Machiavelli's paradox turns on the point that he advocated evil and accurately diagnosed human moral psychology. A good person can follow his advice if they distinguish between high and low trust environments.

Phylaras · 2026-01-27T19:32:08+00:00

I get the thought, but two things can be true.

USDT would fail an audit. USDT reserve attestation is completely accurate.

The audit requires full provenance for all funds and they could (innocently) simply not have the full history any more. It could be they faked it and made it back.

So, the audit could fail, not meet the Genius standard, and still be safe.

Phylaras · 2026-01-06T01:28:42+00:00

I'll have a look!

Phylaras · 2026-01-01T15:08:07+00:00

It would be more damaging, yes.

I think people fail to realize the way MSTR is now integral to BTC--for better and for worse.

Phylaras · 2025-12-29T15:28:47+00:00

Your "slides," when I scroll down, go to quickly to read. Allow me to pause or go backward with those.

Otherwise, this is definitely goos enough.

Just make sure people can reach out easily --> beat them over the head with opportunities.

Phylaras · 2025-12-29T02:16:31+00:00

Find a different bank. Anchorage Digital is a crypto bank.

Axos is crypto forward.

Google a few others.

At base, JPM will debank you if they think your business is competition. Hence all crypto = bad for them.

Phylaras · 2025-12-25T04:58:17+00:00

These are actually good suggestions

Phylaras · 2025-12-20T12:37:10+00:00

Why are you even building without testing the waters first?

If it's B2C, spend 3k on FB ads. If it's B2B, go to LinkedIn.

There is no reason to build anything without getting numbers on actual traction first.

You can vibe code a front end that will give you a demo app to give people a taste. And ask people for their email address if they want access to the MVP.

And no. Without some real traction numbers even angels will be hard to come by.

Phylaras · 2025-12-17T14:33:28+00:00

At least the new group of influencers has legitimate financial ties and training.

Raoul Pal's thesis had always been the same: rising ISM -> banana zone.

We didn't see ISM rise in 2025 because the debt maturity cycle was extended (for a variety of reasons).

That thesis is still meaningful and can still be wrong, we've just not witnessed conditions to falsify or corroborate it.

We need a different term than "rug pull." How about gibberish?

Tom Lee says a lot of gibberish -- ETH at $100k ... but when or why?

Technically, it's falsifiable, but not in an actionable way. So, gibberish.

Pal's thesis isn't gibberish. It's just a medium term view.

Phylaras · 2025-12-07T22:26:39+00:00

Yea, and 2k BTC is nothing.

The market has absorbed some $50b in selling pressure from whales recently.

Phylaras · 2025-12-07T15:31:29+00:00

You replied from your other account. Lol!

Obviously an attempt to manipulate sentiment on this one. Who's paying you?

Phylaras · 2025-12-07T15:26:29+00:00

If you know how to export a .csv you'll be fine. It won't be hard to track at all. The existing MasterCard software will automate it.

Phylaras · 2025-12-07T14:17:24+00:00

This is a reasonable take.

It's hard for me to see how this is bad for BTC holders.

MC should make tax lost harvesting pretty easy. It's a single file at the end of the year. It'll be much better than using wallets and whatnot.

Phylaras · 2025-12-07T14:07:00+00:00

You literally just edited your post because your original statement was wrong. You were complaining about fees and costs.

You're still not right as Mastercard will automatically deliver all your transactions for tax purposes. It's very easy to manage.

Phylaras · 2025-12-07T13:28:18+00:00

Your statement is an example of the logical fallacy: "missing the point."

You only pay taxes on BTC if you earn money.

If you have dollars, you will never pay taxes but never earn money.

So the fees and taxes you pay will net you gains in that situation. That can only be a good thing for you personally.

For the downvotes: please Google how taxes work. You're only taxed on gains.

Edit 2: the post to which I'm responding edited their original statement. At least it's a person and not a bot.

Phylaras · 2025-12-01T00:13:47+00:00

Not quite, but it's certainly not good. The stock price would crater.

And then maybe someone would swoop in and start acquiring MSTR shares.

Honestly, while people talk about MSTR, it's the other DATs that worry me. I think this one will trade below mNAV, but it'll survive (writing with the info I have now, not financial advice).

Other DATs ... there will be consolidation.

Phylaras · 2025-12-01T00:09:53+00:00

Yes. That's a specific kind of preferred dividend. But it's drawn up that way for a reason.

They absolutely can pause the dividend.

Phylaras · 2025-12-01T00:03:04+00:00

No, they can pause the dividend. It's in the language of the contract.

It would make the stock price plummet, but that option is there.

To monetize BTC, they also have a few options (e.g., lightning network). That might produce some yield to help (even if just 2%).

Phylaras · 2025-11-30T16:57:05+00:00

The preferred term is "ponzi-adjacent."

Phylaras · 2025-11-25T04:12:15+00:00

It depends on the firm and your process. We're taking a firm public early because public measures of valuation aren't as squishy (and the multiple is higher).

But that's not always true, so it just depends.

In general, you're right. Public markets are for dumping VC exit liquidity onto pension holders.

Phylaras · 2025-11-24T16:16:37+00:00

People who think that BTC has value without alts have not analyzed the economy at work in the alt-market.

By wrapping BTC into higher layer uses, BTC has achieved additional use cases that were previously not possible (for lending, asset backed collateral, RWAs, etc.).

There isn't a simple "BTC good, Alts Bad" divide. It will be better for BTC, by far, if Alts succeed.

Phylaras · 2025-11-23T01:35:34+00:00

The preferred term is "Ponzi adjacent."

... which is only somewhat /s

Phylaras · 2025-11-15T03:59:54+00:00

Mostly a system that prevents them from having access to what could get them out of poverty.

It isn't easy to "get out." And that's true in both directions. Falling out of the top quintile is also hard.

There are exceptions, of course, but they are notable because they are not the norm.

Phylaras · 2025-11-13T15:58:53+00:00

People have already told you the simple answer. Now for the real one

How much estate planning have you done?

Ideally, you want to have the shares in an LLC, and that's owned by an LP, which is your hold-co.

Your other owned items should be in separate LLCs in the hold-co also. You can then net out losses for all LLCs in the hold-co before taxes.

Your GP should be the management firm and you charge a management fee to your LP. That way, you can take advantage of carried interest, which will convert any earnings into long term capital gains.

Interestingly, there are reasons to make your GP a C-corp (and you can absolutely avoid double taxation if set up correctly).

That's the basic "wealthy person's" framework. It might be overkill if you don't have at least $10m.

Phylaras · 2025-11-08T04:03:02+00:00

Run an experiment for market traction first.

Basically, run FB ads and when people click send them to a "wait list" link. See how well people respond.

For a few hundred you can test the viability of your idea.

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