Blockworks Daily

“The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero.” — Patrick McKenzie Lucy Edwards, a relationship manager at the Bank of New York, opened an account in 1995 for Benex International Co., a defunct company with an empty office in Queens, NY. Benex was owned by her husband, Peter Berlin, who allowed one of Edwards’ customers, Russia’s Depozitarno-Kliringovy Bank (DKB), to use the company’s account to move money in and out of the Bank of New York (BoNY).

“When we reach the point when the world produces all the goods that it needs in two days, as it inevitably will, we must curtail our production of goods and turn our attention to the great problem of what to do with our new leisure.” — Julian Huxley, 1930 Blacksmithing has always been a loud, hot, strenuous, and dangerous activity. Today, it’s also an expensive one. Where bashing metal used to be a profession, people now pay for the privilege of doing it.

While blockchain throughput has exponentially increased, raw speed alone is no longer enough to win over global financial markets. As institutions move onchain, they are demanding the rigorous standards of traditional finance: guaranteed transaction predictability, fair and deterministic sequencing to prevent front-running, and resilient network access free from single-operator bottlenecks.

“Men have become the tools of their tools.” — Henry David Thoreau The people who know the most about AI keep telling us it’s coming for our jobs. Dario Amodei has told us to expect 20% unemployment any time now. Sam Altman has said AI will be able to do the jobs of all digital workers. Geoffrey Hinton — the godfather of AI — says it will cause “massive unemployment.” Elon Musk thinks there will eventually be no jobs at all. So far, though, the opposite seems to be happening.

“I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.” — Mary Shelley,Frankenstein Crypto is suddenly booming again, thanks to a Frankenstein combination of equities and tokens: “stock-paired memecoins.” To take one popular example, people are trading the memecoin Artificial Inu (AI) in a liquidity pool where it’s paired with tokenized shares of Nvidia.

“Anticipation is the greatest part of pleasure.” — Angela Carter Hermès Birkin bags are the quintessential Veblen good: The more they cost, the more people want them. The most affordable model — the Birkin 25 — now costs $13,500. The Diamond Himalaya (pictured above) will set you back $250,000. If, that is, you can persuade Hermès to sell you one. Few do.

‚ÄúYou're thinking of this place all wrong, as if I had the money back in a safe.‚ÄĚ ‚ÄĒ George Bailey on fractional-reserve banking The fundamental promise of banking is that everyone can have their money back whenever they want it ‚ÄĒ as long as they don't all want it at the same time. We learned that from George Bailey. "You're thinking of this place all wrong, as if I had the money back in a safe,‚ÄĚ he told the customers making a run on the Bailey Brothers Building & Loan.

‚ÄúA rose by any other name would smell as sweet.‚ÄĚ ‚ÄĒ Juliet Capulet, Romeo and Juliet A panel of Ninth Circuit judges on Friday ruled 3-0 that Kalshi‚Äôs event contracts related to sports are a form of sports betting. This seems self-evidently true. What is buying an event contract on, say, how many points will be scored in a football game if not betting?

Shoal Research argues that training data may be the most valuable bottleneck in robotics because demonstrations must be physically performed and cannot simply be scraped from the internet. The report highlights Eastworlds, Virtuals Protocol’s robotics division, which uses teleoperated robots in real commercial settings to generate training data, record corrections and eventually train more autonomous models.

“Anything at all was more than we had / In the good old days when times were bad.” — Dolly Parton Dolly Parton was bright and bubbly. Her high heels, long nails, and big hair were exuberant. Her glittering outfits were a little girl’s dream. She smiled constantly and laughed a lot. She was always ready with a joke, always at her own expense. Her speaking voice was mountain-twang friendly. Her singing voice was high-pitched innocence.