Adam Hides Email Metadata to Preserve Satoshi Mystique
At first glance, it’s fishy that Adam didn’t furnish John the metadata of those emails. But wait. It’s only fishy if Adam wants to be “exonerated.” If he wants people to come away with the impression that he is Satoshi, he has no incentive to provide exculpatory evidence.
Satoshi's Britishisms Aren't Proof of British Identity
Another thing. Once we accept the premise that Satoshi took steps to disguise his identity, why should we take his use of Britishisms as evidence of him being British? I mean, nobody (except that one reporter) thought "Satoshi Nakamoto" was...
New Lens on Adam3us Satoshi Claim Challenges Past Identifications
WHY THIS SATOSHI ARTICLE WAS DIFFERENT: In today's newsletter I wrote about the NYT's piece connecting @adam3us to Satoshi, and why it definitely hits different than any prior identification attempt. I also offer a different framework for thinking through Adam's denials https://t.co/5L4jBBrKGS
Bitcoin Community Warns: Exposing Adam without Proof Is Reckless
Everyone in Bitcoin: It’s really reckless and dangerous to expose Adam like that, especially without a smoking gun Adam: https://t.co/YwL5NaJ016
Iranian Traders Swap Gold for Bonds Amid War
This is a really fantastic overview of what's been going on in Iranian financial markets over the last year. Turns out, since the start of this war, Iranian retail traders have been rotating out of precious metals and into fixed income...
Questioning Kimi Claims and Chinese Model Test Validity
Is this true (accurate) about Kimi? If so, is this generally true about Chinese open models? And more importantly, are the tests along this dimension considered to be robust ones? https://t.co/S8SihRyRbI
Satoshi Would Avoid a Public Treasury to Stay Hidden
Would Satoshi have founded a Bitcoin treasury company? It seems really, really hard to imagine. So if you were someone suspected of being Satoshi, and you didn't want to be found out, what would you do?
Peterffy Argues Against Insider Trading Bans Across All Assets
When @tracyalloway asked Thomas Peterffy about insider trading on prediction markets, his answer is that we just shouldn't have insider trading laws in any asset class at all. https://t.co/3qbE7KYcuG https://t.co/VK1yW6TgP2
Adam's Bitcoin Mining Claim Sparks Overstatement Debate
It’s interesting that Adam does claim to have invented Bitcoin mining, and that’s the one area where many people claim he’s making an overstatement. https://t.co/kXirPE7jhy
Satoshi's Mysterious Origin and Flawless OpSec Baffle Us
How are people not fascinated by the origin of Satoshi? Whether it’s one guy or a group, to invent this gigantic novel thing, and to have such incredible OpSec in this day and age is a wild story
LLM Hallucinations Real—Verify Chatbot Answers Like Searches
The critics who talk about LLM's hallucination problem are, IME, completely correct. Other than for coding, I just use the chatbots as glorified search engines, and I don't think you should trust a word they say if you can't find a...
NYT's Powerful Brand Fuels Thriving Non‑news Revenue
There's a lot of cope about the NYT only thriving because of recipes and games. The question is: Why was NYT able to build out these non-news revenue streams? It's because the newspaper has an incredible brand, such that it could be...
Ceasefire Headlines Barely Dent Market; Futures Stay Strong
A day filled with headlines about the ceasefire being violated, not holding, etc. has had almost no impact on stock prices. Futures still way up on the day. https://t.co/6JyGWIaWcl
NY Times' Twitter Silence Hurts Engagement
It's almost certainly true that part of the reason the NY Times twitter account doesn't get much engagement is because they're not really even trying. But also: https://t.co/GtHN3UR5VU
Havelock AI API Free for Researchers to Compare Writing
If anyone wants to compare the orality of Adam Back's writing with Satoshi's writing, the @havelock_AI API is now free for researchers. (It was always free, but it is now as well) https://t.co/mjfYIFAxES
Testing NYT's Claim: Is Satoshi Behind 2015 Debate?
The NYT reported it as a fact that this post was in fact Satoshi getting involved in the block size debate in 2015. But I’m curious how it holds up on the battery of stylometric tests.
Link Posts Don't Harm Engagement, Concerns Overblown
I can only speak for myself, but just from my own posting, I don’t see engagement dropping off when I post links. There are a lot of bad incentivizes around here (some inherent to social media), but i think the...
Netanyahu Faces Bipartisan Backlash over Ceasefire Agreement
Netanyahu is getting slammed domestically in Israel by figures across the spectrum for agreeing to the ceasefire https://t.co/HKFBhhhFdN https://t.co/0a3MiUoT4c
Questioning Satoshi's Alleged Reappearance During Block Size War
Also what's this about? Do we actually know for sure that Satoshi "came out of hiding" during the block size war? I don't remember that detail in @jonathanbier's book. https://t.co/hQbUw6pY6g
Back: Near Bitcoin Inventor Turned Early Evangelist
My read on Back has always been that of the people in the Cypherpunk orbit he was the closest to inventing Bitcoin. And that he became one of Bitcoin's loudest/earliest evangelists, in part, to compensate for not having put it...
Explore Bitcoin's Roots: Must-Read Early Digital Money History
BTW, if you're interested in the pre-history of Bitcoin, and the people who were working on P2P digital money since like the 1970s, I can't recommend this book enough. https://t.co/o2ywOSrdLR
Do Chinese OEMs' Gonzo Instagram Reels Actually Convert?
Has anyone written about whether the gonzo marketing tactics of small Chinese contract manufacturers on Instagram Reels “works” or whether it just makes for amusing content. Like that company that sells charging cables.
Oil's Steepest One‑day Drop Since 1991 Gulf War
Excluding Covid, we're looking at the biggest one day plunge in oil since the first Gulf War in 1991 https://t.co/gjT5CUgwkE
Jefferson Delivers Most Hawkish Fed Speech Since 2023
According to Fedlock, today's speech from Fed Governor Jefferson was his most hawkish since 2023 https://t.co/rgs6erEO5l
Kacey Musgraves' Anti‑hookup Single Breaks Into Country Radio
Interesting cultural development. Kacey Musgraves' latest single about not getting laid is actually getting picked up by mainstream country radio stations. https://t.co/dEqMeZ7BRE
Inside the Real Work of Investment Bankers Daily
NEW ODD LOTS: This is what investment bankers actually do all day. @tracyalloway and I talk to Scott Bok, former longtime CEO of Greenhill & Co, to understand better what the industry does and why companies pay up for their services https://t.co/bLORIQJ8Oq
AI Still Lacks Human‑like Impatient Interjections in Conversation
When will we have chatbots that impatiently interrupt you when it knows where you’re going with a question or point? There are so many elements of actual human conversation that AI isn’t anywhere close to replicating.
AI Bad for Writing, Great for Hawkish Speech Scoring
Kinda mixed feelings about using AI. For writing it’s definitely bad. But I think it’s totally fine to use an LLM to gauge which of two (anonymized) FOMC speeches is more hawkish (macro context dependent) and repeat that thousands of...
Trump's Speech Signals Shift in Oil Market
Short but (characteristically) excellent piece from @Rory_Johnston on Trump’s speech and the oil market https://t.co/UCAlkgeCLD https://t.co/TaxA7jMxrL
Brent Oil Surges to $141.37, Highest Since 2008
Physical oil hits its highest level since 2008 *DATED BRENT OIL PRICE SOARS TO $141.37/BBL, HIGHEST SINCE 2008 https://t.co/OkcbcnE3kg
AI Dominates Medium, Gaining Ground on Reddit
Per @max_spero_ over 50% of Medium was AI-written as of a year and a half ago. Reddit is now up to 10% AI-generated content, up from 7% last year
Havelock AI Parses Trump's Speech, Mostly Accurate with Minor Mislabels
Running Trump's speech last night through @Havelock_AI. Overall does very well. Not all span identifications are perfect. It flagged "Tonight, Iran's navy is gone" as a proverb, for example. But note the Self Correction in sentence 14, which is not...
Detecting AI-Generated Writing: New Tools and Insights
NEW ODD LOTS: How to detect when something was written by AI @tracyalloway and I talk to @max_spero_ of @pangramlabs about this emerging world of written slop, and training models that know the difference between human and machine https://t.co/PZQsLtyCBV
Raimondo Discusses Chips, AI, and US‑Europe Strategy
Really enjoyed chatting with former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimando today @CFR_org. Talked chips, CHIPS, China, AI, US-Europe relations and more. Find it on the feed next week https://t.co/zslTYa4yH1
S&P Barely Down 4% Despite Multiple Crises
The S&P is down less than 4% in 2026. This is despite a war, an oil spike, extreme levels of anxiety about AI disrupting every industry on earth, rising interest rates, private credit worries, and big tech companies moving either...
Seeking Specifics on Balance of Payments Support
@adam_tooze what do you have in mind specifically with respect to balance of payment support?
AI Excels Everywhere Except Writing and Interviewing
Starting to appreciate AI’s so-called “jagged frontier.” It’s obviously really powerful for coding, accounting, graphic design, economics, trip planning, reviewing legal documents, DIY projects marketing, advertising, etc. Yet somehow still terrible at writing and interviewing.
Non‑tech Creator Builds Victorian‑style L
Extremely impressive and inspiring writeup. Someone with no technical background talking about building an LLM that talks like something out of a Victorian-era novel for less than $500.
China's Geothermal Potential Stymied by Policy and Cost
Interesting read on why Geothermal has not taken off as a domestic power source in CHina. https://t.co/sq8xn774Mg https://t.co/K0gI2v6nKr
AI Regulation Mirrors Nuclear Non‑proliferation’s Flawed Moratorium
Good piece on the problem with a datacenter moratorium and the limits of nuclear non-proliferation as an analogy to regulating AI https://t.co/UVjiO0pBBM
AI Code Assistants Raise New Pair‑programming Dynamics
Do engineers who use Claude Code (et. al.) worry about the obsequiousness problem? When we talked with @heyitsnoah he pointed out that "pair programming" has long been a thing in software development. But presumably in a pair, one human isn't just...
AI's Convincing Yet Flawed Arguments Aren't Mere Hallucinations
@sidereal111 thinking about it some more, I disagree. An AI being able to to argue a convincing (but strained) hypothesis feels different to me than just a sub category of hallucination.
Ukraine's Drone Attacks Slash Russian Oil Exports
This is something to keep an eye on. Ukraine has been damaging Russian oil export capacity, via drone. The country's seaborne shipments last week were the lowest since 2022, but unclear if it's the start of a longer trend. ...
China Climbs Value Chain yet Still Dominates Low‑end Markets
One thing that's really impressive is China moving up the manufacturing value chain, while still absolutely dominating the low end. As @Camrjohnson has pointed out (and industry data confirms), China still absolutely dominates in areas like Christmas ornaments.
Market Down 20% Pre-War, Defying Bleak Expectations
This is, honestly, less than I might've guessed given A) An insane run up at the start of the year. B) Expected to be a very hard-hit economy. In fact, the market had fallen ~20% even before the start of the...
Chinese Firms Shift to Vietnam, yet Overall Impact Remains Modest
This is a very interesting piece on Chinese companies moving production to Vietnam. In some sense it's happening at major scale. But also in some other sense, it's very minor, with very little of the TVA leaving China. https://t.co/ZixLeXz4nC https://t.co/BnujaABZ5M
Allbirds' Valuation Plummets From $4B to $39M
Allbirds just sold for $39 million. The company was once worth over $4 billion. https://t.co/KqbYOf0TBg
South Korea Limits Civil Servants' Car Access by Plate Number
"South Korea has already imposed driving restrictions on civil servants, curbing how often they can access government buildings by car based on the last number of their license plates." https://t.co/u8BHPpQXNw
Only 38% Believe AI Progress Matches Their Expectations
Something extremely funny to me about this poll showing that 38% of Americans say the pace of AI development is happening roughly in line with their estimates. https://t.co/MoKRVrsRKY https://t.co/Wrnpsj1pp7
Dallas Fed Survey Comment Turns Unexpectedly Poetic
Someone in the comments to the Dallas Fed Manufacturing Survey decided to get poetic https://t.co/qJdrLZHg6f
