A Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission official and a lawmaker have dropped out of the Bitcoin Asia conference taking place in Hong Kong right now, apparently to avoid being seen near Donald Trump’s son Eric.
Ideally, Hong Kong officials would keep their distance from anything to do with crypto, but they have never seen a financial fad-cum-potential hub-zone they didn’t like (Islamic banking, green bonds, etc).
The Trump family has done well out of crypto – by inventing and issuing their own fake money. Oligarchs wanting to surreptitiously gift the president millions of bucks can do it by buying the $Trump coins for real cash. The family makes additional real real money through commissions from everyday suckers trading the ultimately worthless digital tokens. Trump’s sons will also be listing a Bitcoin mining company next month, while daddy pushes regulatory changes designed to boost crypto.
The Bitcoin Asia website. You can get a ‘Whale Pass’ for US$4,999. Note that the prices are in real money. It’s all about real money. The only way to acquire wealth through Bitcoin and other crypto is to sell it to or otherwise enable idiots who can’t tell a fake currency created out of thin air from an asset.
Also on the subject of the madness of crowds: in his blog, Paul Krugman’s asks why, with Donald Trump clearly planning to end Federal Reserve independence, markets are reaching record highs rather than panicking…
Nathan Tankus summarizes this by saying that the market is not, as stylized economic models would have us believe, a mechanism that pools the knowledge and informed judgment of millions of investors. It is, instead, a “conventional wisdom processor.” That is, it reflects views that seem safe to hold because many other people hold them — and the crowd only abandons those views when they become blatantly unsustainable.
John Cochrane of the Hoover Institution on Paul Krugman in 2009:
“Paul Krugman has no interesting ideas whatsoever about what caused our current financial and economic problems, what policies might have prevented it, or what might help us in the future, and he has no contact with people who do.”
Nothing has changed in Krugman World in the intervening 15 years.
“China to Bolster Non-Western Alliances at Summit” – SCMP headline
“The SCO comprises China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus — with 16 more countries affiliated as observers or dialogue partners.”
Who needs Western markets when they can be replaced with those winners?
Totally off-topic, but with regard to the government being scammed with fake bottled water recently, the Water Supplies Department has been assuring the public for years that Hong Kong’s water is safe to drink straight from the tap (barring the odd eruption of black particles), so why is the government spending millions on bottled water for its offices?
Speaking of crypto, here’s a Medieval concept (coincept!) – the first physical crypto currency:
https://woodcoincrypto.com/
Btw – David Webb’s 60th birthday today. What are the odds of a Bauhinia medal/star before he shuffles off this mortal coil?