Every decade or so, a catalyst is provided for a major economic crisis. The nineties had the dotcom bubble, the noughties had the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the twenties will have cryptocurrencies. — Living on the banks of the mighty Mekong River that flows from the Tibetan Plateau across thousands of miles through Indochina and into the South China Sea, Tran Nguyen knows how high his home needs to be built above the banks.

There is every reason to be pessimistic on the world’s second largest economy, China. Size does not guarantee greatness, and a generation scarred by an increasingly assertive Communist Party will lay the groundwork for an active search for alternatives like cryptocurrencies. — Summer in Dali, China, is a portrait of idyllic bliss. Away from the hustle and bustle of China’s “hot pot” cities, nestled among 13,000 foot peaks in China’s southwest, the city of Dali represents a sanctuary of comfort and expanse.

Poking the bear that is the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is not without risks, especially given the interesting series of transactions surrounding Grayscale Investments, Digital Currency Group and Three Arrows Capital. — In the animal kingdom, the hunter rarely (if ever) becomes the hunted, but these same rules don’t apply in the blood sport that is litigation. Which is why a recent suit by Grayscale against the US Securities and Exchange Commission, creator of the eponymous Grayscale Bitcoin Trust risks doing just…

A great rebalancing between governments, central banks and the concept of money hangs in the balance and Bitcoin may take on a more relevant role than imagined. — When inflation was well below central bank targets of 2%, policymakers lamented (but not really) how they were struggling to stoke price pressures despite rock-bottom interest rates. Years of low interest rates coupled with low inflation had lulled many policymakers and populations into a collective slumber on the mistaken belief…

Decades of decay look set to culminate in the probable devaluation of the Chinese yuan. Just as ordinary Chinese were quick to circumvent strict capital controls with cryptocurrencies, they may do so again to combat a rapidly devaluing yuan. — Since China’s accession into the World Trade Organization, there has been constant pressure on the Chinese currency, the renminbi, otherwise known as the yuan, to appreciate.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is proof that the world can’t have nice things and harkens back to a potential post-war settlement that could see cryptocurrencies take a more central role in the evolution of decentralized money. — The dollar may be the global reserve currency today, but not so long ago, in a galaxy not so far away, the U.S. was actively trying to promote and prop up another reserve currency, backed by another empire — the British pound.

Three Arrows Capital, Long Term Capital Management and George Soros all have something in common, making massive one-directional bets, but their outcomes were dramatically different. — History is written by survivors and as such, survivorship bias colors the lens by which we view and perceive things that have happened. In the summer of 1998, when most self-respecting hedge fund managers were playing with their yachts, the Nobel Prize-winning economists and renowned Wall Street traders at Long…

While the price of Bitcoin may be well off its all-time-high, macroeconomic shifts and a strengthening dollar may provide fertile ground for its long-term growth. — When people think about Bitcoin they typically measure its price in relation to the dollar. For instance, when someone says Bitcoin “crossed 20k” they usually don’t mean for that to be in euros or the Japanese yen And that’s because for better or worse, the dollar remains the world’s reference…