Incentives are predictive. | Chronically online; Betting on the future | prev: @realvision @ethstatus
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"The choice is a real one, because death can be embraced in a number of ways; the pursuit of perfection and eternity in all its manifestations is equivalent to choosing the idea of death over the idea of life" ~ The Alchemy of Finance
🌊Sebastian Moonjava🌊 retweeted
There is a specific 1901 book that is full of bangers like this
- one document
- over 220 pages
- 600+ hot takes from history's sharpest minds
you're scrolling twitter for bangers anyway
why not read the ones that have stood the test of time?
jashdholani.gumroad.com/l/ba…
🌊Sebastian Moonjava🌊 retweeted
hearing some chatter that anthropic is now lowering down to $1tn to get this IPO done. let me explain why this doesnt matter and its actually all over-
the entire existence of this company is based on a funding model that inherently has extreme asset liability mismatch. what that means is that just like the hyperscalers are diluting their equity fund capex, there is an expectation that anthropic will also have to do the same. ie it needs strong equity to perpetuate the scheme
but if you IPO at the wrong price (and dont get a pop which increasingly appears they wont be; spacex already below) then youre now in the death spiral that crypto investors should be very familiar with: its called the reflexivity trap of the confidence game. its the "ill bid FTT at $22 all day" or the "steady lads UST is $1" game, with all its lucid horrors. and here is the key insight- the confidence game exists at the service of the creditors. if there is no credit, there is simply no equity. and there is no credit, if there is no collateral
if the credit rating agencies are not going to give IG at $2tn, they are certaintly not going a better HY rating at $1tn. and there is no world in which anthropic can exist without credit because ~$1tn of commit, much of which is noncancellable, is a straight up negative equity pledge
yet there were two scenarios in which i was willing to concede anthropic could IPO: first 1) the improbable but possible was if the hyperscalers/chips oligopoly came to rescue and plug the hole, given their incestuous nature of revenue bookings and paper gains/losses at scale. but it is clear now that the market has spoken this will lead to a mutual death, and should not be attempted. or perversely even better, they are actually better off letting anthropic go to zero so they can acquire the pieces on the cheap which is the best nash equilibrium outcome, not just for the dominant player but for society at large. second 2) the us government can nationalize the company and collude with other sovereigns (like UAE, Saudi, Japan who are basically already the checks) to force its funding as a collective bargain. this gives you trillions, which is actually the most effective backstop to restore market confidence. the first edge case does require an IPO, but the second edge case here for which i believe there is still a good chance that this is the ultimate end game- will require a failed IPO to recapitalize at a normalized price for the consortium (and dont forget that openai front ran this investor group in anticipation of this dynamic to play out as a private co last month)
i believe the market is crapping out today because the market is recognizing it will not IPO. and actually, as ive said before, this is a very good thing. i might even imagine that the market could quickly rebound on the news of its IPO being delayed because it allows #2) to play out, as not only a national, but an international bailout. the US is more likely to tolerate, even relish, the taxes of foreginers to fund our domestic companies. that is the only end game that really matters, and the end game i am going to be excited to see
we'll see if this newly revamped washington can figure it out
🌊Sebastian Moonjava🌊 retweeted
"The more data we have, the more likely we are to drown in it." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
🌊Sebastian Moonjava🌊 retweeted
Given the blue sweep, Treasury will likely hit the debt ceiling around March and run out of money by November.
Something to look forward to.
Software gains in efficiency may be much faster than adoption of new systems or technology.
The human element.. systems, enterprise adoption, business rituals are fairly sticky- this creates lag
Where as this technology is not hitting any improvement roadblocks soon.
Multiples of improvement faster than adoption creates overhang of supply.
After the July sell-off, I'd indicated that we were likely to see a bounce in semis.
As uncomfortable as it feels, I'm not sanguine this time around.
There are fairly fundamental shifts that have occurred since then. If you've been reading my work, you'll note that I forecast these.
Algorithmic efficiency improvements have been profound, and they're likely to create a surplus of tokens, all else equal.
Coupled with recent adoption shifts (e.g. article on Goldman) and compute coming online, it will be increasingly difficult for demand to outpace supply.
If you assume a 25% increase in compute, 13x annual intelligence efficiency and a 25% movement from training to inference, then your demand breakeven is 8,000x over the course of 3 years. That means that, even a bull demand case such as the 500x that @Jason outlined is already priced in by more than 10x.
The fundamentals are further challenged by input cost increases, funding cost increases (debt and equity) and importantly the fact that many banks and credit funds are at "sector maximums".
Against this you have a slightly re-leveraged Korean retail investor and a heavily leveraged US retail investor. US investors have added $1 trillion year-to-date, after over $2 trillion the last two years. This understates exposures due to leveraged ETFs and 0DTE.
The net impact will be to walk the bottlenecks in reverse. Nvidia is likely to be hit the hardest owing to (a) a core business slowdown, (b) funding guarantees, and (c) unused inventory "take back" clauses.
The system is overextended and doesn't typically correct until proper supply destruction is in place.
🌊Sebastian Moonjava🌊 retweeted
“If a man knows not which port he sails, no wind is favorable.” – Seneca
🌊Sebastian Moonjava🌊 retweeted
Looks like Saylor is gonna be a problem again
* sep '27 he owes $1B if he can't get MSTR above $183
* mar '28 he owes $2B if he can't get MSTR above $433
* jun '28 he owes $1.5B if he can't get MSTR above $672
* then there's another $2B+ in potential payments out to jun '29
^ Assuming he cannot recover the share price, MSTR will be out of cash by March of '28. But even worse, they're only 5 months away from having less than the 12 months cash in reserve they promised to maintain earlier this year. *expect them to charitably interpret their USD reserve policy moving forward
> So why assume he can't get the share price where it needs to be?
Honestly maybe he gets bailed out by Bitcoin on his upcoming September converts. But keep in mind Microstrategy has had negative Bitcoin yield this year. BTC per share is down 3.7% this year. Common holders are getting brutally diluted and market stress makes this worse (BTC yield was -11% in Q3 alone). With this class of management, I do not see how Saylor convinces anybody Microstrategy should trade at a premium to Bitcoin - which means to get MSTR up ~40% to $183, you're going to need to see Bitcoin well above ~$107k. Getting this pig back to $433 then $672 for the two following converts seems essentially impossible to me unless Bitcoin goes on a sun run.
> So can't he raise more cash and kick the can down the road again?
Unfortunately the powers that be have decided they've had enough of Saylor and he's getting kicked out of the indices. Expect the problem to only compound as the conditions get worse
🌊Sebastian Moonjava🌊 retweeted
the funniest part of Intel's quarter was they bought an Israeli quantum start up the CEO was an early investor in for $2.3 billion (after their Israel operations imploded)
> invested in by the executive branch
entire system is rotten. send it to zero and BTC to infinity
🌊Sebastian Moonjava🌊 retweeted
I don’t think we are ready for the level of cooked Bitcoin is going to be going forward.
The United States is asking non-custodial service operators and neutral network participants to act on behalf of US law enforcement – specifically, to block any transaction related to the NK hacking group Trader Traitor.
If any transaction related to NK makes it into a block, or is executed via a non-custodial service you control, it seems you should expect to find yourself in the middle of a criminal indictment in the future.
The implications of this would be disastrous – and a lot easier to enforce should Roman Storm lose his re-trial this coming April, which will decide whether non-custodial service operators can be held liable for what others do with their software.
🔴 Rage Weekly 44/26
The FBI is warning “DeFi” services and node operators “to block transactions with or derived from addresses TraderTraitor actors are using” to launder stolen assets.
The ordering of non-custodial services to act on behalf of US law enforcement appears at odds with the administration's statements on industry protections.
🌊Sebastian Moonjava🌊 retweeted
There’s a long list of billionaires who literally became billionaires by building companies to such a massive scale that they are able to be the low cost provider of services. The literal entire purpose of the business is to lower your bill!
You are familiar with the canonical examples. Bezos and Amazon. Walton and Walmart. Sinegal and CostCo. Shit. Rockefeller. Henry Ford.
And then you have a whole class of billionaires who built digital platforms that took what used to be thousands and thousands in annual spend and bundled it into an unbelievably cheap subscription. Daniel Ek and Spotify. Reed Hastings and Netflix. Not to mention Google! That’s all free!
IKEA! Zara!
I could keep going. You get the idea and this point. Regardless of how you feel about the eventual concentration of wealth that comes from building these services, it is ignorant at best (I won’t discuss the worst) to claim that consumers never benefit
🌊Sebastian Moonjava🌊 retweeted
I once emailed the last living person to work with Gurdjieff (P. B. Taylor), asking what G might have made of the increase in distractions today.
He said G would likely love them, as they're further fuel for self-remembering, further reminders of our robotic nature.
Gurdjieff's idea of man being a "machine" is something worth considering especially in the modern age. More prevelant now, than it was in his time.
We live in a world where attention is scattered, emotions are constantly stimulated, and desires are wants given to you by the external world, not from your own inner being.
People believe they are expressing their individuality, yet much of their behaviour is simply a reaction to their environment.
"Man does not do anything, things just happen to him."
🌊Sebastian Moonjava🌊 retweeted
had to make this after what jon stewart said at the 41 minute mark
Joined Jon Stewart on @weeklyshowpod to talk about the AI bubble, the massive credit risk of AI data centers, Anthropic's S-1, and how American retail investors are massively exposed to the unwinding of the AI trade.
youtube.com/watch?v=3sDzlv-V…
🌊Sebastian Moonjava🌊 retweeted
Accessible tools for open and decentralized science, powered by privacy-preserving AI tech.
Excited for this
Announcing @archescience , an Open Substrate for Science.
We've been working hard on building Archē over the past few months. The goal is to create a simple, useful native tool for radical, open, decentralized science, integrating private AI models (exclusively through @AskVenice ) for literature lookup, live experimental tracking and assistance, and discovering other researchers and labs.
You can create your own profile, choose what to keep public or private, explore labs and research projects, send collaboration requests, and discuss research ideas with others.
Whether you're an active researcher or simply interested in exploring the scientific ecosystem, we'd love for you to give Archē a try and share any feedback you might have.
Through the Heterodox Research Society, we'll also soon be launching our flagship research programs and using Archē to organize, document, and share our work.
🌊Sebastian Moonjava🌊 retweeted
I think we may have identified why Europe is economically fucked.
As a Dutch person let me tell you it's way worse than it seems.
The AVERAGE stress related absence is 250+ days. The AVERAGE burnout related absence is 300+ days.
While on sick-leave, you can return to work for just 4 weeks and the 2 year period **resets**.
Your employer is forced to assist you in this. They have to pay for doctors, experts, and so on. If they don't, you get an extra year's wages.
While on sick-leave, you can work a second job. As long as this is outside business hours of the first job, or the work is different, your first employer still pays you 70%.
Here's another cool one: you can go on holiday during sick-leave. The employer can force you to use your vacation days for that, but then they have to pay you 100% of your wages rather than 70% during that period.
Simple solution: you just work with contractors right? No, because a contractor can just claim employee status after getting sick. Many such cases.
All of this is obviously broken. If you say this you're met with half-baked "worker's rights" arguments, as you can see in this comment section.
🌊Sebastian Moonjava🌊 retweeted
Spending 2-3 hours today on these could save your entire net worth
Accounts
1. Check if your emails have been leaked in a data breach haveibeenpwned.com. Change every leaked password first
2. Use a separate and non public email for CEXes, banks, social media. Don't open links on email
3. Use a password manager like @Bitwarden. Unique password for every account with 2FA and passkeys enabled (save passkeys in Bitwarden)
4. Stop using SMS 2FA. YubiKey or authenticator app only
5. Write down all your backup codes on paper, store it somewhere safe (fireproof and waterproof)
6. Bookmark every exchange and dApp websites. Never open them from Google or Telegram links
Telegram
9. Under Privacy, turn on Two-Step Verification (its a password), use Passkey and set Stars for Messages so random people cannot DM you
10. Check Active Sessions and delete anything you don't recognise
11. Set your phone number to Nobody
12. Never open files people send you, even from friends. Their account could be hacked
13. Ignore any "free to catch up" with Calendly links, you can catch up over Telegram message itself
14. Disable Auto-Download Media (under Data and Storage)
Wallets
15. Seed phrase on paper or metal. Never in a notes app or cloud or Notion
16. Cold wallets for large funds, best to use a multisig with cold wallets (p.s best to offramp more into your bank so you can sleep at night)
17. Split wallets to mitigate single attack vector: small hot wallet for dApps, cold wallet for the rest
19. Revoke old unlimited approvals (revoke.cash/)
Devices (Mac checklist mac.0xosprey.com by @0x_Osprey)
20. FileVault + firewall on, auto login off
21. Auto updates on
22. Delete browser extensions you don't use
23. Separate browser (or device) just for crypto
24. Never run a recruiter's "coding challenge" especially if its something to install
Misc
25. Don't use Zoom or Microsoft teams if you have to take a call
26. Remember you are not a VIP, no journalist is going to want to interview you for your takes nor will companies send you emails / letters to warn you of a compromised account
27. Some of the contacts that you saved on Telegram could be compromised, saving as contact doesn't do anything
28. Take note of some of the trading terminals that you have funds on, if the largest exchange can be compromised what more these smaller ones
29. Write a plan for if you get hacked, and leave one for your family
30. Remember to message @seal_911_bot if you have any emergencies @_SEAL_Org
Stay paranoid.
🌊Sebastian Moonjava🌊 retweeted
If Binance returns assets in-kind like previous large exchange hacks (Bybit) this is a list of what altcoins Binance would receive the largest buybacks
