It may be one of the universal laws of finance that whenever an asset multiplies in value over a short period of time, demand from investors to buy that asset in an accessibly packaged form similarly multiplies. This year, that law played out in Bitcoin prices, and not a week in the latter half of […]
I am often asked what I think about “investing” in cryptocurrencies like bitcoin or ethereum, and more recently about initial coin offerings (ICOs). Â Just as I say one does not “invest in a currency” (you can either speculate that a currency will rise or fall in value, or convert money into the currency to buy […]
My latest SeekingAlpha article lists 6 reasons regulators (and exchanges) should reject Bitcoin ETFs, ranging from the practical and technological to arguably moral and social reasons. I wrote back in 2014 about how 21st blockchain technology should wrap and replace 20th century mutual fund and ETF technology. Â ICOs are a start towards this, but I […]
I had the pleasure of stopping by the ANX office yesterday and getting a few minutes to record this short video explaining how a bitcoin ATM works. Â In a matter of seconds, the HK$10 bill I insert into the machine is converted into BTC at the price quoted on the screen, and I get a […]
Many of the most vocal goldbugs and bitcoin fanatics base their views not on the demand for precious metals or the promise of easy-as-email payment technology, but rather on a protest against central banking and the whole idea of fiat money. Â Â Most of the money-using world, financial or pedestrian, seems to have accepted the use […]
I literally got messages from all over the world today asking me my thoughts on the sudden shutdown of Mt. Gox (mtgox.com), given my continued interest in the future of bitcoin technology. Â Of all the articles that came out today, the WSJ one is probably the best I’ve seen, but I found the need to […]
CNBC last week listed “Bitcoin’s 4 steps to Wall Street acceptance“, which was encouraging even for me.  So far, not enough people seem convinced that bitcoin-like technology can revolutionize the current markets of plain old payment processing (bitcoin volumes supposedly surpassed PayPal’s last November, but are still only 1/40th the amount processed by Visa, according to […]
Headlines like “China bans bitcoin deposits” are short, catchy, and in the spirit of financial news, try to pin a market move down to a single anecdotal factor. To summarize the FT article, this is probably just the second in a series of steps China will take on Bitcoin regulation, the two so being, based on […]
Keen to hear what bitcoin sceptics and advocates think of JP Morgan’s latest patent application on a payment system which looks a lot like bitcoin (stories on FT and CNN). Â As much as I love bitcoin technology as perhaps the simplest way I’ve ever moved money from one country to another (literally like sending an […]
The title should be even more shocking than I know how to write it. Â The year is 2013, one year after over the 1 billionth smartphone came on-line, and the state of digital technology still allows a comparison like this: To ship a barrel of crude oil worth about US$100 (42 gallons, weighing about 135kg […]