Four steps: that is the distance from the wall where a vertical plank of wood is affixed to a movable stand. My yoga teacher instructs me to place the heel of both hands in line with the point where the plank and stand meet. I curl over like a cat to ensure the back of my head is flush against the plank. If the distance is correct, I can walk both feet up the wall behind me, transforming my body into an L shape with the rear of my skull, back, and sacrum all touching the plank. I must resist the tendency to flare out my rib cage by engaging my abdominal muscles and tucking in my tailbone. Phew – I’m sweating already, just from keeping my body in the correct position. But the real work hasn’t yet begun. The challenge is kicking one leg up into a fully vertical position while maintaining the alignment.

The grippy and the rod sometimes infect men and women and produce irrational behavior. It’s unfortunate that many Maelstrom portfolio companies caught a CEXually Transmitted Disease. My stricken founders believe they must do whatever some prominent CEX says, lest their path to orgasmic returns is blocked. The CEX says: pump this metric, hire this person, give me this token allocation, list your token on this date … hold on, never mind … we will tell you when to list. These sick fucks in the throes of passion all but forgot about their users and why crypto exists. Come into my clinic; I can cure you. The remedy is the ICO. Let me explain…

The Wharton business school celebrates capitalism and American exceptionalism. Wide-eyed and bushy-tailed students from across the globe drink the Kool-Aid as professors extol the benefits of free-market capitalism and the "rules-based" Pax Americana order, enforced at the tip of a Tomahawk cruise missile.

Last summer, I travelled to the mecca of doosh doosh (house music) in Ibiza. It was a specialist mission consisting of myself and three homies. The organizer of the jaunt was one of my boys from university, who has resided in London since graduating. He lives for the European summer and organized one hell of a trip.

“Why is Bitcoin not rising in tandem with large-cap US tech companies index in the Nasdaq 100?”

The dollar-yen exchange rate is the most important macroeconomic indicator. In my last essay, “The Easy Button,” I wrote that something must be done to strengthen the yen. The solution I proposed was that the US Federal Reserve (Fed) could swap unlimited amounts of freshly printed dollars with the Bank of Japan (BOJ) for yen. This would allow the BOJ to give unlimited dollar firepower to the Japanese Ministry of Finance (MOF), with which they could purchase the yen in the global forex markets.

The global elites have various policy tools to prop up the status quo, which inflict pain now or later. I take the cynical view that the only goal of elected and unelected bureaucrats is to remain in power. Therefore, the easy button is constantly pressed first. Hard choices and strong medicine are best left for the next administration.

Some of you degens were screaming “Mayday” as you watched crypto markets puke from mid-April until the present. There was so much pain that momentum-chasing paper hands like Irene Zhao proclaimed that they were “done” with crypto. As if – she will dutifully return posting crypto thirst traps once Bitcoin is back trending up and to the right in short order.

Some of you think you are masters of the universe right now because you bought Solana sub $10 and sold it at $200. Others did the smart thing and sold fiat for crypto during the 2021 to 2023 bear market but lightened up as prices surged in the first quarter of this year. If you sold shitcoins for Bitcoin, you get a pass. Bitcoin is the hardest money ever created. If you sold shitcoins for fiat that you don’t immediately need for living expenses, you are fucking up. Fiat will continue to be printed ad infinitum until the system resets.

The Bitcoin block reward is forecast to halve on April 20th. This is seen as a bullish catalyst for crypto markets. I agree that it will pump prices in the medium term; however, the price action directly before and after could be negative. The narrative of the halving being positive for crypto prices is well entrenched. When most market participants agree on a certain outcome, the opposite usually occurs. That is why I believe Bitcoin and crypto prices in general will slump around the halving.