Thoughts at Random

The main idea: two joint cryptocurrencies are programmed such that one can be exchanged for the other as long as their product remains constant, thus tracking the minimal necessary volume of circulation required by a growing economy in a decentralized fashion.  0. Posts on this blog are ranked in decreasing order of likeability to myself. This entry was originally posted on 30.09.2021, and the current version may have been updated several times from its original form. 1 The issue 1.1 The only credible challenger to the current system of a centralised issuer of currency would be a decentralised system under the auspices of cryptocurrency. Alas, most of the time, the designers of these ingenious tools just went with “fixed supply is good enough” and left it at that, making cryptocurrency a great store of value, but a shonky unit of account. And how much worse this issue becomes when the user base is growing faster than the global economy (which of course it does)! 1.2 I’ve earlier e...

The main idea: Fred Gohlke’s idea of iteratively setting up groups of 3 people who vote on each-other’s progression to ever-higher tiers presents the only credible alternative to liberal democracy. 0. Posts on this blog are ranked in decreasing order of likeability to myself. This entry was originally posted on 22.11.2021, and the current version may have been updated several times from its original form. 0.1 The Tryptic Model of elections featured in part 2 of this post is not mine at all, but was devised by Fred Gohlke as practical democracy , to which system I'm making relatively minor changes mechanics-wise and explaining in my own words below. Still, though the system is almost unchanged, the context to which I apply Gohlke's idea couldn't be more different, the original tweak to empower real democracy here made into a full alternative to liberal democracy. Thus, all resulting errors, departures from the original design or broader implications readers may choose to dr...

The main idea: the concept of the efficient frontier can be generalized such as to allow the rank-ordering of extremely complex datasets based on a large set of mutually contradicting criteria. 0. Posts on this blog are ranked in decreasing order of likeability to myself. This entry was originally posted on 24.01.2022, and the current version may have been updated several times from its original form.   1.1 Say you have a list of things you’d like to compare with regards to a number of criteria. Obviously, if all things are such as to be ranked in the same order across all of these criteria, comparisons are easy. What to do when entities are ranked differently with regards to different criteria though? 1.2 To make this less esoteric, let’s take a simple example: I wish to purchase a used vehicle, and the only relevant considerations are its price (the lower the better), its production year (the more recent the better) and its mileage (the lower the better). I have this narro...

The main idea: enforce network security through social consensus whilst retaining a decentralised architecture.   0. Posts on this blog are ranked in decreasing order of likeability to myself. This entry was originally posted on 18.12.2025, and the current version may have been updated several times from its original form. 1.1 Let’s strip back as much as we can from the Nakamoto consensus, and re-build from there.  1.2 We have transacting nodes who store blockchains, and miners who work on existing chains by adding successive blocks, who then must compete for adoption by the nodes.  1.3 We have, so far, no proof of work, no adoption or consensus rule, no block time, and no block limit.  1.4 Indeed, suppose for now, that each node is entirely free to pick whichever chain they deem fit. We will narrow this freedom quite a bit in 1.24, but for now assume this is the case. 1.5 The first step to re-establish some order in this chaotic primordial soup is Rule one , ev...

The main idea: adopt a self-splitting token to mostly counter excessive appreciation or depreciation against the Dollar.  0. Posts on this blog are ranked in decreasing order of likeability to myself. This entry was originally posted on 06.11.2025, and the current version may have been updated several times from its original form. 1.1 So it’s not easy to come up with Tier 3 currency designs , but do these have to be as complicated as this one ? 1.2 Well yes, if you want a fully self-contained and indefinitely sustainable system. But can we cut a few corners to gain simplicity and legibility? 1.3 You create a given quantity of your token, and no more can ever be created after this point. You pool it all in an (ideally native) Automated Market Maker with a quantity of some reliable stablecoin (assume USD links). This is our price oracle. 1.4 The token reads its price against USD continuously, averaging on a running week basis, and comparing against the same running week average four...

The main idea: pay agent commissions in a temporary staggered fashion that allows for claims to materialise and capture some of the agent’s underwriting intuition.    0. Posts on this blog are ranked in decreasing order of likeability to myself. This entry was originally posted on 01.05.2022, and the current version may have been updated several times from its original form. 1.1 There is an obvious conflict of interest non-life insurers will suffer from when they pay agents a commission to sell policies: an agent getting a fixed percentage of the premium will have an interest in maximising revenue per unit of time, whilst the insurer’s interested in maximising profit per unit of time. In other words, agents have no reason to care about which clients will cause more or fewer claims. If they know, they conveniently forget. 1.2 Most if not all insurers try to mitigate this issue by centralising underwriting, such as to leave no power in the hands of the agent when it comes to...

The main idea: conditional consols are a cheap and easy way to implement futarchy today. 0. Posts on this blog are ranked in decreasing order of likeability to myself. This entry was originally posted on 02.12.2022, and the current version may have been updated several times from its original form. 1.1 Robin Hanson’s futarchy proposes we give prediction markets some role in governing nations or other organisations, in the former case by having people vote on beliefs but bet on results. 1.2 A grave issue with this otherwise interesting proposal is the lack of a quantifiable goal (the “belief” part) that can be fed to the markets, this being AFAIK one of the vectors by which Moldbug attacked the idea. 1.3 But fear not, for whilst true futarchy may be a highly speculative proposal today, there’s a much simpler iteration available to us right now, and which delivers much of the promise but requires less of the suspension of disbelief. A poor man’s version of futarchy, if you will. I eve...

The main idea: require all listed firms to act as their own shares’ clearinghouses, considerably narrowing the gap between market cap and book value.  0. Posts on this blog are ranked in decreasing order of likeability to myself. This entry was originally posted on 18.06.2022, and the current version may have been updated several times from its original form.   1 All equity is overvalued 1.1 There’s a fundamental bias built into equity (and most other capital) markets: its far easier to cause a stock’s price to go up than down. 1.2 If you think stock X is underpriced, just go and buy it. What can you do if you think stock Y is overpriced? 1.3 You can sell, but this means that only those who hold the stock in the first place are entitled to vote on whether its overpriced or not, compared to how everyone is entitled to vote on whether its underpriced. 1.4 You can sell short. Which mechanism is based on leverage, hence very risky to a degree buying a stock that may lose value isn...

The main idea: proposing an insurance schedule whereby one premium is paid and cover continues indefinitely until a claim is made as a way to help with products afflicted by moral hazard.  0. Posts on this blog are ranked in decreasing order of likeability to myself. This entry was originally posted on 25.05.2022, and the current version may have been updated several times from its original form. 1.1 Here’s the idea: insurance that requires you to pay premium once, and rolls over forever. Until you make a claim, that is, whereupon the policy lapses (the claim is still honoured of course). 1.2 To explain what value would this setup provide, let’s take the example of health insurance. 1.3 With health insurance, by the time you apply all safeguards aimed at keeping people from making spurious or just non-critical claims, you end up with a policy so complex that all flexibility and transparency is lost. And yet, health insurance only works if claimants limit themselves to making ...

The main idea: make the reward for mining each new block an inverse function of the block number in the chain.  0. Posts on this blog are ranked in decreasing order of likeability to myself. This entry was originally posted on 10.12.2024, and the current version may have been updated several times from its original form.  1.1 For those doubtless very few souls who are somehow still unconvinced by my  design of a cryptocurrency of dynamic supply , here's an alternative setup that can be bolted on with minimal effort into any bog-standard blockchain and still institute the basics of tolerable monetary supply management.  1.2 When new units of this cryptocurrency are awarded for the successful creation of a new block, just set this amount to a/n, where a was the initial issue at block one, and n is the order the new block has in the longest chain. Unlike some current setups, you will always issue new coins for new blocks, although the amount will be ever smaller. ...

The main idea: replace the CEO and C-suite with a triumvirate of Executives 0. Posts on this blog are ranked in decreasing order of likeability to myself. This entry was originally posted on 01.09.2025, and the current version may have been updated several times from its original form.  1.1 Yet more fruit born of Gohlke's Practical Democracy: replace the CEO with a triumvirate. 1.2 Coalesce all CEO-1 roles into just three Executives amalgamated such as to be roughly equivalent in complexity. As an example, have a Chief Operating Officer in charge of production, a Chief Revenue Officer overseeing sales, and a Chief Corporate Officer overseeing finance, IT and such. Vary by context.  1.3 The decisions taken by the CEO are allocated to each individual Co-CEO as remit requires (most decision are here), retained to be discussed and voted upon jointly (a minority of decisions are here), or kicked up to the Board (a very few are here). 1.3 Note how we've now created a Management Boa...

Main idea: use global Kelly allocations to translate probability estimates into an optimal betting portfolio. 0. Posts on this blog are ranked in decreasing order of likeability to myself. This entry was originally posted on 17.04.2026 and the current version may have been updated several times since its original form. 1.1 Consider a prediction market in which yes- and no-contracts on binary events trade via some AMM algorithm. So, like, all of them. 1.2 But users do not trade contracts manually. Instead, the market trades on behalf of all traders. Contracts are purely virtual, mimicked by the platform itself, which keeps track of everyone’s positions. 1.3 Users simply fund their wallet and input their probability estimate for any question they wish to bet on. 1.4 Once the platform has my estimate, it runs a Kelly calculation on the yes- and no-contracts, allocating to each a fraction of my wallet. The yes and no positions are netted, and the remaining weights are normalised across al...