33 Comments

I am reminded of a quote by Steve Jobs that—while timeless—is particularly poignant right now:

“Technology is nothing.

What's important is that you have a faith in people, that they're basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they'll do wonderful things with them.

It’s not the tools that you have faith in—tools are just tools. They work, or they don’t work.

It’s people you have faith in or not.”

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Faith isn’t enough right now

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That’s up to each of us to decide for ourselves—I for one do. What I do know is this:

Social media tools most assuredly worked as intended.

The tools SVB and its regulatory overseers use to identify, anticipate, and manage risk most assuredly did not.

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Any idea about AI and where it could be headed… for good and not so good?

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And digital catastrophe, really? Was Bear Stearns a digital catastrophe? Whether it happens in 48hrs or a week- a loss of confidence is just that. We “invest” with a bank. You better do your homework and choose wisely before giving them your money.

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Anthony is gaslighting us. He has the gall to say, "Silicon Valley Bank was the VICTIM of a Digital Catastrophe." Anthony is insane. The banks are perpetrators of fraud. They are not the victims. SVB is connected to Washington and they knew by running the bank they would be "bailed" out with taxpayer money. More money in their pockets. Never does Anthony call for the return to Glass Steagall or stricter Dodd-Frank regulations. Anthony hates turning on the money printer, for the working class, but Anthony loves money printing for the rich, otherwise known as "quantitative easing," - or social welfare for the rich. Anthony is a capitalist going up, a socialist going down.

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Life is always changing; suffering is always a part of change and growth. Advancements in technology have changed the velocity of money. This is why we are seeing faster boom and bust cycles than we have ever before. I personally believe we are entering into a change in society due to technology and the education of peoples, that will be cataclysmic in proportion to the past events. I am praying, though there will be pain, that we will not have the bloodshed of the twentieth century. I am hoping that whatever happens, when the entire global central bank system collapses that killing people is not seen as the solution. And that this change leads to more power for the individuals over the controlling interest of the ruling wealthy classes around the world. If this come to fruition and more people have a voice, this would lower the risk of bloody wars. If the power mad leaders are not beholden to the people, they will continue to send our children in harm's way to protect their interests.

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What makes this situation so scary is that a bank run could be generated simply on rumor. Social media starts spreading rumor and away the run goes. I guess that is where you talked about political parties might weaponize this tactic.

Scary

doug robertson

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Mar 21, 2023·edited Mar 21, 2023

Is this A. Doug Robertson?!

Barbara R

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If a system can be broken broken with speech, it can’t be fixed with censorship, and we ought not try it.

The Streisand effect would almost certainly accelerate the phenomenon.

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Interesting thought summary and naming. I love it. The opposite can also be a digital bonanza because it can work for good or bad, depending on your perspective. I would think a company could, in the agreement terms of digital banking apps, throttle or stall service, much like the stock exchanges have triggers and stop trading on stocks (when bad news is mentioned, or there is a "run" on selling a stock), or the entire market (9/11). I bet we go in this direction. Essentially, it's to slow down the emotion and begin to act rationally again and let normalcy (however that's defined - but it could be an average of the last 90 days of activity or something) take over.

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Yes users can now more easily withdraw their fund with a few clicks.

But banks also have the power in this digital age to turn off that login page with 1 click.

Double edge sword.

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Keeping with the theme that QWERTY can cause immediate “digital catastrophes,” here are some examples:

- Social media apps with millions of users getting de-platformed by AWS and others in <24 hours (Parler in the US, Signal and FB and others in foreign countries)

- Arbitrary power blackouts in certain geographic regions

- Arbitrary Internet blackout in certain geographic regions to quell information spread (a la China and N Korea)

- Whole countries being cut off from the SWIFT banking system with a keystroke (Russia was cut off in minutes after the decision was made)

- Ability to withdraw from your bank is prohibited because of your political orientation (a la Canada)

- Disabling digital payments on your phone

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Look at what happened with baby formula when it started running low, now imagine that on a big scale with hospitals buying up all of a medication that is rumored to be having production issues.

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> But what is the response if a large political group decides to log-in to their computer and withdraw their money from a single bank? This is no different than when a large group on the internet decided to target a single stock as part of the meme stock hysteria.

The obvious solution is to outlaw coordinated actitivity by the "wrong" people.

I think that the only interesting question is how long it takes before there's regulation (legal or informal - see Twitter, Facebook, etc's "cooperation" with the US govt) on means to coordinate activity.

The UK's move to effectively ban end-to-end encryption is a big first step in that direction.

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Gold bullion & Bitcoin in cold storage. I really don't know what else to do with my money.

42 years old £2.5M

Today I am lost.

Gold & Bitcoin. I have nothing else.

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Digital Catastrophes

AI , other technologies that are possibly unknown in their manifestations, banking as we are seeing…. are there any brakes we can apply while we think?

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Ugh..this is a very real possibility

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Fractional reserve banking -in your own words- is fragile. Full stop. Bitcoin fixes this.

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Bitcoin fixes it if you self custody. But it also means if you’re self custody-ing, there’s no institutions that can lend. I LOVE having my bitcoin in a hardware wallet. But this issue will persist under a bitcoin standard, assuming we still want to have banks that can make loans available for mortgages, cars etc

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You need a bank and fiat convert your Bitcoin to currency--so what good is it?--unless you think in the future you will be able to pay for everything with Bitcoin. Good luck with that.

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I paid for my Portuguese lesson yesterday in bitcoin. Bought my Starbucks today with it. Over time, I believe the infrastructure will continue to be built where- yes, you will eventually be able to use bitcoin to buy everything

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It is possible, but you have to assess the risk. If you have thousands invested in Bitcoin, and Bitcoin goes away, then your investment goes to zero. What are some of the risk factors?

1) Yes Bitcoin has done very well YTD, but not so great in 2022.

2) How did crypto-intensive banks--Silvergate and Signature--do?

3) How have NFTs been performing

3) How about FTX?

4) Celsius and Blockfi?

Concerning "Crypto Technology," take away dollars and what do you have remaining? Blockchain has value, but not enough so far.

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Agree- risk management is key. If the entire crypto industry went away tomorrow, there goes 20% of my net worth. So, while that would certainly sting, it’s not something that would wipe me out.

However, I think bitcoin and industries surrounding it have much more runway ahead in the next decade. The adoption is still growing , hashrate is at an all Time high. Lots of reasons to be bullish despite the 2022 decline in price

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I agree. Your 20% exposure is reasonable. But I know millennials and Z-ers who put ALL of their investment money into Bitcoin. One--at the height of the boom in Nov 2021 when Bitcoin was 65k(?)--tweeted, "I just inherited $260k from my mother, and just bought 4 Bitcoin. Thanks Mom!"

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"Silicon Valley Bank was the victim of a Digital Catastrophe." - Anthony Pompliano

Now the banks are victims now? Very rich, Anthony. Very rich...

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Mar 20, 2023·edited Mar 20, 2023

Nice concept, but wrong take here.

The demise of SVB & Signature were pre-meditated by WH.

They wanted to kill the crypto banks.

Balaji’s research shows us the regulator was well aware that 150 banks were insolvent.

So, what is your fear in that scenario if you are the regulator? Well, that there could be a run on the banks once everyone wakes up, & everyone could flee to Bitcoin.

Did the regulator do their duty & inform the depositors of imminent risk? No, they did not.

So, what did they do?

They designed a quick destruction scenario, to close the crypto off-ramps, before any of us was the wiser of the risks in the system.

Attributing a 2-day collapse of a top 20 bank to a Digital Catastrophe is exactly how they want you to interpret it.

But that’s not at all a proper root cause explanation.

FOIA requests needed here.

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