Weekend Reading #141
This is the hundred-and-forty-first weekly edition of our newsletter, Weekend Reading, sent out on Saturday 23rd October 2021.
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What we're thinking.
As cryptos make an attempt to break to new highs this week (by the time this newsletter gets around, we’ll probably benefit from some hindsight), the questions we’re getting from the curious to the skeptical to the cynical are coming hard and fast. As always, there is a gradual drift in the epicentre of skepticism: whereas it used to be “Bitcoin is a scam”, now it’s “I can see how Bitcoin makes sense, and maybe Ether, but what about all these NFTs? It’s just JPEGs!”.
We wrote a couple of weeks ago about how NFTs are really just the digital version of things we’ve been collecting all our lives anyway. And it so happens that the latest high-profile NFT sale involves none other than the US Federal Government. The NFT in question is none other than “Once Upon A Time In Shaolin”, the SINGLE, UNIQUE and NON-FUNGIBLE record made in secret and limited to one copy by the Wu-Tang Clan, and bought by the “Pharma Bro” Hedge Fund manager Martin Shkreli. Can’t remember who he is? He’s the one who, after buying out Turing Pharmaceuticals, hiked the cost of an essential anti-parasitic drug Daraprim from $13.50 a tablet to $750 – overnight. Subsequently convicted of securities fraud, Shkreli's assets were seized by the Federal Government, including the single copy of “Once Upon A Time In Shaolin”.
And it has now found a new home – and potentially, a way to be heard for the first time (one can only wonder if Shkreli himself ever listened to it). PleasrDAO has stepped up to the plate and purchased the album from the Federal Government for an impressive sum of US$4m, with proceeds going to cover Shkreli’s outstanding debts. PleasrDAO is best known for being one of the biggest NFT collectors around, counting some of crypto’s leading builders and investors as members. But no one ever said NFTs could only be digital; they only needed to be non-fungible. There is now hope for Wu-Tang Clan fans to hear the album, but the bigger congratulations should go to the US Federal Government for their first NFT sale.
Now who ever said that crypto money was just imaginary internet money? Not so imaginary when it comes to settling Federal debts, it turns out.
And while we’re on the topic of NFTs, remember Marshmello, the DJ famous for his white marshmallow helmet who first made waves hosting a concert inside the world of Fortnite? Of course, unlike other artists who have hid their faces (notably Daft Punk), Marshmello’s real identity and face are well-known. But that never stopped any helmeted character from doing another face reveal, and that was exactly what he did on twitter:
Yep, that’s a cryptopunk. Specifically, Punk #8274, last sold for 130 ETH (though apparently not directly to Marshmello himself). The comments on the tweet are hilarious, but also revealing of where the direction of influencers like Marshmello is headed, embracing the growing crypto/metaverse culture of which NFT profile pictures are only the latest manifestation, as opposed to the persistent hope of the cynics that all of this will simply die off. Only time will tell if this was “just a fad”, but if the young are our future and their influencers are steering them inexorably down this path, the odds are pretty much skewed.
What we're reading.
This is a superb article on The Guardian about a new sport that may have caught your eye when it went viral on Twitter this week. The Balloon World Cup was won this week by Peru after a thrilling final watched in front of a sellout crowd in Spain and around eight million Twitch viewers online. That’s awesome. Check out the article and the video for a quick overview for what on earth Balloon is, but if you’ve ever messed around in the living room with your child and balloon, doing all you can to keep it off the floor, then you’re all set to have a go at qualifying for the next championships! EJP
This past week saw the release of Netflix results in a week where the headlines were all about the attempted cancelling of Dave Chapelle. Netflix is a company which leads from the front and its response in defending Chapelle to the maximum showed it would not be cowed like many other companies and institutions have been in recent times. The strength of co-CEO, Ted Sarandos’s statement was clear and despite the mainstream media’s attempt to show it as a grave error, the stock price hit all-time highs anyway. Maybe a show of how companies should deal with similar situations? It brings back the story of Coinbase in recent times when CEO, Brian Armstrong, facing seeming disgruntlement from some employees, wrote a strong letter in which he stated that politics stays at home and offered anyone who wished to leave a very generous pay-out. Something like 5% accepted and the company moved on. Around a year later it seems like a blip on the radar. Time will tell whether other companies follow this bold lead. As for Netflix’s numbers, the results themselves were stellar – another reminder that quarterly results may seem important in isolation but after a few “mediocre” quarters normal service is resumed from an era-defining company. DC
This week, I completed the final instalment of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s series, My Struggle. It’s taken me over 3 years to get through the 6 instalments and, unlike some great literary collections I've tried and failed to complete, conquering this one has, I think on immediate reflection, been one of the immense joys of my reading life. The collection has not been the book I read every day but there's been something special about having them as a constant presence in my life, bookmarked, that has been a comfort over the years. Now, upon completing The End this week, having come to the end of Knausgaard’s series, there feels as if there is something missing from my bedside table. Knausgaard’s series is autobiographical non-fiction, a diary, in some respects, charting his life from childhood into adulthood, through first love and heartbreak, through becoming a father, becoming a famed writer, through the highs and lows of life, just like that which we all experience. It is comprised of 6 volumes, 1,371,255 words and 3,770 pages. The End, the last of those 6 volumes, is in my opinion its finest entry, bringing the series into sharp focus as Knausgaard looks back on how his writing about an ordinary life became one of the most extraordinary literary projects of our times. He became a global literary phenomenon as a result and, in this volume, he discusses all that is good and bad about that ascension. I cannot recommend this book and this series highly enough. It is not for everyone. Friends tell me they can’t get through even a few pages of his style, which describes drinking a coffee or smoking a cigarette in the same ultra-detail as his father’s death or his son’s birth. I think it’s a work of genius. The final instalment is the greatest of the 6, even the near 500-page essay in its middle about identity, the power of language, Hitler’s love of poetry (!), is phenomenal. Start with My Struggle Book 1: A Death in the Family, and go from there and I look forward to hearing what you think of the series in a couple of years' time. Like when I think about those lucky people who have never watched an episode of West Wing or listened to Bruce’s Darkness on the Edge of Town, I’m incredibly envious of you if you’ve never read a word of this series. Enjoy. EJP
What we're watching.
I’ve rarely anticipated a new series as much as the coming of season 3 of Succession. Despite not being wild about some elements of the show, the twist at the end of season 2 was genuinely surprising and engrossing and set up the new series perfectly. So, this week, with my wife out on a couple of occasions, it was the perfect opportunity to dig into the new season, meeting again the Roy family and their high-flying life and their low lying morals. I was delighted to see that the new season kicked off with a bang and I’m hooked once again. Yes, it’s another show about wealthy people behaving badly, but when the acting is as good as that on display by the magisterial Brian Cox, then I’m fully onboard. EJP
What we're doing.
This week I seized on the chance to get some sun with a half-term trip to Greece. As someone who hails from the coast I yearn for the sea and this week we got really lucky with the weather. It’s been like a summer holiday and the Aegean is magnificent. But what one does while staring at the sea all day (in between managing three kids) is think quite a bit about well... pretty much everything. But being someone who lives and breathes markets I couldn’t help but chuckle once again at the cacophony of noise that tends to permeate the day-to-day. I’m a victim of it too but now and then we step back and look at some of the bigger picture trends and realise that fed or no fed, inflation or no inflation, most of our big bets are secular in nature. Sometimes I wonder why we try to second guess the short term moves in the sensationalised world we live in. In the end you have to be in it to win it. The rest is just window dressing. As always volatility rewards those who hold as the bounty on the other side if one chooses one’s instruments correctly will always more than make up for the stress during the volatile times. We’ve just seen it yet again. And yet another reminder that in markets one’s biggest enemy is oneself. Once you learn to tame your own negative impulses, you win. And this only comes with time and stuffing up many times along the way. DC
What we're listening to.
Occasionally, you just need to listen to a podcast with an open mind, not fully understanding every word, but trust that simply listening to it is doing you some good! That was the case this week when, whilst running, I tried to engage with the latest episode of Sam Harris’, Making Sense podcast which was a discussion on consciousness with neuroscientist, Anil Seth, a chap who has degrees in Natural Sciences, Knowledge-Based Systems and Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. In this episode Sam and Anil discuss the scientific study of consciousness, where consciousness emerges in nature, levels of consciousness, perception as a “controlled hallucination,” emotion, the experience of “pure consciousness,” consciousness as “integrated information,” measures of “brain complexity,” psychedelics, different aspects of the “self,” conscious AI, and many other topics. It is an amazing listen and one of those episodes that make the subscription to the podcast worth every penny, even if you don’t quite fully comprehend every word. Mind = stretched and blown. EJP
Spotify has once again done itself proud as far as music curation goes, serving up this album by Gidon Kremer entitled Hommage à Piazzolla, featuring Kremer on violin and Per Arne Glorvigen, better known as the “wizard of the buttons” on the bandoneon (an instrument similar to the accordion, though with a slightly different sound). The album is a homage to the work of Astor Piazzolla, an Argentine tango composer, and Kremer’s recording is a demonstration that Piazzolla’s music could thrive outside the Argentinian culture that formed it.