Lyn Alden

Anyway, GM.

Algos treating bitcoin like SaaS. Relatively few new retail investors came in this cycle. Meanwhile, altcoins exhausted basically every possible narrative for why they should exist and are set to more persistently fade into irrelevance, with most of them not even really reaching new highs this time. Bitcoin separated from the pack for the most part, but had trouble catching a sustained bid nonetheless. -Some institutional investors are indeed spooked by the quantum risk. That had a nonzero impact, and I have really good sources on that. But if quantum was the main catalyst for the underperformance as some like to argue, then there'd most likely be a big performance gap between bitcoin (hard to upgrade) vs more centralized altcoins (easy to upgrade) that are marketing quantum resiliency roadmaps. That's not happening, though, which largely disproves that as the main culprit. -Most institutional investors I've looked into have little knowledge or even awareness of the spam issue, version wars, fork wars, etc. -Biggest factor seems to just be a combo of 1) buyer exhaustion (lack of retail, lack of sovereigns, leaving basically a corporate play this cycle) and 2) weighed down by the more permanent stagnation of altcoins (which is good in the long run but a headwind here, because there is a lot of cross-ownership between them and bitcoin).

I read the novel Blood of the Bourgeoisie by Michael Sullivan. Given all the corruption recently revealed about powerful people, it seems like a good season for it. It's a thriller about elite corruption, and features bitcoin prominently. Anyway, here's a review. The book is a concise and well-paced read, with three point-of-view characters. All three of them are quite fleshed out, especially given how trim the overall page count is. The plot is well-constructed and creative. Motivations make sense, the scale is significant, and I found myself consistently wanting to know what happens next. The audiobook version is out now, narrated by the great @walker. I started with the ebook version, but then listened to the audiobook version for the second half, so I experienced the book both in prose form and through listening, and both were quite enjoyable. I like there to be themes in novels. In other words, if the answer to why Prince Niceguy defeats Darklord Asshole in the climax is because "he's better with a sword", then that's just not that interesting to me. In addition to his training, what did Prince Niceguy learn that allowed him to defeat him? The original Star Wars trilogy handled this well: Luke loses to Vader in the middle movie and beats him in the third movie, not just because he improved with a saber between the duels but because he mastered himself and his emotions, and accepted the truth of things rather than deny them. This novel has good themes, in my view. Clashes of ideology. Tough choices. Characters who have their worldviews tested. Good, evil, and shades of gray. Can evil be purged peacefully, or does it require violence? There's a series of flashbacks in it, which is a structure that annoys a minority of readers (because it risks breaking your immersion by jumping back and forth), but I really like that structure in novels as long as it's well done. It helps flesh out a story and makes the reader wonder how the flashbacks are going to inform or intersect with the present-day plot. In this case, I thought the flashbacks were very well done and played nicely into the plot. I predicted how the flashbacks would intersect the main story, but there are other twists that surprised me a great deal. In my view that's the ideal combo, because as a reader I'm rewarded for thinking ahead, but also blindsided at times. To the extent that I have any critiques of the novel to flesh out a full review, they're pretty limited and contextual. -The bitcoin component is significant, both plot-wise and dialogue-wise. If someone doesn't like bitcoin, the plot can still work for them but it'll likely detract from their overall appreciation. On the other hand if someone is very knowledgeable on bitcoin, the "bitcoin 101" parts of it may feel skim-able. That's a tough balance for an author to navigate and I can't envision how it would be handled better. I would imagine that the sweet spot as a reader here is to be interested in bitcoin but a bit skeptical or not super knowledgeable about it. -One of the challenges an author faces (including myself) is how to make dialogue seem realistic but not too realistic. That's an unintuitive thing. If you actually transcribe most real-life conversations, they are filled with "ums" and false starts and just tons of verbal clutter which makes them super annoying to read. So an author can't actually make dialogue perfectly realistic, all the time. On the other hand, if dialogue is too polished and expositionary, it sounds artificial: "Well how do you do today, Bob? Lovely weather isn't it? Have you heard about that deceased gardener? What a shame. They found him this morning. I heard he was sleeping with the countess." Sullivan handles the dialogue well, but there were some times I would have preferred it pushed a bit closer to the realism side of the spectrum. There is not necessarily any ideal sweet spot, though. It's all trade-offs. An author has to put necessary exposition somewhere, and it can go in the narrative or in dialogue or some blend of the two, and readers have different preferences. There was one moment where characters whispered in front of another character as though they weren't heard and I was like, "guys, he's right there in earshot, looking at you..." I'd be happy to pick up other books by Sullivan in the future. In fact, he's got an earlier sci fi novel out called The Final Flaw. I haven't gotten to that one yet, but after reading this one, I'd like to give that a read as well.