Roark Sen

The Rational Maxi

[Roark Sen @RoarkSen]

For anyone who is hoping or believing that a world built on Bitcoin Standard is coming any time soon, I would suggest reading about the 1920-30s. Lords of Finance is a great book to understand why the world went off Gold Standard.

And once you understand that, you will realise, the modern world, intoxicated on the free ability to print money without being held to a non inflatable, non infleunciable hard asset (like Gold or Bitcoin), will never willingly return to that standard (the Bitcoin Standard).

The world will need to go through an extreme scenario where all the speculators and chimerics will lose power, prestige and financial clout and it would need an honest leadership to rise that would be ready to back the currency by a standard that cannot be lied to.

That is usually not how human nature works or prefers to function.

A Bitcoin Standard will be the result of a civilizational reset post an apocalyptic event or series of events.

The utopia that you imagine it to be, may come later, I repeat, may, but the pain will surely come before.

[Curiosity @CuriosityonX]

If the Milky Way was the size of North America, the Sun would be:

[Roark Sen @RoarkSen]

@HenrikZeberg Chatgpt content should not be copy pasted. The style is so easy to catch, it acts as an immediate letdown

[𝐓𝐗𝐌𝐂 @TXMCtrades]

The true wealth of a nation is not in its hoards of money, but in what it PRODUCES for the well being of the citizenry- the tangible things which represent value. Many people have forgotten (or were never taught) this fact. The ancient Chinese understood it well, having experienced every variety of monetary system before America was founded. This is the same argument for why businesses hoarding inert capital such as Bitcoin (or gold, or idle cash) do not make an economy more wealthy or robust as a whole. They must actually produce goods and services and see commerce distribute that output amongst the people, consuming and circulating income, improving quality of life. That is the true measure of a nation's wealth. We are sadly in a state today where many are seduced and consumed by the pursuit of *measures of value* (money itself including BTC), rather than with increasing their productive output and growing the stock of goods whose value we measure with those instruments.

[Tarric Brooker aka Avid Commentator 🇦🇺 @AvidCommentator]

Yesterday I was at a wake for a friend with my family.

It was amazing seeing people's demeanour change when they saw a little Toddler smiling at them & wanting to say hello.

Death inherently surrounds us, but I find myself thinking we need to surround ourselves with life.

[Dan Go @CoachDanGo]

People overestimate the body they can create in 6 weeks and underestimate the one they can create in a year.

[Hunter SPX Thompson ❎ @CoorsLightCEO]

thank god the Fed can make mortgages cheaper

[Jash Dholani @oldbooksguy]

The entire modern world: trust your feelings!

Nietzsche: hold my beer

[Molly @bigmagicdao]

Naka’s PIPE investors got in at $1.12 with no lockup—455M shares. At $20, they’re sitting on a 20x. But with average daily volume around $2M, there’s $10B in potential sell pressure waiting to dump. Post-merge, things are going to get ugly. Imaging the dummy buys at $20…

[_Checkmate 🟠🔑⚡☢️🛢️ @_Checkmatey_]

The modern -90% Bitcoin bear market will be in stock tickers, not in the underlying 🌽 price.

The Treasury company fugazi mostly looks like this thread, with a small handful of outliers that are actually serious players.

mNAV Gravity is towards 1.0.

[Gurwinder @G_S_Bhogal]

“What we as a culture have to get back to is being able to have a reasonable disagreement where violence is not an option.”

—Charlie Kirk

[boyzMETA @boyz_meta]

Unfortunately I have a mixed feeling about this post.

My avg cost basis is a lot lower than ¥533 for Metaplanet.

But for me, it's not fair for existing shareholders, that underwriters and people with high power got this kind of huge disc rate (which is more than 38% disc rate after Int'l issuance announcement)

I'm sorry but this is wrong.

$MTPLF #メタプラネット 3350

[Roark Sen @RoarkSen]

A lot of people quote this chart. It is useless.

You don't invest, as a retail trader in Total Crypto Market Cap. You invest in alts. This chart can keep going up for the next 10 years while you keep loosing.

Focus on your investments.

[Raoul Pal @RaoulGMI]

You can't help but stare at this chart... Total market cap ex BTC and ETH.

[Radigan Carter @radigancarter]

Thanks for flagging this. Russell Napier, Luke Gromen, Grant Williams, and others were way ahead of the curve on financial repression so credit to them.

If others are reading this and don't understand financial repression where the risk free rate is/will be held under the rate of inflation it is/continuing to be where our purchasing power and investment return will not keep up with the price increases of assets we want to buy.

This will is being done so governments can reduce their debt to gdp, I think of it as the government and central banks doing what is necessary for social stability, which comes at the cost of our individual happiness.

If you want to read a historical account of bankers and politicians doing it before read the book Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World then if you want a deep dive into how the bond market was originally designed as a check on sovereign powers doing this and it's only through regulatory capture it has become the risk free rate of return, read The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest.

As Morgan Stanley CEO describes, people may feel like they are getting wealthy on a relative basis, but they likely won't on a real basis after inflation and paying taxes which is by design. Someone has to pay for all the lost wars, the promised unfunded entitlements, and so forth and it's easier to do it this way than forcing an electorate that hates consequences to decide who has to pay since they will simply vote for whoever tells them they don't and none of this is true.

We all get to choose how we make money off this. Some will buy bonds thinking the government will find a way to lower rates across the curve, others will not and prefer real assets. Either way they are positioning themselves knowing politicians and bankers will do what is best for social stability since that preserves their power.

There is ikely an entire generation that doesn't understand what is happening since they haven't lived through it. As a classically trained economist apologized in the FT earlier this week, he missed the entire move of gold and miners because he's been taught to avoid the inert, yieldless asset his entire career. I felt a bit sorry for the man, he is used to a world of laws, not one where might makes right and if you want to be rich you simply pull the skimask down and take what you want.

I tend to think we live in the latter world, and always have, it has just been since 1945 the U.S. could use the world of laws to do that, and after seizing Russian assets in 2022 we've showed the world we're now back to pulling the ski mask down.

Why thought we could get away it it. Now that NATO has lost in Europe and global institutions like the ICC are not doing what western politicians want, the silk sheet is being removed and we all get to see the hammer that was always under it.

My way of thinking is people who want to argue about political influence on the sanctity of Fed independence or CBDC are evil and stablecoins are better are wasting my time. There is no difference between any of those things for me as an individual since no matter which way it goes, as a responsible individual I still get the hammer when it suits politicians and bankers.

Politicians and bankers serve themselves by thinking they are serving everyone by doing what they must to preserve social stability which also preserves their power.

Does it matter if the Fed or JPMorgan is freezing my account? Not really, the results for me are the same, I'm frozen out of my account to force me to comply.

So they do not serve me or my family, or yours. If you disagree, I envy you still believing and hope you never find out you're wrong. It is a disconcerting feeling.

Personally I see those arguments as a distraction aimed at wasting our time and energy so we can't see and think clearly, then act decisively for our families.

For me, if politicians and bankers had our own best interest at heart they would not be wasting millions of lives so they didn't have to admit they were wrong in a war that was lost two years ago. They would not be protecting predators on the Epstein list. They would not have forced us who served faithfully to get a vaccine or lose our professions. They would not steal years of our lives that we risk earning money which they then take through inflation.

Their intentions do not matter. By our fruits we will be known.

So we accept this is the system we live in and build strong and beautiful lives designed to not waste time or energy on people who do not care about us.

Good luck to everyone, our families depend on us. RC

[Will @WClemente]

Lately, you see so much doomerism on the timeline. I've fallen victim to it a bit too, but I think it's time to fade it.

Yes, things are changing & evolving, but we are entering the most prosperous period of time for humanity in history on a global average quality of life basis. Space, robotics, AI, advances towards longevity, all accelerating within our lifetime. We are entering this period of accelerated change regardless and there will be infinite opportunities for those who learn how to embrace this new era instead of shying away and fading it. Life is awesome, the world is more accessible than ever before, you have infinite resources via the internet than any generation before, and there are more sharp/ambitious people out there than ever. There will be endless opportunities if you know where to look, and we are exiting a world of scarcity and entering a new existence of abundance. I think a lot of doomer mindset is a coping mechanism because people feel uncomfortable with how much change is going to take place over the coming decades, and uncertainty about how to embrace it, but don't be scared.

Also, for my fellow Americans, I'm fading the idea that we are a nation in decline. We have some issues to sort out simply because we've become the greatest nation on Earth in the span of 250 years from nothing, but I feel confident that we will continue to push forward as we always have. The debt issue will be resolved by technology-driven GDP growth paired with 5-10 years of higher-than-normal inflation, but we will be fine. I'm also incredibly optimistic for the growth of other countries around the world and what that means for humanity broadly! I personally would like to see the US maintain its dominance of course personally, but healthy competition is good for everyone.

Get out of the doomer mindset, it's no way to live life and in a world where this is becoming consensus, fading it will probably be edge.

abundance mindset over doomerism.

[Roark Sen @RoarkSen]

I think if you are really serious about the topic, you should read Fountain of Fortune that has been suggested by TXMC multiple times. It's the best example how many times during diff regimes in China, paper currencies continued to function while store of value became silver. BTC could end up being the same. But again, never ever, have sovereigns given up state control of money, no matter how extensive and widespread the use of an alternative asset as a SOV was.

[Will @WClemente]

I thought @gametheorizing’s recent podcast was really good. One of the best points was with quality of life going up exponentially, most people will be pacified by dopamine, while wealth generation will be centralized and enormous for active participants in capitalism. Lock in.

[Gurwinder @G_S_Bhogal]

Before social media, people were often judged by their deeds. Now they are mostly judged by their opinions. Being “good” requires no kindness, only the right memes & hashtags, and those revered as saints need no heart of gold, only a silver tongue & brazen nature.

[Neo Patel @CapitalPatel]

When FinX gurus start switching positions in their portfolios every hour you know they are optimizing for their Substack revenues, not portfolio returns. Just something to keep in mind.

[University of Austin (UATX) @uaustinorg]

In Defense of Inequality:

Good evening – students, parents, and all the supporters helping us build the University of Austin. I am honored to be with you today at your convocation, at the most important and exciting university in America.

Thank you for trusting us with your education. We are thrilled to welcome you into the UATX family.

Tonight, as we gather on the threshold of America's 250th anniversary, I want to share why this moment and UATX represent something essential about the American experiment.

Two hundred and fifty years ago this week, King George III formally declared Americans to be rebels and traitors. This dashed the colonists’ hopes for a peaceful reconciliation. And set the path to declare a new nation based on the proposition that all men are created equal.

But on the heels of America’s quarter-millennium since the Declaration of Independence, I want to do something a bit unfashionable: I want to defend inequality.

Of course, all men are created equal. But all men are not the same. We have unequal curiosity, unequal intellect, unequal talent, unequal courage, unequal drive, unequal achievement.

I want to defend this kind of inequality because I believe it is the most important way that UATX distinguishes itself. And because being honest about inequality is the most important way that UATX can help you be extraordinary.

Alexis de Tocqueville, the great 19th century critic of American democracy, noticed that the passion for equality dominates every American institution. He admired this democratic spirit, but he also issued a warning.

Tocqueville warned that the concept of equality is the most powerful compulsion in the American mind. A dominating drive for equality suffocates the very people whose uncommon talent, courage, and vision could pull everyone else upward.

Without those rare sparks of excellence, there are no breakthroughs. No bold leaders. No innovations. No radical thought that disrupts the human tendency toward lazy conformity.

Tocqueville famously observed that people in democracies might come to prefer equality in servitude to inequality in freedom. In the name of making all things equal, we end up equal only in mediocrity.

And that is the surest path to slavishly submitting to authority, submitting to bad ideas, submitting to an overbearing government, and submitting to the soft tyranny of low expectations. Equality, without excellence, is the surest path to national decline.

A free society, to remain dynamic and free, must enable those gifts to develop rather than force them into a common mold. So even in a republic of equals, we need small sanctuaries of aristocracy and excellence to ensure the success of liberty. Democracy runs on equality; freedom and excellence run on inequality.

The tension between those two realities shapes almost every real problem in education today. How do we respect every person’s equal dignity and opportunity while also recognizing and cultivating individual excellence?

Nearly every university in America has decided to answer that question by abandoning excellence. Harvard hands out more A’s than any other grade. Yale gives nearly 60% of students straight A’s. Princeton no longer requires Greek or Latin to major in the classics. Columbia proudly ditched the SAT. In our leading institutions, Honors are handed out like candy; while calculus is quietly dropped.

At UATX, we know you cannot democratize a serious education by watering it down and expecting to keep its substance. Plato fed through ChatGPT turns Plato into a mediocre social media post. Macroeconomics without some basis in calculus is just cable news polemics.

The truth is that excellence has no shortcut. When people mass produce artificial diamonds, they turn out to be pebbles that nobody values. The attempt to counterfeit excellence only cheapens it. If you make the difficult and the extraordinary dumbed down or commonplace, you destroy it.

At UATX, we will not counterfeit excellence. For students, that means being asked to do the hardest academic work you’ve ever done: Carefully reading what an author actually wrote, stepping through an argument line by line, breaking down a scientific methodology and reproducing it or building a model that fails ten times before it works.

You will be graded according to standards, not your intentions or our wishes. You will hear “no,” “not yet,” “try again” often. Our students should never accept anything uncritically.

But, thriving in an aristocratic institution requires starting with humility and charity – assuming, at least at first, that the authors you read, the professors who guide you, and the administrators who correct you might know more than you do.

You won’t always like it. But if we’re doing our jobs well, you will always benefit from it.

High standards are the highest sign of respect. Telling you the truth about where you stand is respect. Holding you to the mark is respect. It’s the only way to draw the best out of you. If we demanded anything less, we would be insulting your potential.

UATX is aristocratic because it dares to tell the truth that inequality is everywhere. As Jefferson put it: “There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.”

Each of you carries different strengths, abilities, and passions. Some books will shape your mind for life, while others deserve to be forgotten. Some disciplines wrestle honestly with reality; while others are unserious and don’t deserve your time.

To pretend otherwise is to flatten human experience into mediocrity. We refuse that pretense.

Jefferson proposed a model school where each year, quote, “twenty of the best geniusses will be raked from the rubbish.” Bold phrasing aside, Jefferson’s point was crucial: let the best rise from any condition, and educate them deeply for the common good. That, to us, is the most American solution to the reality of human inequality.

We cannot (and should not) make everyone the same, but we can ensure that anyone, from anywhere, with ability and drive, has the chance to climb as high as they are able to.

At UATX, we open our gates to any American, from any background, regardless of means, family legacy, or identity. A child of an American president and the child of a waitress get the same treatment in our admissions process and in our seminar rooms.

Our job as educators is to get the best in each of you, unequal though your gifts may be, by setting high standards and insisting on excellence.

Although we believe this approach is the best kind of education for you, our acceptance or, I should say, our embrace of inequality is not selfless. Ultimately it is not about you and your potential. We do it because we believe it’s the best way to make our institution excellent, our country excellent, and our future free.

Before I close, a word to the parents.

Since your kids decided to come here, we already know that you have raised children who seek challenge, and who put substance over mere credentials. That speaks to your success as families.

And although I haven’t met all of you yet, I suspect that raising such strong-willed, confident young people means that you are pretty strong-willed and confident, yourselves.

So I expect feedback from you. Perhaps even the occasional complaint. And I welcome it – honestly.

I have only one small request: when you do complain, please make it about UATX not being challenging enough. Hold us accountable not for coddling your kids, but for challenging them.

To the class of 2029: you have chosen to rebel. Not against hierarchy, but against its abandonment. Not against standards, but against their erosion. Not against excellence, but against those who would fake it.

You rebel against a world that tells you mediocrity is enough, that comfort is the highest good, that all answers are equally valid. Your rebellion is in service of ancient truths: that wisdom deserves deference, and that difficulty breeds strength.

America's next quarter-millennium begins right here, with you.

Welcome to the rebellion. Welcome to the University of Austin! Thank you.

— UATX President Carlos Carvalho’s Convocation Address (August 31, 2025)

[tao te chic @taotechic]

the whole point of artistry is that you’re risking something, which imbues it with a palpable charge. this is the baseline price of entry and why artists are revered and hated in the same breath. it reminds the riskless of their humdrum