The Blind Spot Podcast: NFTs Take on Beanie Babies with Artist Simon Denny
In episode six of The Blind Spot podcast, Junseth and Izzy chat NFTs, apocalypse bunkers and beanie babies with the amazing Simon Denny. For those who don’t know, Denny is a contemporary artist based in Berlin, who makes sculptures and installations based around technological themes. Denny’s subject matter has included the redesign of the New […]
Voice Notes: Reflections on CBDCs
(On the beat in London…OTRB) FIRST DRAFT Voice Note: Settlement Costs Factoid: The Riksbank apparently decided to plug into the European T2S settlement system rather than develop its own system as it was more cost-efficient to do so. This is despite the Swedish krona obviously not being in the eurozone. I did not know that. […]
Introducing Blind Spot “Voice Notes”
They say necessity is the mother of invention. Well, here at the Blind Spot we are beginning to understand exactly what “they” mean when they say that. As a media start-up with a high trust score with sources but insufficient resources to maximise output, we find ourselves in a unique situation where we have more […]
ALTIF Transcripts: Remembering Black Wednesday, Part Two
In the second of our three-part series on Black Wednesday, the sterling crisis that drove Britain out of Europe’s Exchange Rate Mechanism in the autumn of 1992, Neil and Jonathan look back on the events of the day itself with Sir Paul Tucker, who watched the mounting chaos from the Bank of England. Presented by […]
In the Blind Spot (Protests, Stockpiles, Bunds)
The Blind Spot was off on Monday commemorating Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral. In this edition of the wrap, we catch up on the news you may have missed during the mourning period (especially if you were in the UK). Econ, Business, Finance etc… Study by the Australia Institute suggests inflation is not wage-led, […]
NFTs and the One Precedent-setting Law Case That Can Make or Break Them
Or: Why Nfts Are Really a Market Structure Story. Oh Christ, we hear you say. Yet another piece on how NFTs are either worthless trash or the next best thing since sliced bread Yawn. In a field currently rife with crashing valuations, it seems the critics hold the upper hand. But what if everyone’s missed […]
Russia’s Decaying Sphere of Influence: Contested Resources
This is the first in an occasional series looking into Russia’s decaying sphere of influence. In this edition we take a closer look at the scale of contested resources in the region. The Global and International Domain of Minero-Dollars What are the resources (or lack thereof) currently being battled over at the periphery of Russia’s […]
Spotlight on Satoshi’s Bletchley Park Connections
This story has been enhanced with artificial intelligence-generated visualisations from Midjourney. While the world mourns Queen Elizabeth II, a wartime monarch beloved by the nation, a little know court case is going on in Oslo, Norway, that stands to be no less disruptive for the citizenry of the internet. As judge Helen Engebrigtsen recounted when […]
ALTIF transcripts: Remembering Black Wednesday Part One (Sir Paul Tucker, Jonathan Portes, and Duncan Weldon.)
On 16 September 1992, after an “extremely difficult and turbulent day”, sterling was driven out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism, shattering the central economic policy of John Major’s government and arguably setting Britain on a path to the fringes of, and ultimately the exit from, the European Union. In the first of a three-part series, […]
In the Blind Spot (Satoshi?, CSTO, Narcos)
Business, Economics, Finance etc: As the West sidelines Russian energy supplies, China reaps a sizeable windfall in profits. Ray Dalio figures out that rates at 4.5 per cent would sink stocks by 20 per cent. The New Yorker reports on the hunt for dirt on the Musk-aligned Twitter whistleblower from former colleagues and friends. The […]