https://youtu.be/qlF_AG-0QC8

A good plot for, like, an insider-trading Hollywood thriller would be if the villains hacked into the computers of the US Securities and Exchange Comm... an SEC complaintthe SEC’s announcementfederal criminal charges big hacker-insider-trading case delightful academic studylarkJack Dorsey and the Unlikely Revolutionaries Who Want to Reboot the Internet wrote last monthHere is a tweeta tweetstormintemperate blog postlike Stephen DiehlHere is Robin Sloanwrites Byrne Hobartpress releasethe SEC complainteverybody knowscancer doctorfederal criminal chargesthis is a jokelisted on OpenSea talked yesterdayinterview with Morning Brew Hidden Rate Hike Meant to Work ESG Chief Company CultureNikola CorporationNSO Surges and CrashesChinese companies Old Frenemyration fries$1 Pizza Sliceviral food trendssuing Blocksubscribe at this linkhere reported Bloomberg Newsrecent Bloomberg articlethis New York Times article

Paris Marx is joined by Stephen Diehl to discuss why technologists are divided on crypto, what's wrong with blockchain, why crypto assets are scams, and why web3 is a rebranding effort.Stephen Diehl is software engineer and crypto skeptic based in London. Follow Fred on Twitter at @smdiehl.

Many large financial institutions have performed an about-turn in cryptocurrency during the last few years, moving from a position of outright hostility to one of acceptance and even enthusiasm. But there are still a few outspoken sceptics of the now-booming sector. One is Stephen Diehl, a software engineer, chief technical officer of a London-based fintech company called Adjoint and our guest on the latest New Money Review podcast. According to Diehl, cryptocurrency is an internet-based lottery that serves mainly to enrich insiders at the many digital token projects. “A cryptocurrency is a speculative financial product that has an embedded wealth redistribution function: it takes external capital and shifts it around to other people,” he says in the podcast. “By comparison with traditional financial instruments, there are no external cash flows. The pay-out structure is contingent on new investors coming in. You can compare it to a lottery, but with a very unclear pay-out structure. It generally looks Ponzi-like,” says Diehl. According to Diehl, there are rising risks from the assimilation of cryptocurrency into the broader financial system. “These things are working their way into the larger economy. We’re seeing publicly traded equities holding large amounts of cryptocurrency. If things are left unchecked, they’ll be finding their way into things like pension funds and ETFs,” he says. Uninformed consumers, says Diehl, particularly millennials, are highly exposed to losses when buying the many new tokens on offer. “I’m particularly concerned about retail investors being exposed to products that come with a fair amount of counterparty, systemic and market risks. The education people are getting about these things is often from social media or online sources that have a vested interest in promoting them,” says Diehl. “A lot of millennials don’t have the assets, savings or participation in the economy that previous generations had,” he goes on, explaining the popularity of crypto with the younger generation. “For them, it makes sense to buy riskier things—products that have a more asymmetric upside. And there’s a lot of disenchantment with the financial system. So the narrative about creating an alternative financial system resonates with a lot of younger people—the story of bitcoin and alternative financial services is a very compelling one.” But those investing in crypto as a way of expressing dissatisfaction with the status quo risk being sorely disappointed, Diehl says in the podcast. “Whether that system is actually being built is a separate question,” says Diehl. “I’d argue that it’s not. These things—cryptocurrencies—don’t provide anything other than [a means for] gambling. Bitcoin has hijacked the populist rage narrative to propose a story that tenuously makes sense. But if you dig into the details it doesn’t really feel solid.” In the podcast, Diehl also talks about the distorting effect he believes cryptocurrencies are having on scientific research, as well as on the prices for computing services. “Cryptocurrency has had an impact on the hardware market: it’s basically impossible to buy a graphics processing unit as these things all get snatched up by miners. That’s having an outsized impact on machine learning and artificial intelligence,” says Diehl. “People working in these domains require specialised hardware and can’t actually purchase the devices they need. Ultimately, these price increases will be passed down to anyone using cloud computing services. Even if you’re not touching cryptocurrency, you’re going to see inflation propagate for anything it touches.” And while the open-source nature of most cryptocurrency projects means their codebase can be audited, the same principle of openness doesn’t extend to many of the service providers in the sector, says Diehl. Here, he argues, there’s a major problem. “Where the fraud occurs [in cryptocurrencies] is not in the code per se, but in the governance structure around the projects, the auditing of the alleged reserves and of the bank accounts that hold the actual money,” says Diehl. Listen in to the New Money Review podcast, ‘the future of money in 30 minutes’, to hear the full discussion between Stephen Diehl and New Money Review editor Paul Amery. ********* The New Money Review podcast covers the future of money in 30 minutes The changes in money are getting faster, more chaotic and more confusing. And it’s not just money that’s changing, but technology, finance, law, government and culture with it. Each week, we interview a leading expert on one or more of these topics. By listening to the podcast, you can stay up to date with what’s going on in money and prepare yourself for what lies ahead.