We Back FOR REAL TodayWe Back FOR REAL Today

Not just extras #1520572

Featuring, of course, "The Quiet Death of the Nordic Treasury Companies," as seen on schtacker neeeews -- as well as @BullBitcoin_ 's release this morning #1521232, #1521254

From direct experience, I knew of about ten and in writing this piece for BTCHEL I uncovered a few more. 

Of course, once the flywheel stopped flying around ~October or (basically when stock markets stopped valuing pots of bitcoin above the value of their very observable bitcoin holdings), the companies (=grifters) launching ever new efforts stopped. Shocking. And since then, new purchases by established players have been few and far between. 

So far, I’ve counted thirteen Nordic treasury companies, including the few e-commerce or gaming companies that launched (and then closed) their treasury strategies. Among the half-dozen or so I’ve interacted with directly, I must make a confession. And I shall be vague and subtle for a change: These people do not impress.

"There’s an odd asymmetry, too: When your model is bagholder extraction for fueling appetite for overvalued shares, you must make lots of noise on the upside.""There’s an odd asymmetry, too: When your model is bagholder extraction for fueling appetite for overvalued shares, you must make lots of noise on the upside."

Every buy, every statement, every CEO appearance strengthens the idea that you’re a big deal. Running that playbook in reverse (selling coins, repaying debts, pulling back the “strategy,” pun very much intended) is something to keep very, very quiet about.

if you’re a real company doing real things, you can just make money manufacturing/making/creating/selling what you’re doing instead of going around financializing bitcoin.

@BlokchainB should take notice before he loses even more money to the purple monkey.

Reading List for the WeekReading List for the Week

Pretty tame today, and we've seen most of them already:

Norwegian Natural Resources Wisdom: Lars Doucet at the Georgist Substack “Progress and Poverty” has an excellent in-depth, long-read review of The Natural Dividend by Jonathon Moses and Anne Margrethe Brigham, a fascinating book-length treatment of economic rents in the natural world, that I must get my hands on. Norwegian brilliance all the way around. (I suspect there’s a Bitcoin angle to it; will report back.) Not exactly this: #1515430 ... but very connected.

To be or not to be…predicting the future: Depending on who you ask, prediction markets are either a revolution in information (“civilization’s way of knowing what it knows”) or yet another degenerate fiat trap. Whitney Webb and Mark Goodwin suggest something even darker still: elite control and corrupt, insider enrichment**.** This booklet-length article at UnlimitedHangout is terrifying, eyeroll-worthy, and very skimmable.  #1518899

Strategy’s “Omphaloskepsis”: Yes, that’s apparently a real word, and yes, it’s the title of a forthcoming article in the Journal of Corporate Law. Beautiful.

Disagree But Worth Reading: Nicholas Kristof for The New York Times deludes himself into thinking he knows something about economics via the Nordic experience (“What We Should Learn From Nordic Happiness,” July 4). He’s not the first American (and he certainly won’t be the last…), to show up in these lands and selectively see the cures for America’s ills, real or imagined. Does. not. impress. #1519566

The Nordic Node #4: "Satoshi Talks, Mining Controversy, and some Suitcoinery"

The Nordic Node #3: "Two Suitcoiners and a Bitcoin Bodyguard Walk into a Bar..."

The Nordic Node #2: "Lambs, Bitcoin Adoption, and Criminals"

The Nordic Node #1: "Welcome to the Nordic Node!"