1st February 2024 > > Technocracy.

tl;dr

Coinbase joins forces with the technocratic elite, to our shared and joint dismay. A US judge may be part of our fightback against the bureaucratic might, though blockchain will undoubtedly do the heavy lifting over the coming years, as technological innovation enables profound and far-reaching possibilities.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said yesterday during 2024’s first Open Market Committee meeting:

"I don't think it's likely that the committee will reach a level of confidence by the time of the March meeting to identify March as the time to [cut], but that's to be seen."

Hands up everyone in the room who feels comfortable that an unelected official wields such financial power and clout over the entire world.

Yep, thought as much.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Coinbase

Coinbase has announced the appointment of former Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne as an advisor:

“George brings with him a wealth of experience in business, journalism, and government. We look forward to relying on his insights and experiences as we grow Coinbase around the world.”

Surely there can be no greater demonstration of the bureaucratic and technocratic hold over the world than the appointment of one the greatest supporters of technocracy to the mightiest crypto related organisation.

Truly we are all doomed if this damaging yet prevailing consensus cannot be broken apart by democratic means.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – The fightback starts here (possibly)

On the 2nd of December 2023 the CCC reported that the SEC had gotten itself into trouble by lying to the courts in a case brought against Debt Box by the SEC.

Faced with potential sanctions, the SEC has requested that the case simply be dismissed with no further ado. This is a classic example of “do what I say not do what I do” that fits perfectly with the issues and problems being uncovered during testimony by key political leaders in the UK Covid enquiry (looking at the SNP here in particular, and that ridiculous piece of performance art yesterday when Sturgeon forced tears from her eyes).

I have strong hopes that the judge throws out the SEC’s weaselly admissions that the “evidence” it provided was based on a YouTube video (I mean, how much worse can this get?) posted by the defendants and which was improperly investigated by the SEC before being presented to the courts.

The might of the bureaucratic machine is out of control. The only long-term answer is the blockchain.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Dencun

The biggest proposed upgrade to the functionality of Ethereum in over a year has gone live on the second of three test networks bringing proto-danksharding tantalisingly close.

Dencun will make Layer 2 transactions cheaper still by enabling “data availability”.

In essence this means that Layer 2 solutions can prove records of transactions on the Layer 1 blockchain without downloading them, or even – to a large extent – knowing what those transactions are. Pretty clever and beyond our ken. What is clear is that transporting less data around makes transactions cheaper, though that is merely a side effect.

Cryptography is a complex subject, and us laymen can only grasp at some of the practical implications of the outstandingly fast pace of technological innovation that is occurring in blockchain implementation.

But it is important to try to keep up with these developments, for they will affect our lives in ways more profound that we are yet to appreciate.

Next up, danksharding …