Byron Gilliam

Chapel Hill

Markets Strategist and Newsletter Writer at Blockworks Daily

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Articles

đȘ Friday charts

18 hours ago | mail.blockworks.com | Byron Gilliam |Donovan Choy |Ben Strack |Macauley Peterson

The legendary Peter Lynch advised investors to stop following the news. "The person who never bothers to think about the economy, blithely ignores the condition of the market, and invests on a regular schedule is better off than the person who studies and tries to time his investments, getting into stocks when he feels confident and out when he feels queasy." The news has been unusually nauseating this year: trade wars, real wars, recession fears, AI doomerism.
Permissionless IV, Day I takeaways

3 days ago | blockworks.co | Byron Gilliam

This is a segment from The Breakdown newsletter. To read full editions, . "We know more than we can tell."- Michael Polanyi on the importance of IRL collaborationHewlett and Packard; Jobs and Woz; Gates and Allen; Page and Brin; Bezos and (the now-forgotten) Kaphan. The history of technology in America is a history of two people incubating whole new industries from a garage. Would any of Hewlett-Packard, Apple, Microsoft, Google or Amazon have been incubated over Zoom?
đȘ Blockchains may finally free banks from COBOL

4 days ago | mail.blockworks.com | Byron Gilliam |Jack Kubinec |Ben Strack |Kate Irwin

Imagine if Twitter, instead of publishing the worldâs stream of consciousness in real time, embargoed our posts during the day and released them all at once at 2 am every day. Or if the New York Times stockpiled its journalists' daily output and published it in a single daily batch. Such is the pre-internet dystopia in which our banking system still lives. Credit cards, Venmo and Apple Pay make it feel like weâre sending money in real time, but this is smoke and mirrors.
Blockchains may finally free banks from COBOL

4 days ago | blockworks.co | Byron Gilliam

This is a segment from The Breakdown newsletter. To read full editions, . "The global economy is going to work 100 times better because it's using this new technology that lets us move money in a permissionless, programmable way."- Jesse PollakImagine if Twitter, instead of publishing the world's stream of consciousness in real time, embargoed our posts during the day and released them all at once at 2 am every day.
The market understands

1 week ago | blockworks.co | Byron Gilliam

This is a segment from The Breakdown newsletter. To read full editions, . "Just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand."- Marge SimpsonFinancial markets are forward-looking, even though humans usually are not. It's fundamentally what makes investing difficult: "100% of the information you have about any business reflects the past," the legendary Bill Miller notes.
Systemic risks, digital oil and Black Wall Street

1 week ago | blockworks.co | Byron Gilliam

This is a segment from The Breakdown newsletter. To read full editions, 1. The investment case for MSTR is gibberish . "A 1921 version of Wakanda - and all is vibranium."- Chief Egunwale Amusan on the Greenwood district of TulsaThe forensic short-seller Jim Chanos describes Michael Saylor's investment pitch for Strategy as "complete financial gibberish."Chanos was responding to Saylor telling CNBC that investors should value Strategy at a multiple of its growth in NAV.
Crypto doesn't have to be a market for lemons

1 week ago | blockworks.co | Byron Gilliam

This is a segment from The Breakdown newsletter. To read full editions, . In his 1970 paper "The Market for Lemons," economist George Akerlof explained what happens when sellers have more information than buyers.
Will the Fed sign off on runaway spending?

1 week ago | blockworks.co | Byron Gilliam

This is a segment from The Breakdown newsletter. To read full editions, . The charters establishing the First and Second Banks of the United States both included a clever clause that limited the ability of those proto-central banks to print money: Every bill issued had to be hand-signed by either the president or cashier of the bank.
đźźŞ A brief history of not lugging gold around

1 week ago | mail.blockworks.com | Byron Gilliam |Jeffrey Albus |Ben Strack |Kate Irwin

In New York City, paying by check first became commonplace in the booming economy of the 1840s. This was a major financial innovation: Instead of walking out of the bank with a satchel of borrowed cash to pay for, say, a steamer full of Southern cotton at the docks, a merchant could have a loan credited to a checking account and then settle his purchases with a few strokes of the pen. As banking expanded and commerce sped up, checks offered a safer, faster way to move money through the city.
Are stablecoins the next great acceleration of money?

1 week ago | blockworks.co | Byron Gilliam

This is a segment from The Breakdown newsletter. To read full editions, . "The money supply is the blood of the economic body; when it flows freely, the economy prospers." - Irving FisherIn New York City, paying by check first became commonplace in the booming economy of the 1840s.