One thing I appreciate about the Biden administration is that the rate of news has slowed a little. That gives me time to think about longer-term issues once in a while rather than constantly react to the most recent threat to democracy.
This week I take advantage of that freedom to reflect on Bitcoin, which crashed 30% against the dollar on Wednesday. I can’t guess what the market will do day-to-day or even month-to-month, but long-term, I’m bearish on Bitcoin. In order to catch on as a currency for everyday use, it’s going to need a aura of coolness; using it should impress your friends. But the environmental disaster of Bitcoin mining is anything but cool. I’ll develop that point — and make some rude observations about the paradoxes of money in general — the in the featured post “The Problem with Bitcoin”. That should be out shortly.
The weekly summary does have stuff to cover: Congress’ looming failure to authorize a bipartisan commission to investigate the Trump Insurrection, the Israel/Palestine ceasefire, the usual run of Republican scandals, and a few other articles that are taking advantage of breathing space in the news to reflect on the possibility of global population decline, or the reasons life expectancy doubled in the 20th century.
Let’s predict that to come out around noon EST.
The Weekly Sift 
Comments
May or may not be of any use, but if you look into the creation of “Bitcoin Cash”, you’ll find that Bitcoin increasingly isn’t even being directed to be used as a currency, which might be another angle – not only is it problematic environmentally, but Bitcoin itself isn’t really fit-for-purpose and has a lot of issues with scalability to handle anywhere near the volume of transactions it needs to be a currency instead of a speculative investment.
Which, of course, I post literally as the bigger post comes out.
Hey, Doug, Meant to forward “The Sift” to you last week (you may recall that you forwarded some essay, that free daily newsletter your receive). The guy who writes “The Sift” is Doug … um, Molder? eh, I can’t remember his last name exactly right now. His articles are once a week, usually. He first posts a “teaser,” which is what I’ve forwarded to you here.
I’ll be sending you two more forwarded emails. Doug does that teaser, then he posts his main article, which is usually pretty good, and lastly he posts a summary of the previous week with links to things that might be worth checking out. Those will be coming along. I like what he writes and I like the once a week aspect since me reading something on-line every day is unlikely. I’ve been busy enough finishing that garage project that I haven’t even been on the machine for two days now (well, other than the iPad to read the CJ; always good to get news two days after the events). On the bright side, that POD I have had in my driveway for most of this month should be picked up Wednesday; then we can get our cars back in the garage again! Best, Allen