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Moneyness

Moneyness
Ending the penny won't lead to more nickels Donald Trump has ordered the U.S. Mint to stop producing the penny because it is unprofitable,...
3 days ago
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3 days ago
Donald Trump has ordered the U.S. Mint to stop producing the penny because it is unprofitable, costing 3.69 cents to produce each one. In response, the lobbyists that earn big profits from the ongoing existence of the penny have come out in full force with dubious arguments for...
Moneyness
The end of El Salvador's bitcoin payments experiment Back in 2021, El Salvador became the first country in the world to require its citizens to use...
a week ago
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a week ago
Back in 2021, El Salvador became the first country in the world to require its citizens to use bitcoin for payments. Last month, four years later, it notched another record: it became the first country to rescind bitcoin's status as required tender. This backtracking was the...
Moneyness
Trump claims US banks can't open in Canada—US banks disagree In what seems to be an effort to extort Canada for additional benefits, Donald Trump complained...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
In what seems to be an effort to extort Canada for additional benefits, Donald Trump complained yesterday on social media that CANADA DOESN'T EVEN ALLOW U.S. BANKS TO OPEN OR DO BUSINESS THERE. And so according to Trump, Canada doubly deserves to be disciplined with...
Moneyness
Is it better to bribe Trump by purchasing his memecoin or his stock? Noah Smith writes a provocative article about memecoins as a novel mechanism for bribery payments. A...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
Noah Smith writes a provocative article about memecoins as a novel mechanism for bribery payments. A foreign dignitary looking to gain influence over Donald Trump would like to pay him a giant bribe, but doing so directly is prohibited by all sort of laws. Luckily, Trump has just...
Moneyness
Canadian guilt, Russian oil We Canadians are overwhelmingly pro-Ukraine and anti-Putin, so when the CBC published an expose last...
a month ago
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a month ago
We Canadians are overwhelmingly pro-Ukraine and anti-Putin, so when the CBC published an expose last week about "banned Russian oil" sneaking into Canada, it was read in despair by most of us. What an awful failure of Canadian sanctions policy.  As with a lot of sanctions...
Moneyness
Here’s why we tolerate fake check scams Source: Better Business Bureau The daily news is filled with personal stories about bad...
a month ago
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a month ago
Source: Better Business Bureau The daily news is filled with personal stories about bad experiences with banks. Here’s a recent example. In November 2024, a charity inadvertently accepted a fake check from a would-be donor. The charity's bank allowed the charity to deposit...
Moneyness
Stablecoins are non-fungible, bank deposits are fungible On Twitter/X, I recently suggested that the network effects of the stablecoin market are massive....
a month ago
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a month ago
On Twitter/X, I recently suggested that the network effects of the stablecoin market are massive. Tether, which has four times more wallets than all other stablecoins, is locked-in as the stablecoin lingua franca, just like English has been locked-in as the global language of...
Moneyness
Someone is wrong on the internet about the SWIFT network There's a chart that has been circulating for a while now on social media that shows payments...
a month ago
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a month ago
There's a chart that has been circulating for a while now on social media that shows payments traffic on SWIFT, a key global financial messaging network. Below is a version from the Economist, but I've seen other versions too. Source: The Economist When banks make...
Moneyness
After twelve years of writing about bitcoin, here's how my thinking has changed What follows is an essay on how my thinking on bitcoin has changed since I began to write on the...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
What follows is an essay on how my thinking on bitcoin has changed since I began to write on the topic starting with my first post in October 2012. Since then I've written 109 posts on the Moneyness Blog that reference bitcoin, along with a few dozen articles at venues like...
Moneyness
It's time to trash the "store of value" function of money When we first learn about money and banking in high school or university, we are all taught that...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
When we first learn about money and banking in high school or university, we are all taught that money has three functions: medium of exchange, unit of account, and store of value. Maybe it’s time for educators to throw out this triumvirate. It’s not very accurate.  We need a...
Moneyness
Tornado Cash un-OFAC'ed The next chapter in the Tornado Cash saga just dropped. Last week a court ruled last that Tornado...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
The next chapter in the Tornado Cash saga just dropped. Last week a court ruled last that Tornado Cash, a bot that can be used for obfuscating crypto, is safe from being sanctioned. I first wrote about Tornado Cash in 2021, before its legal troubles began, warning of the risks...
Moneyness
How my views on financial privacy have evolved over a decade I began exploring the topic of financial privacy and payment anonymity in the early days of this...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
I began exploring the topic of financial privacy and payment anonymity in the early days of this blog. Over the past decade, my views have shifted significantly—here's how and why. Rereading my earliest mentions of financial privacy, they now seem a bit... idealistic? extreme?...
Moneyness
Pricing the anonymity of banknotes Banknotes are useful. Not only do they provide their owner with a standard set of payments...
3 months ago
2
3 months ago
Banknotes are useful. Not only do they provide their owner with a standard set of payments services, they also offer financial anonymity. This post introduces the idea of trying to price the anonymity component.  To help think about why we might want to price anonymous...
Moneyness
Setelinleikkaus: When Finns snipped their cash in half to curb inflation On the last day of 1945, with World War II finally behind it, Finland's government announced a new...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
On the last day of 1945, with World War II finally behind it, Finland's government announced a new and very strange policy. All Finns were required to take out a pair of scissors and snip their banknotes in half. This was known in Finland as setelinleikkaus, or banknote cutting....
Moneyness
Memecoins are the point Cypherpunks wanted to change the world. We ended up with memecoins. Our story begins with some very...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
Cypherpunks wanted to change the world. We ended up with memecoins. Our story begins with some very smart and idealistic developers, known as cypherpunks, creating a new technology know as a blockchain. Blockchains are databases, but decentralized. Advertised as being...
Moneyness
The magnificent Swiss 10-centime coin The Swiss 10-centime coin has a lot to teach us about monetary economics. On its face, the Swiss...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
The Swiss 10-centime coin has a lot to teach us about monetary economics. On its face, the Swiss 10-centime (rappen in German) looks like a pretty unremarkable coin. It's the second-lowest value Swiss coin, the Swiss version of America's lowly nickel, the sort of coin that many...
Moneyness
A glass half-full take on Caucasus sanctions evasion Ed Conway of Sky News recently published a very good investigation on sanctions evasion being...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
Ed Conway of Sky News recently published a very good investigation on sanctions evasion being carried out through the Caucasus. He visits the Lars border crossing between Georgia and Russia to document how smugglers are openly moving British and German luxury cars into Russia, in...
Moneyness
How should money laundering laws apply to DeFi? Everyone agrees that money laundering laws apply to DeFi. The question is: how to apply them? DeFi,...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
Everyone agrees that money laundering laws apply to DeFi. The question is: how to apply them? DeFi, or decentralized finance, is an emerging segment of the broader financial industry that delivers traditional financial services, say like trading or lending, using a novel type of...
Moneyness
Stablecoins – a digital version of Swiss bearer savings books Before anti-money laundering laws arrived in Switzerland, anyone could walk into a Swiss bank and...
6 months ago
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6 months ago
Before anti-money laundering laws arrived in Switzerland, anyone could walk into a Swiss bank and open an account without showing any ID. The bank would then issue you something called a bearer savings book, otherwise known as inhabersparheften or livrets d'épargne au porteur....
Moneyness
China is slowly joining the economic war against Russia I recently shared a chart on Twitter showing Chinese exports of ball bearings to Russia. Here it...
6 months ago
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6 months ago
I recently shared a chart on Twitter showing Chinese exports of ball bearings to Russia. Here it is: Having accelerated after Putin's invasion of Ukraine to a run-rate of around US$5-7 million per month in 2023, Chinese ball bearing exports to Russia have been ratcheted down...
Moneyness
Bitcoin as a tool of U.S. economic statecraft Riot Platform's Rockdale, Texas facility, North America’s largest Bitcoin mining farm by developed...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
Riot Platform's Rockdale, Texas facility, North America’s largest Bitcoin mining farm by developed capacity [source] Can a network that has been marketed as being resistant to government power be harnessed by the U.S. administrative state in order to attain its foreign policy...
Moneyness
Your finances are being snooped on. Here's how We all have a pretty good idea that our finances are being snooped on, but most of us aren't quite...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
We all have a pretty good idea that our finances are being snooped on, but most of us aren't quite able to articulate how. We know that we're being snooped on by two groups, corporations and the government. This post will focus on how the government surveils our transactions,...
Moneyness
The intensifying effort to isolate Russia's banks Last week the U.S. government expanded the coverage of its Russian secondary sanctions program to...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
Last week the U.S. government expanded the coverage of its Russian secondary sanctions program to encompass most of Russia's banks. It's a very big step, one that has been long-awaited by sanctions watchers, and will likely have significant repercussions for Russia and its...
Moneyness
"I didn't launder the cash, your honor. The robot did." Crypto enthusiasts protest the trial of Alexey Pertsev As the multiple Tornado Cash legal cases...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
Crypto enthusiasts protest the trial of Alexey Pertsev As the multiple Tornado Cash legal cases wend their way through courts in the Netherlands and the U.S., we continue to learn how society's money laundering laws will be applied to some of the more unique financial...
Moneyness
Monetagium An English penny minted by William the Conqueror, who brought monetagium to England. Source: History...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
An English penny minted by William the Conqueror, who brought monetagium to England. Source: History in Coins The way that a modern mafia protection racket works is the mafia starts doing very bad things to regular folks, say you and your business. To stop the damage, you pay...
Moneyness
Renovatio monetae This silver pfennig from the Archbishopric of Magdeburg (1152-1192) was subject to a policy of...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
This silver pfennig from the Archbishopric of Magdeburg (1152-1192) was subject to a policy of renovatio monetae. Twice a year whoever held it had to bring it in to be changed for new coins at a rate of four old coins to three new coins. That suggests an annualized tax rate on...