Watching UST and Luna implode was a bit surreal. I was invested for a while in Luna and closed out my position in March this year but I can’t help but feel that I didn’t know enough about the stablecoin and the broader Terra ecosystem before making my investment. That’s a bit sobering and makes me wonder what else I have glossed over with regard to my other investments.
If like me, you don’t know much about stablecoins, I have included a nice little primer in this week’s newsletter. People with a macroeconomics background and especially monetary policy buffs should find plenty of familiar concepts. Definitely not an endorsement in terms of making any investments though and considering my active investing track record no one should be taking financial advice from me anyway.
Links of the Week
Crypto - On the theoretical underpinnings of different kinds of stablecoins. (Link)
Stablecoins, in their most ideal form, are simply cryptocurrencies with stable value. They share all the features that make Bitcoin so appealing, but don’t suffer from the same volatility, making them much more usable as a store of value, medium of exchange, and unit of account.
History - Could the history of humanity begin much earlier than is thought today? On the unearthing of an archaeological site that is dated to ~11000-13000 years ago in Karahan Tepe in Turkey. (Link)
This number is so large it is hard to take in. For comparison the Great Pyramid at Giza is 4,500 years old. Stonehenge is 5,000 years old. The Cairn de Barnenez tomb-complex in Brittany, perhaps the oldest standing structure in Europe, could be up to 7,000 years old.
Food - On the looming shortage of food facing the world as a consequence of war and climate change. Scary. (Link)
The high cost of staple foods has already raised the number of people who cannot be sure of getting enough to eat by 440m, to 1.6bn. Nearly 250m are on the brink of famine. If, as is likely, the war drags on and supplies from Russia and Ukraine are limited, hundreds of millions more people could fall into poverty.
Economics - Digital technologies were expected to usher in a new era of increased productivity. So why isn’t it showing up in the data? NYT investigates. US-centric but quite illuminating. (Link)
The growth in productivity since the pandemic hit now stands at about 1 percent annually, in line with the meager rate since 2010 — and far below the last stretch of robust improvement, from 1996 to 2004, when productivity grew more than 3 percent a year.
Fashion/Management - On the managerial philosophy of Anna Wintour, the queen of fashion. Not sure how much of this is actually useful. (Link)
From her chair as editor-in-chief of Vogue since 1988, Wintour has not only dominated the multibillion-dollar fashion industry. She has ruled the New York social scene, compelling billionaires and deca-billionaires to dance to her tune. More than anyone else she decides who is “in” and who is “out.”
Remote Work - Some tactical advice on how to make video calls suck less. (Link)
Digital Marketing - A brilliant data-driven deep dive into how subject lines (and other variables like send days/months) impact open rates for email marketing campaigns. Mixpanel should know considering the kind of data they have. (Link)
Happy reading!