4 min read Despite all the hype, cryptocurrencies are a small part of the financial system. At the peak value in October 2021 the market cap of crypto was about $2.7 trillion. The total value of physical money (M0) was about $40 trillion that year and the broader money supply (M3) was about $90 trillion. And crypto is largely confined…
7 min read Over the coming months, years, and decades the digital transformation will raise questions as to whether we need new laws and regulations, should modify existing ones, or do nothing at all. Much of the work to be done will be more nuanced, and diverse, than the current drive to regulate Big Tech. As I explain in my recent article ‘Tech Reg: Rules for…
6 min read It is hard to plan for catastrophes. They come in many varieties. Today we are focused on a global pandemic. Perhaps next, an asteroid will whack the planet. Electric power grids could go down. The digital payment networks might fail or maybe the global Internet. Nuclear disaster could hit. Global warming could cut off food supplies. Or a different pandemic might arise. Even for a given risk it is hard to know how it will play out and therefore how we…
4 min read Platforms are all the rage these days. Powered by online technologies, they are sweeping across the economic landscape, striking down companies large and small. Uber’s global assault on the taxi industry is well known. Many platforms, some household names and others laboring in obscurity, are doing the same in other sectors.
5 min read Retail profits are plummeting. Stores are closing. Malls are emptying. The depressing stories just keep coming. Reading the Macy’s, Nordstrom, and Target earnings announcements is about as uplifting as a tour of an intensive care unit. The Internet is apparently taking down yet another industry. Brick and mortar stores seem to be…
5 min read Fundamentally, the new economics of multisided platforms helps us understand that the darlings of the 21st century aren’t using a new business model, but are using powerful new technologies to make an old business model work much better and add value in new settings. This, in turn, lets us see that the fundamentals of these new businesses are similar to those of old, familiar ones — from how they price, to how they solve the chicken and egg problem of…
5 min read One of the oldest business models in the world is using new technology to trample traditional businesses, drive innovation, and create new and immense sources of value. Matchmakers, the subject of our new book, make it easy for two or more groups of customers, like drivers and riders in the case of Uber, to get together and do business. They…
5 min read Yahoo’s core business is worth next to nothing, and buyers are struggling to see if there’s any there there. Twitter’s market cap just plummeted after a bad earnings report. Given that news, it seems that businesses that have…
5 min read When most of us think of multisided platforms, the ones that come to mind are those, like Apple and Facebook, that make heaps of money. Or unicorns like Uber that, if cap tables mean anything, someday will. Of course, anyone…
3 min read The Bitcoin exchange rate gets a lot of attention. Look at all the stories today over the fact that the exchange rate dipped below $300 on October 5, 2014 for the first time in 11 months, reaching $288.82 and down $869.51 from its all time high of $1158.33 on December 4, 2013. Most people have missed the really big story. Despite all the…
16 min read Remember the day when a coin was just a bothersome piece of metal that you were happy to toss in the tip jar to…
4 min read Last Friday PYMNTS ran a short article by me that made the pretty simple and accurate point that Overstock.com receives dollars when people use their Coinbase wallet to send bitcoins. Little did I know the firestorm I would start. Patrick Byrne, Overstock’s CEO, was not happy with me…
5 min read What better evidence of the frothiness of technology markets could one want than Andrew Kessler’s “The Weekend Interview with Brian Armstrong : Angling to Be the MasterCard of Bitcoin” (May 17). Mr. Armstrong is the founder of Bitcoin processor Coinbase. Tens of millions are poring into Bitcoin startups and, like most bubbles, investors dismiss all the bad news. For example: Bitcoin…
6 min read It looks like I poked the hornets’ nest and awakened the slumbering bear at the same time with my article last Friday about Overstock not really taking bitcoin. The hysterical reaction is puzzling since the point of my article is simple and no one, including Patrick Byrne, Overstock’s CEO, seems to disagree with it (see his rather angry…
6 min read Yes, we know what you’ve heard, but nope, Overstock doesn’t take bitcoin as payment and never actually handles bitcoins at all. And, it’s not just them. Merchants that accept bitcoin wallets don’t either. Confused? You should be. Luckily, economist David Evans isn’t and after reading this article, we promise you won’t be either…
10 min read Remember the day when a coin was just a bothersome piece of metal that you were happy to toss in the tip jar to benefit the underpaid baristas at your local coffee shop? Well no more. Now a coin might be worth more than many people make in a week. Over the next few weeks Economist David Evans will be taking a deeper look at…
9 min read “Bitcoin as a currency is so last year” is the sentiment in Silicon Valley these days. Serious enthusiasts of bitcoin and its digital currency brethren insist that the thing that will change the world is “the protocol” – the block-chain and the rules for verifying and recording transactions. What’s behind this pivot away from currency to protocol? And is the public ledger, which requires an army to move the…
14 min read Remember the day when a coin was just a bothersome piece of metal that you were happy to toss in the tip jar to benefit the underpaid baristas at your local coffee shop? Well, the world has changed and so have coins. Economist David Evans takes a deeper look at bitcoin AND OTHER…