What is the future of cryptocurrency in the absence of changes to existing regulation? Is it doomed inherently through features internal to it? Where’s this going if allowed to follow its own logic?
WEAVER:
It will implode spectacularly. The only question is when. I thought it would have actually imploded a year ago. But basically, what we saw with Terra and Luna, where it collapsed suddenly due to these downward positive feedback loops—situations where basically the system is designed to collapse utterly and quickly—those will happen to the larger cryptocurrency space. Because, for example, the mining process is horribly expensive. We’re talking [a measurable percentage] of the world’s electricity consumption, most of that has not been paid for. So the mining companies for the most part have been taking the cryptocurrency and borrowing against the cryptocurrency that they create, rather than sell it, because the market’s actually very thin.
This means there’s a huge amount that is subject to potentially catastrophic margin calls. And that creates a feedback loop where the price drops a little, somebody’s forced to sell. That drops the price more. They’re forced to sell more. This creates a feedback loop that drives the price into the ground, catastrophically.
The previous times this has happened, we had the bubble at 100, powered by fraud at Mt. Gox. And that imploded down to 10. We had a bubble a 1000 powered by fraud, it imploded and went back down to 100. We had a bubble at 10,000 powered by Tether, it blew up and went back down to 1,000. And now we’re at a bubble where Bitcoin blew up to 60,000, fueled by Tether and falling. But I don’t think there’ll be a fifth bubble. Because basically, they will have broken all the suckers left to break. There’s only so many more suckers that can be brought into that space. Once you burn out a sucker, they don’t come back. They’re a non-renewable resource. So they’re going to end up running out of greater fools.
So I suspect that the cryptocurrency space will go fine absent regulation, until one day it goes and collapses greatly.
The Ancient Celtic religion was a polytheistic one, with numerous gods with sometimes overlapping responsibilities. The ancient Celts, who occupied parts of western and central Europe during the Late Bronze Age and through to the Iron Age, believed in a polytheistic religion for which we are lacking in written sources. What we do know comes from the archaeological remains of the culture, and writings of classical authors which has helped us piece together some key gods, sacred sites, and ritual practices of the Celts.
The burial practices, votive inscriptions, and rituals that we know of tell us that the gods were believed to either control humanity in some way or that they at the very least had a strong influence on the welfare of the Celtic people. The god most commonly depicted though was Cernunnos, the horned god, most famously depicted on the Gundestrup Cauldron. He is a fairly mysterious figure who was often shown seated and wearing horns or antlers. Other major deities included the goddess Epona who was associated with horses, Sequana who was a healing goddess and particularly venerated in central France, Brigantia who the Romans equated with Nike and Victory and who was an important goddess in Britain, Esuss who was perhaps a patron of crafts with his hammer-like staff and Rhenus who was the god of the Rhine river.
— CHAPTERS —
0:00 Introduction
0:34 Travel with us!
1:12 The Ancient Celtic Religion
3:44 The Ancient Celtic Pantheon
6:25 The Ancient Celtic Druids
8:24 Rituals and Sacrifices
10:35 The Afterlife and Burial
13:00 Outro
