Dutch Until now Dutch taxpayers have been levied taxes on ‘assumed gains’. Say you have $1,000, you might earn interest of $100 but the law might decide your assumed gain was $300 and on that amount you would have paid tax. The idea was to tax the appropriate income from assets, not the gains themselves.

Ideas I had, just a few weeks ago, promised you the resumption of bitcoin obituaries. Fair to say I didn’t quite anticipate the violent eruption of the last two weeks, but the responses did not disappoint. The journalist in this particular case pointed out that they have ‘followed bitcoin since 2015’ and so are qualified

Something changed The most popular day of the year for financial fraud is 24th December. Everyone is in a rush to get payments out of the door and leave early. So if you slip in some urgent invoices, change bank details you have a chance. What’s more, nobody will be back until early January by

The Quantum Problem Does Bitcoin have a quantum problem? The answer here is, yes. Specifically, some of the encryption on which bitcoin relies, notably ECDSA, is vulnerable to quantum computers. In reality the most exposed coins are those very old Satoshi coins (about 8% of the total supply), and those coins where people have reused

Vanguard (again) December 2024. We are never doing it. December 2025. We are doing it. I was impressed when they held the line last December and said no. Money talks though. Clients want the asset class, advisors want the asset class and Vanguard had no choice. We have had several months of ‘nobody wants bitcoin’

UK Budget   I’ll tax them on their dog Tax them on their cat I’ll tax the man, and his wife On this and that  I’ll tax them when they fly I’ll tax them when they die  Some extra pennies, you know When their loved ones die I’ll tax them when they drive however hard they

Unhinged Cue outrage. I have mixed views on Elon, I’ve gone from not really believing in him (or Tesla) to just being wrong and him being right. Elon was accused of being “completely unhinged” after his remarks about Optimus, which included that it will ultimately be better than any human medical surgeon. He is unhinged

Still nothing Gleefully posted this week by Mr “software is eating the world” Marc Andreessen. He first wrote that line in 2011 in an article for the Wall Street Journal. It does not appear to be behind the paywall, so you can read it and weep (like I did) that you didn’t pay more attention

Player Piano I have not been helped in this analysis by reading Kurt Vonnegut’s 1952 book, Player Piano. It imagines a future dominated by machines. Paul Krugman, referring to the book, argued earlier this year that new technology shifts jobs rather than destroys them. I’m not so sure. Thinking machines are not the same as

Haircut I had not fully appreciated the impact of synthetic diamonds on the wholesale diamond price. My barber, an expert on many topics, told me about it. Down almost 50% from their covid peak and falling all the time. I did a bit of digging and found this McKinsey Report on the state of the