You should never laugh at people from the past, unless you’re comfortable with future generations mocking you. But it’s still funny to think that in the early days of radio, families used to gather in front of their giant, sideboard-sized sets and stare at them…

In 1972 a small passenger plane crashed in the Andes, and the survivors’ only contact with the outside world was a small transistor radio. After battling intense hunger and freezing temperatures for 11 days, they heard the news they’d been dreading: the search for the…

With the fall of the Wall and the collapse of communism, people lucky enough to live under capitalism were finally assured of what our leaders had long told us: the West is the best. The end of the Cold War saw Western values sweep the…

If we should never believe anything until it has been officially denied, then get ready to do your Christmas shopping in bitcoin.   Last week Amazon denied claims from an ‘insider’ that the company will accept bitcoin payments by the end of this year, and…

“What if?” is the dumbest question…when it’s about the past. What if I’d got into Oxbridge? What if I’d taken that job? What if I’d boarded the train before the sliding doors closed? Stop daydreaming about what can’t be undone. Look to the future instead….

Money talks. It is the universal language of business, but when it comes to financial institutions, only a few, all-powerful actors have a voice. And a system that only suits the establishment stifles innovation and prevents the creation of new models and applications that would…

Bruce Lee famously told his students to “be like water”, to adjust to challenges and so find a way to flow around or through them. But that’s not the only way to become unconquerable. Bitcoin is more akin to one of those strange non-Newtonian fluids…

Here’s an easy one. Which is more powerful – the pen or the sword? Or to update it a little, an assault rifle or an idea?   I’ve been thinking about this eternal philosophical question a great deal recently, especially in light of recent reports…

There is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. Well, that’s one problem Bitcoin has never had to contend with. Over the last 13 years, Bitcoin has been roundly ridiculed by all the wise heads of classical…

For anyone still unsure what the El Salvador news the El Salvador news means, I’ll tell you. It means Bitcoin has won: completely, finally, and irrevocably. Less than thirteen years ago, Bitcoin was just an idea in an obscure whitepaper. Today, it is set to…

Plenty of people fancy themselves a Frank Sinatra or Celine Dion, especially after a few drinks. But I don’t need a stiffener to get me up on the mic: I love karaoke, and on any given Thursday evening you’ll hear me singing classics such as…

Of all the shocks in the last few years, from Trump and Biden to Brexit to Covid-19, perhaps nothing has been as bizarre as seeing the Catholic Church apparently agreeing with the Chinese Communist Party. What could possibly have brought two such different worldviews together…