69 Theses for 2023

Crypto thoughts from a clown deep underground.

Dearest anon,

When I bought my first bitcoin a decade ago in 2013, I had to print out paperwork and drive half an hour to a pharmacy. There, I picked up an ancient red phone ☎️ (literally a phone with a hard wire) and made a MoneyGram call to California. They gave me instructions on wiring $100 to BitInstant. After making the payment, I waited days for BTC to show up in my wallet.

Throw in the time it took to download and install Bitcoin Core, and it was a week of work to even access "the future of finance." I didn't give a shit. Bitcoin had infected me. It got me questioning everything I thought I knew about economics, wealth, power, privacy, psychology, and coordination.

The fact that the industry has kept me fascinated for what's now a decade often doesn't make sense to me. How can a few chains of immutable blocks hold so much power and sway over the mind?

Now, I know it's because crypto is THE defining battleground for our generation. It's front page news for every media outlet in the world as it influences wars, politics, law, culture, sex, even the economies of entire nations.

After making predictions in the past, I also know that no one can say where we go next. And yet, I come to you humbly again (reeking so sweet of the sewers) with wet pages in hand. Let me share a few thoughts and predictions (perhaps ramblings is a better description) about the future, my journey and my learnings.

If there's a theme to my theses this year, it's this: we lost our way in 2022. The leverage, the greed, and the dishonesty pushed us to the brink. Now, we must swallow our own bitter pills and answer the most basic questions of all once more: Why are we here? Where are we going? And why does it matter?

Here is one clown's answer:

Sincerely,
☎️