#Palestine: Al-Shabaka sat down with policy analysts Tariq Dana and Ibrahim Shikaki to debate the utility and viability of using digital and cryptocurrencies in the Palestinian context. ▻https://bit.ly/3NJ20cO
#Economics #cryptocurrencies
#Palestine: Al-Shabaka sat down with policy analysts Tariq Dana and Ibrahim Shikaki to debate the utility and viability of using digital and cryptocurrencies in the Palestinian context. ▻https://bit.ly/3NJ20cO
Automation and the Sharing Economy
▻https://hackernoon.com/automation-and-the-sharing-economy-de19658e45c?source=rss----3a8144eabfe
Human production is in the midst of a sea-change. The growth in global connectivity, coupled with advancements in automation is giving rise to a new economy, the sharing economy.Sharing #economics is not a new phenomena. In fact, the modern sharing economies catalyzed by #uber and Lyft, often touted as innovative, are a derivation of the most primitive economic structure: trade and barter. The Uber and Lyft S-1s have shed light on the vulnerabilities in the economics that underpin their business model. This has brought about discussion with respect to the long-term viability of these businesses, and at a cursory evaluation of the financials, it makes sense that people would draw that conclusion. The problem with that analysis, however, is that it takes a nearsighted view of a long term (...)
A Buffett In His Prime Would Think Differently About Cryptoassets
▻https://hackernoon.com/a-buffett-in-his-prime-would-think-differently-about-cryptoassets-11b987
Recently, at the Woodstock of Capitalism, Warren Buffett and his elder sidekick Charles Munger gathered to dish dirt, talk #investing, and dispense folksy aphorisms at the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting.The Statler-and-Wardorf-type couple’s comments about #cryptocurrency were one of the most referenced quotes of the media cycle, at least in my little circle of cryptoscenti, during the three day orgy of discounted shopping, investor presentations, interviews, a 5K, and most importantly… STEAK!!!Qz reported the gist of the matter in a piece they published on May 5. Buffett warned,“Cryptocurrencies will come to bad endings,”while Munger claimed,“To me, it’s just dementia. It’s like somebody else is trading turds and you decide you can’t be left out.”Buffet and Munger’s view looks an awful lot (...)
#privacy : What You Need To Know
▻https://hackernoon.com/privacy-what-you-need-to-know-e183ef3563c1?source=rss----3a8144eabfe3---
If you share something with more than 5 people, you should not consider it private anymore. This is Entropy’s Law of Privacy, known as gossip.Here is how it works. Researcher and social psychologist, Dr. Cazzell (Stanford, Queensland, BYU, Yale), excellently described this in her Behavioral #economics article with the Game of Clue. Here is how it works:When you reveal your card, that Professor Plum did not commit the murder, then the other person also learns that information. This seems obvious, but when you contrast that with physical things, it is oddly different. If I give you money, a cake, a car, or anything else, then I lose it and you gain it. This is not true with information, both people gain knowledge win+win — at no loss. Think how silly it would be if your brain forgot the card (...)
Social Collateral and the Economy
▻https://hackernoon.com/social-collateral-and-the-economy-fd94ef3a748d?source=rss----3a8144eabfe
MetaMask co-founder Dan Finlay’s thoughts on the future of moneyDan Finlay, MetaMask co-founder and CEOHuman needs are tangible goods, and cash is merely the means for exchanging tangible goods. A perfectly efficient economy, then, wouldn’t need cash as we currently understand it.Dan Finlay, MetaMask co-founder, believes that healthy economies hinge upon establishing networks of trust — ones in which people rely on each other to meet those tangible needs. He believes that the power of #blockchain rests in its “unprecendented degrees of automation,” in which a person can add others to their secure, shared pools of resources with ease. Rather than dealing with lengthy loan applications and financial contracts, individuals can grant “transitive trust” via blockchains which allow trusted others to (...)
Why Data Silos Are Bad For Businesses
▻https://hackernoon.com/why-data-silos-are-bad-for-businesses-f2198527e389?source=rss----3a8144e
Digitalization is promoted among businesses as it improves their efficiency and reduces costs. Also, this trend creates huge data silos for businesses ready to be analyzed to further improve their operating.However, it’s not all rosy. The amount of data businesses receive can be overwhelming and hard to manage. The first common issue we can find is the presence of multiple data silos which aren’t connected.For example, an imaginary company collects website behavior data inside of their database, but also their sales and stock data in separate excel sheets. This brings us to two issues:Different storage meansMultiple not connected data sourcesTrying to analyze such fragmented data is a costly and time-consuming process, something digitalization should prevent in the first place. On top of (...)
#business-intelligence #blockchain #blockchain-development #business-strategy #economics
A (Short) Intro to Cryptoeconomic Modelling (1/2)
▻https://hackernoon.com/a-short-intro-to-cryptoeconomic-modelling-1-2-a840fa55bd18?source=rss---
Design and test protocol mechanisms with PythonOverviewIf you’ve been following the #blockchain space after the 2017 crypto hype, you’ve likely come across discussions around scalability, interoperability and governance.Today, JPMorgan announced the creation of their new stablecoin “JPM Coin” to power their novel corporate payment network. Whether you’re a startup using public chain #technology or an enterprise using permission-based ledgers, today marks the start of a race to tokenize the world.The future of #economics will be interoperable, meaning assets, agents and transaction logics, may all exist in different ledgers/platforms. So, although the race has started, there are important protocol-level challenges to solve around scalability and robustness for ledger and inter-ledger (...)
Surviving Crypto Winter — Part Three: — Why Privacy Coins Will Rule the Next Bull Run
▻https://hackernoon.com/surviving-crypto-winter-part-three-why-privacy-coins-will-rule-the-next-
Surviving Crypto Winter — Part Three: Why Privacy Coins Will Rule the Next Bull RunWelcome to part two of the Surviving Crypto Winter series (check out part one and two), where I profile companies and projects that have a shot at surviving the winds of crypto winter and thriving when dreams of spring comes again. This time I profile the an entire category of projects: privacy coins.############################################In twenty years cash will be illegal.The great movement to a cashless society already started years ago.The invention of the computer made it inevitable. And governments that can’t resist peering into every aspect of our lives will make it a reality.It’s already started in places like India. In late 2016, Prime Minister Narenda Modi suddenly banned most of the country’s (...)
Dear #cryptocurrency Investors — All BAD Things Must Come To An End
▻https://hackernoon.com/dear-cryptocurrency-investors-all-bad-things-must-come-to-an-end-aa836ce
Dear Cryptocurrency Investors — All BAD Things Must Come To An EndI remember back in the 1990s when any company that had a dot-com associated with its name had their stock sore to new all-time highs. Valuations were absurd, but it made no difference, people were buying just off hype and the possibilities of what the adoption of the internet could bring to society.However, the hype could not last forever, in March of 2000 I was working on the equity options floor of the Pacific Stock Exchange, when out of nowhere the tech boom unexpectedly came to an end.An unprecedented amount of dot-com companies had burned through all their money and stocks started to plummet.Suddenly, internet companies had nowhere to run, anyone and everyone with a dot-com after their name had their stock sink to (...)
The misunderstood 15 hour work week of John Maynard Keynes
▻https://hackernoon.com/the-misunderstood-15-hour-work-week-of-john-maynard-keynes-9d4561c96ab6?
The misunderstood 15 hour workweek of John Maynard KeynesThe promised 15 hour workweek came, but no one noticed it.John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946)In 1930, British economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that technological change and productivity improvements would eventually lead to a 15 hour workweek. But today most of the people still work 40 hours or more per week.So what happened or did something happen?I bet most of you haven’t heard of this prediction before. Why? Well because most people would say that John Maynard Keynes was wrong. Since, when you look around you see that most people are not anywhere close to 15 hour workweek, even 40 hour workweek is seen as luxury, and the reality is being somewhere around 50 hours. Right? No, Wrong.That’s not how to verify a theoryLet’s take an (...)
#work-life-balance #15-hour-work-week #time-management #economics #john-maynard-keynes
The #economics of Social Money: Digital Communities in the Next Decade
▻https://hackernoon.com/the-economics-of-social-money-digital-communities-in-the-next-decade-d17
Money is a social tool to achieve cooperation among a group of people. Through history, the form of money has evolved from collectibles to coinage to currency issued by fiat. Money often reflects the values or politics of the communities that issue and use them.We refer to social money as money that is used within a community for social purposes, such as creating exchangeable value where none existed before or creating a market for social experiences that otherwise would be impossible or have a high social cost. This is in contrast to other forms of money such as fiat currency used to pay taxes and for everyday commerce in a country or decentralized money like Bitcoin used as censorship resistant store of value.The digital culture fueled by the rise of communities that live on the (...)
What is #bitcoin ? Part 2
▻https://hackernoon.com/what-is-bitcoin-part-2-e22f6184002c?source=rss----3a8144eabfe3---4
In the last article, we established that Bitcoin is decentralized, digital scarcity which is uncontrolled by any party and to a degree natural, as in anyone can mine, transfer and/or store without permission. This is in stark contrast to centralized scarcity which is controlled and artificial, as in you need permission to do some or all of the activities you might want to do with the scarce item.In this article, we’re going to look at Bitcoin’s properties as decentralized, natural, uncontrolled #money, specifically how they compare with decentralized money in the past.Desirable Properties of MoneyThe ideal money properties that make money convenient, useful and worth holding. The properties that give money significant convenience and usefulness are divisibility, securability, (...)
A Pigovian Tax On People’s Attention
▻https://hackernoon.com/a-pigovian-tax-on-peoples-attention-23e2c75eab63?source=rss----3a8144eab
Back in the late 1990s, the web looked pretty much like the Wild West; anyone could grab a piece of digital land, put a name on it and start catching the attention of millions of users at the time, with a very lean team of people.This is how it started when the Netscape team, after having released their browser, made it available to millions of people in, at the time, nascent web. Netscape later IPOed and made clear to the world, that the Web was much more than just a few computers connected.Ever since new entrants have learned to dominate the scene, yet, over the years one thing has become clear.The most important asset on the web is people’s attention. Thus, web companies learned how to grab it, manipulate it, until the Web became a meme machine.If there is one thing our brain is good (...)
#economics #attention-economy #negative-externality #pigovian-tax #facebook
Roadmap to a Government-Independent Basic Income (UBI) Digital Currency
▻https://hackernoon.com/roadmap-to-a-government-independent-basic-income-ubi-digital-currency-9a
IntroductionUniversal basic income (UBI) is enough an alien concept that it still registers as “unthinkable” for most of the world, far outside the window of discourse. Although it dates as far back as the 1500s, its tacit implausibility (“free money?”) has stymied critical examination over the past few centuries. Because the political machine is notoriously slow to integrate well-founded policies which are nonetheless poorly understood in the public sphere, a number of independent efforts have emerged attempting to bring these ideas to fruition.But if UBI itself is so radical, how could it possibly succeed without government assistance? The first hurdle is to realize that a permanent guaranteed income is perfectly feasible from the standpoint of traditional #economics. Bringing the idea (...)
#basic-income #cryptocurrency #hackernoon-top-story #ubi-digital-currency
Predator-Prey #economics
▻https://hackernoon.com/predator-prey-economics-2b2c0272d472?source=rss----3a8144eabfe3---4
If Predator-Prey Economics existed formally as a field of study, it would address human economic interactions from the perspective of Resource Competition Dynamics. In fact, Richard Goodwin used Predator-Prey dynamics in 1967 to model the growth cycle, and as shown next, its use is quite intuitive. For instance, in the case of Debt vs Capital, it is clear that the former must feed on the latter to survive. Also evident is that if interest from Debt accrues at a greater Internal Rate of Return (IRR) than that of the income accrued from Capital, the “Predator-Prey” ratio between them will produce an unstable feedback system. This is precisely the outcome that Hyman Minsky predicted in his 1985 Financial Instability Hypothesis, as has been confirmed every decade since then, by the (...)
Fundamentals of Money !!
▻https://hackernoon.com/fundamentals-of-money-278222fdf033?source=rss----3a8144eabfe3---4
Fundamentals of Money !!Money — sharonmccutcheonBy definition Money is nothing but “Medium of exchange”. If money is just the Medium of exchange why some people can print it as much as they want and can inflate the value of it.What’s going on flocks! Let’s get into more details. If we print more money, prices will rise such that we’re no better off than we were before. To see why, we’ll suppose this isn’t true, and that prices will not increase much when we drastically increase the money supply. Consider the case of the United States. Let’s suppose the United States decides to increase the money supply by mailing every man, woman, and child an envelope full of money. What would people do with that money? Some of that money will be saved, some might go toward paying off debt like (...)
#cryptocurrency #fundamentals-of-money #blockchain #bitcoin #economics
What is #bitcoin ? (Part 1)
▻https://hackernoon.com/what-is-bitcoin-part-1-1755b81984e8?source=rss----3a8144eabfe3---4
It’s easy to believe that you understand something just because you’ve heard the term a bunch of times. At the surface level, this is true. You know what a stethoscope is, because you’ve seen a stethoscope and have seen it being used.At a deeper level, however, there’s a knowledge of what a stethoscope is for. That is, a stethoscope allows you to listen to the sounds made by the body and get clues as to how it’s functioning. A kid may have seen stethoscopes and can maybe even identify one, but not understand what it’s for.Most people know Bitcoin at the surface level; they know that it’s a form of #money and maybe have even bought some. This article is for the people that understand Bitcoin at the surface level but want to understand it at a deeper level.ScarcityResources that are scarce tend (...)
#bitcoin’s #volatility: To Infinity and Beyond!
▻https://hackernoon.com/bitcoins-volatility-to-infinity-and-beyond-f00b71fb7895?source=rss----3a
“Those of you in the old school who believe this is a bubble simply have not understood the new mathematics of the blockchain…. Bubbles are mathematically impossible in this new paradigm. ” — John McAfee, 46th(Maybe) President of the United States of AmericaWell, when John stated above, most of those who involved in cryptocurrency investing, at least as far as I saw, laughed it off and believed such claim made no sense. Empirically, this hasn’t aged well either, with bitcoin now hanging around 3500 USD per unit. However, if we look at this matter purely mathematically and statistically, he was actually more right than those who thought otherwise.Rigorously speaking, the definition of Financial Bubble is already flawed, bubble usually means the price of underlying hugely inflated from its (...)
Crypto Beyond Capitalism : Part 5
▻https://hackernoon.com/crypto-beyond-capitalism-part-5-ff7386c09095?source=rss----3a8144eabfe3-
Trust, Time, and Coordinating Our Shared FutureThis is the fifth installment of a long form essay — or short book — outlining my macro perspective on how the emerging crypto ecosystem fits within the greater context of biological, cultural, and economic evolution. I intend to initially publish each installment separately. Afterward, I’ll release the content in its entirety, with additional notes and research materials, in e-book form.If you haven’t already read the first four installments of this series, you should probably read them before continuing with this article, as each installment builds upon earlier concepts.Crypto Beyond Capitalism Essays - Hacker NoonOtherwise, strap in, because this installment is quite the long and winding ride.Down the long lane of the history yet to be written, (...)
#cryptocurrency #economics #crypto-capitalism #philosophy #beyond-capitalism
Why Consumers Will Love the Decentralized #web
▻https://hackernoon.com/why-consumers-will-love-the-decentralized-web-3ab60ab474a9?source=rss---
Many people haven’t heard of the decentralized web yet, but it brings with it a huge shift in how internet companies will be built, and one day, we’ll all be using it. But even among the decentralized web’s most ardent supporters, many people don’t understand why we’ll all be using it. Supporters will tout “censorship resistance”, “controlling your data” or “freedom” as the big advantages. As I’ll explain, the real reason #decentralization will win is simply #economics. It changes who owns the “inventory” of a marketplace from any particular company to all companies (ie. a common data backbone), which will lead to more competition, and naturally create better products and lower prices that consumers will love. A “decentralized Airbnb” might only be able to take 1% instead of 15%. A “decentralized (...)
Financing The Factory Bank
▻https://hackernoon.com/the-factory-bank-13c500c6874f?source=rss----3a8144eabfe3---4
Borrowing-to-lend for loan-to-buy customersToyota Financial Services has to be one of the most fascinating, fraudulent entities operating in the world right now. Initially fuelled by cheap Japanese interest rates when it was first begun in the early 2000s, this “bank within a factory” is one of the world’s most opaque, byzantine and powerful global financing organisations that you have never heard of.Today, TFS is the focus of Toyota’s operations, issuing billions in zero percent and cut-rate financing offers a year and guzzling a similarly sizeable chunk of money from the fixed income markets. Take, for instance, the company’s 50 billion euro note issuance last September. This was a collaboration between no less than 7 issuers spanning four continents all organised under the giant TFS (...)
A world full of Blind Excess
▻https://hackernoon.com/a-world-full-of-blind-excess-b7fb42357d43?source=rss----3a8144eabfe3---4
50 signs that the global economy & social infrastructure is in ???Me…too often..I started writing this article when that pretentious monkey (Kylie Jenner) was being hailed as the youngest female “self made” Billionaire. I added some more when I saw the news article going viral about Trump being ‘late’ to some meeting with the Queen ??♂️??♂️I’m going to finish it now, because…well…because this stuff just needs to be said…and as a friend of mine said; I’m clearly a professional “cloud yeller”…In all seriousness though, this is an important article for everyone to read. There is a whole lot of craziness going on in the world, and most of it is well above the norm.In the absence of real problems, we as a society have begun to collectively construct problems that are more abstract in nature, and begun to drive (...)
#economics #startup #blind-excess #social-infrastructure #bitcoin
Creating Virtual Economies: The Ultimate Guide
▻https://hackernoon.com/creating-virtual-economies-the-ultimate-guide-dd39482fb67c?source=rss---
IntroductionVirtual Economies are an emergent phenomenon. Companies have a lot to gain by that successfully creating virtual economies around their platforms. Data and experiences from virtual economies may also help economists, social scientists and policy makers improve our real-world economies.This post is split into two sections:Part 1 describes virtual economies, businesses that can benefit from virtual economies, relevant technologies and key economic principles required to understand how to create a virtual economy.Part 2 presents a comprehensive process for creating a virtual economy. This includes defining how value is created and exchanged, economic planning and governance mechanisms, user strategies, mapping relationships and best practices regarding architecture, design and (...)
#virtual-economies #platform-economy #blockchain #economics #creating-virtual
The Need & the Folly of #bitcoin as Payment Method
▻https://hackernoon.com/the-need-the-folly-of-bitcoin-as-payment-method-4ecc210f38e6?source=rss-
Only Cash Makes Happy. Or Does It? Photo: Jonathan Saavedra (Unsplash)Will Bitcoin prevail as a means of payment and in which areas? Let’s first look at what Bitcoin sets out to replace: Credit cards.The process of paying by credit card for online purchases is more complicated than customers usually think. The procedure is the following:• Customer orders in the online shop with a credit card.• The online shop forwards the data to a payment gateway.• This is software that processes payment data.• From there it comes back and is sent to a credit card processor. He ensures that the merchant has an account at all and can accept this payment.• The payment is then transferred to the credit card company, which debits the customer and credits the merchant.Finally, the last booking is sent to the bank (...)
#economics #bitcoin-as-payment-method #bitcoin-payment-method #blockchain
The harsh #economics of open source
▻https://hackernoon.com/the-harsh-reality-of-open-source-8880f6640a34?source=rss----3a8144eabfe3
In the free market, the laws of supply and demand would suggest that the lower the price of something is, the easier it is to sell it — Based on this, you could infer that something which costs $0 and which delivers real value to its users would “fly off the shelves”.Unfortunately, this is rarely the case when it comes to open source #software. When applied to the software industry, the laws of supply and demand seem to break down in surprising ways.One unusual aspect of the industry is that the supply curve for software does not taper off as it gets closer to the $0 price point; even at that point, there is still a lot of competition — Not only between different open source projects but also between ‘free’ (ad-supported) software services.What is most surprising about the software industry (...)
#open-source-economics #open-source #economics-of-open-source