Weekend Reading #242

This is the two-hundred-and-forty-second weekly edition of our newsletter, Weekend Reading, sent out on Saturday 4th November 2023

To receive a copy each week directly into your inbox, sign up here.

*****

What we’re thinking. 

Apart from the broad rally in markets the past few days, there has been another interesting rally going on which is in the crypto space. With nobody left to sell the risk/reward was good but we have seen a promising rally ensue. The rally has been interesting in that despite almost all crypto assets going up off their lows, only some have genuinely gone up the way we look at things. Bitcoin led and then the mantle was taken over by Solana, ironically (or maybe because of it) surging in the week that Sam Bankman-Fried gets stuck away for life. Sentencing still to come of course, but 7/7 counts of guilty leaves him with a lifetime or few behind bars. Good riddance. And Michael Lewis, despite his financial reward will surely be wondering what on earth he was smoking. Apart from Solana we have seen an impressive breakout in Link, the Chainlink ecosystem token, as the narrative of real-world assets on the blockchain is a seductive one. We all know how investors love a massive TAM story!

What we’re doing. 

This week I'm in Singapore where alongside some catchups with friends, investors and colleagues, I attended the annual FIX conference. This was a little different from some of their usual events as had a multi-asset focussed compared with the equities space which I’m more familiar with. Having already been part of the organisation which manages electronic trading standards for some time, I was delighted to this time be welcomed into a more private lunch meeting held for the NextGen team which aims to facilitate guardianship and evolution of the protocol and its management for the years to come. This was a great opportunity to meet some of the younger faces in electronic trading, as well as have a more direct point of contact with some of the senior figures at much larger organisations. Beyond this, the event was a great opportunity to reconnect with some familiar faces and really a testament to how small of a world finance really is.

Whilst on the topic of networking, I was also invited this week to one of the founder-focussed events organised by SG Innovate, a Singaporean government-led organisation which helps startups in the deep-tech space grow and innovate. I’d not had any interaction with them, but as we look to build out our technology infrastructure, it could be a great point of contact as we develop more into the APAC region.

Food-wise, Singapore has been great. I’ve broadened my horizons a bit - no longer sticking to just the local food as given the number of expats, there is also some fantastic international food. This week I enjoyed a delicious Tuscan venison pasta next to Hillview Station at iO Italian Osteria, a small but incredibly popular restaurant run by an almost entirely Italian team. From the inside, I wouldn’t have believed I was in a Singaporean suburb. Although I also finally got around to visiting Chef Lai’s Singaporean lunch spot close to City Hall MRT. Formerly a chef at Chatterbox in the Downtown Mandarin Oriental, he left and started his own shop, and the food they serve is incredible. I’ve so far only managed to try the Hainanese Chicken Rice and Braised Pork Belly, but both were fantastic, and I’ll certainly be back to try their Curry Chicken and Laksa. HS

What we’re reading, listening to and watching

This week it's kind of all intertwined so I’ve boxed it all into one section.

After reading this week about China removing Israel from its Baidu maps app, the Russian Wagner group apparently training the Hamas terrorists and of course more bellicosity from Iran, it became even clearer to me (it already was) that this is all part of a hotter and hotter, larger world war between America and China (and those on either side). I wrote a rather silly allegorical piece a few years ago about The Eagle and the Dragon and as the proxies align on each side, the potential for damage grows and grows. Almost everything happening needs to be understood in this context.

In the reading section this week, first and foremost a must read is Simon Sebag Montefiore’s piece on why younger people today have so readily adopted jew hate in the form of anticolonialism of all things. Even with the unimaginable atrocities performed by Hamas terrorists, it has got worse. From campuses to media to primary school (yes even in my children’s primary school antisemitism is now rearing its putrid head). This is a brilliantly written piece with historical context and by my favourite historian author. It goes some way to the question of why? Why do today’s younger generations hate Jews?

On the same topic is this article about Tik Tok and how America has let the wolf inside dressed in sheep’s clothing. It’s entitled “Why Do Young Americans Support Hamas? Look at Tik Tok”.  Tik Tok is a CCP controlled propaganda machine which has a direct line into the minds of younger Americans (and everybody else in the west). Did you know that the algorithm in the West is completely different to the one in China inside the local version of Tik Tok, Douyin?

Here is a piece from another journalist/author who I have followed for some time, a chap named Ben Judah, who attended Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Future Investment Initiative conference, also known as “Davos in the Desert”. The event has made a surging comeback as the Khashoggi murder gets diluted by the passing of time. This is an excellent piece on MBS and Saudi, his aspirations and anxieties.

Next a deeply insightful interview with former French PM, Dominique De Villepin. In the interview he is a realist. He looks beyond the immediate emotion and necessary action to the future and asks very articulately what exactly does everyone aim to achieve in the more medium to long term here and how do we get there. Are the actions being taken going to get us there or not? The transcript is translated but the link also has the original interview in French.

Last one to read is a very moving piece in the Free Press entitled “The Untold Stories of Gazans”.  In this article, Gazan’s are interviewed anonymously of course, but their message is clear and so is their suffering at the hands of Hamas.

To watch here is a superb speech from a guy I’ve grown to admire for his pure common sense. Konstantin Kishin talks about why the West should not be afraid of its history and should be proud of its values, rather than be ashamed as many of the younger generation today are.

Still on the topic of global affairs and the larger context of the Israel/Hamas war is this superb interview with veteran columnist, professor and author, Walter Russell Mead by Bari Weiss.  It is full of geopolitical gold. In it, he shares his world view and his understanding of how this all fits into the US vs China metagame.

To be honest it usually takes a LOT to get me down but after the week of reading, listening to and watching things related to the Israel/Hamas war and the overtly antisemitic accompaniments in London, I needed a break so I took a full day off of this stuff to try and mend my broken brain and more importantly my soul. It was as a result so incredibly rewarding to strike gold with the first thing I decided to listen to. I’ve known Rick Rubin has a podcast for a while and have been queuing them up to listen to. But when I saw that surfer-folk singer, Jack Johnson, was interviewed I couldn’t wait to listen to it. Johnson’s music takes me back to a time in life that was just completely free. A time of hanging out on the beach, without a care in the world listening to his simple, soft, melodic songs and watching perfect sunset after perfect sunset day after day. This conversation was just so beautiful. It was spiritual. Rick Rubin’s questions are just perfect. Nothing about money or politics or war or any of that heavy stuff, but rather just about surfing and music and the happiness it brings. I spent the next few hours listening to Johnson’s music and the track that really got me smiling was “A Little Bit of Love”. Here’s one version sung live in 2012 with Paula Fuga and John Cruz in Maui.  The world could take heed of the title.

Another burst of joy came from an unlikely tweet I stumbled upon linking to an AI-created version of Jonny Cash singing Taylor Swift’s Blank Space (did I say Tik Tok was all evil?). This is so cool!

And for the coup de grace of heart-warming stuff we of course have to go to the Springboks - South Africa’s heroic rugby team.  Two world cups on the trot, 3 single-point victories in a row to win this one and a team of real winners.  It's one thing winning on the pitch, but these guys are winners off it too, led by a lion of a man in captain, Siya Kolisi. Kolisi is what in a world before today’s one was known as a MENSCH.  A true leader, a unifier of people and someone who just knows how to inspire.  He should be president and I'm not kidding.  I don’t think that anyone outside of South Africa can understand what this team represents to the people of the country.  Yes, rugby is just a sport but my god it has unified.  Even a decade ago, rugby, while making lots of inroads into black communities hadn’t really captured the hearts and minds of young kids but the victory tour with the trophy over the past few days has been a sight to behold.  Oceans of people of all colours, shapes and sizes have poured into the streets, onto rooftops and everywhere else to catch a glimpse of their heroes. 

And nothing more epitomises this amazing spirit than this wonderful clip of a young kid named Siya Dlamini, overwhelmed with emotion and being hugged by his hero, the enormous lock, Eben Etzebeth.  Dlamini went viral (did I say Tik Tok was all evil?) when his euphoric celebrations screaming “Elizabedi!” after Etzebeth’s try against France in the quarterfinals spread like wildfire.  The best thing is I’m not sure who was happier!  It brought a tear to my eye. DC