Open Ponzi Scheme
ScamCoin Shows Us the Way, Taleb Trashes Bitcoin, Cap Gains Taxes Won't Kill This Economy, Vimeo CEO on Creating a "Video Saas" Platform
Nassim Taleb went on CNBC to hit Bitcoin as an “open ponzi scheme”. His key knocks against Bitcoin:
No correlation between inflation/deflation and Bitcoin
Bitcoin has become a speculative tool, deviating from its purported aim
Way too volatile to commit to transactions (let alone borrow/lending…)
It’s a “game” and you can easily create another such game (i.e. altcoins)
Sorkin then goes well, forgetting the currency argument, what about BTC being considered a “Digital Gold”? But the question seems to get lost in the video call…
Will Higher Capital Gains Rates “Lock In” Capital in Subpar Investments?
Lonsdale links to a Medium post with the following key argument:
Several empirical studies vindicate the conclusion that high capital gains tax rates create a lock-in effect and cripple growth in the real economy.[5] A Harvard study found that a 10.0 percentage-point increase in the marginal tax rate reduced the probability of selling a stock by a full 6.5 percentage points.[6]Another study concluded that eliminating capital gains taxes wholesale could increase GDP by 1% to 3%.[7] Interestingly, historical evidence suggests that a lower capital gains tax rate often improves economic growth such that it increases net tax revenue.
—Source: 8VC on Medium
The problem with this argument is that we live in an age of abundant capital. Literally, we are bursting at the seams with capital looking to find a home, with much of it, in desperation, going to crap assets. Unlikely a bit more "lock in" would cripple the economy in such a state…
And do not discount incentive caused bias driving a VC firm (8VC) to argue against higher rates.
Vimeo Creating a “Video SaaS” Business
I’ve long pondered why it is that hugely successful YouTubers would choose to stay on the platform and share significant ad revenue with the platform. It seems there is an emerging alternative:
And basically, what a lot of YouTube creators are doing is, they reach a certain amount of size and they’re like, “Wow, I can make way more money if I get a subset of my followers on YouTube to actually come and subscribe to my own channel and pay me directly, I can make more money than just purely on an ad model basis.”
And so that’s a great example. That product’s called our Vimeo OTT product. It’s on fire right now. It’s growing incredibly fast. And we’re seeing so many creators and brands, everybody from like the yoga instructor to the church starting to do this, and I think that’s awesome.
Bonus: Supply Kills Bubbles (ScamCoin Edition)
What happens in a market where total euphoria causes something like this to occur:
Eventually, every crap seller wants to get in and sell their own crap asset and cash in on wildly irrational markets. This continues and, each time, capital is drawn from other assets, especially those that previously drew speculative capital. This results in old bubbles popping to support the new ones. Eventually, the house of cards comes down of course…
