The 12th-century military disaster that forever changed global finance
After a plague-ridden crusade left Venice drowning in debt, the republic created the world's first bond market, changing the relationship between the government and its citizens.
finance
Inside Binance Founder Changpeng Zhao’s Life After Prison
Changpeng Zhao, jailed in the United States for a financial crime and pardoned by President Trump, is now living a gilded life in the United Arab Emirates.
What Is Brittle Prosperity? The AI Boom and the Panic of 1873
Brittle prosperity is when strong economic data rests on a few booming sectors and never reaches most households. Why the AI economy fits the pattern.
The Firms That Power Prediction-Market Trades
Industry insiders explained during the FOS Asset Class event why market making is not the same as the “house” in traditional sports betting.
The Hierarchy of Money
The AI Bubble Fault Line May Run Through SoftBank’s Balance Sheet
And How Athene Quietly Bet 50% of its Surplus on Softbank’s OpenAI stake
The vacant building everyone complains about is cheaper to keep empty.
Have you talked about why?
Does your college football roster cost $8M or $50M? Here's our report on 68 teams
The best teams are, on average, the ones paying players the most, but there's a wide disparity between the schools at the top and the bottom of major conferences.
Ranked: Central Bank Assets as a Share of GDP by Country
See which countries have the largest central bank assets relative to GDP, led by Hong Kong at 130%.
Note: I'll pull up the article for you. Here's a summary of **Ranked: Central Bank Assets as a Share of GDP by Country**: ### Main takeaway Central bank balance sheets grew sharply after the 2008 financial crisis as authorities responded to successive economic shocks. This piece ranks 20 major economies and financial centers by central bank assets as a share of GDP, using the latest Q1/Q2 2026 data…
The Investors Guide to Game Theory - Pt.1
What is it, why does it matter for investors, and how can we use it?
What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks @ tautology.town
tautology.town is a blog that contains tautologies.
Field Guide to What Gold Is Actually Doing Part I
Two tribes dominate every conversation about gold, and both lose money reliably.
How trust funds made the modern world
You Probably Don’t Get Why Stripe Bought OpenRouter — Research — AMP PBC
Stripe's purchase of OpenRouter has been read as a routing or billing acquisition. We argue it's a strategic security decision, and that this is net positive for the ecosystem.
The Company Riding the Thirteenth Channel
There is a hidden track baked into almost every blockbuster, a frozen eight-dollar toll, and a company the market still calls a shaky-chair vendor.
View: Big tech meets Milton Friedman
Big Tech is working its way through all four stages of a money-spending matrix legendary economist Milton Friedman outlined.
Milton Friedman, the legendary economist, laid out a simple matrix. Spend your own money on yourself and you’re disciplined on cost (it’s your money) and clear on value (you know what you want.). That’s an efficient economy, though not a very vibrant one. Spend your own money on someone else and…
big tech companies are spending other people’s money on other people.
Technetium Dreams
All that glitters is not gold: The most valuable things in the world!
The Hidden Infrastructure Of Circular Crypto Economies - Dataconomy
Written by Smartech Daily Team This article has been originally published on Smartech Daily and republished at Dataconomy with permission.
Large retailers like Amazon, IKEA, and Netflix operate “closed-loop” systems. A gift card is essentially a private currency issued by a corporation. Because these vouchers are digital codes, they can be distributed and settled much faster than a bank wire.
slippage
Why America’s Rarest Coin Can Never Be Bought | TheCollector
The “ruby slippers” of coins, the 1849 Liberty Head Double Eagle, is so rare that it is essentially priceless.
What if college football teams could be sold? Ranking Power 4 teams by their valuation
How much would it take to buy an NCAA football team on the open market? Here's what we think all 68 Power 4 teams would sell for.
The Portland fire sale
Who owns downtown buildings? The answer has remarkable implications for our city's future
Fintech Engineering Handbook
The Secret AI Arms Race That Should Worry Investors
A University of Chicago study changed how I think about AI and information edges. Then a second paper on AI made it worse.
Ken Griffin’s Billions and Billions
The hedge-fund magnate is an unabashed big spender—from pièds-a-terre to politics. Gary Sernovitz profiles the financial titan behind the Citadel hedge fund.
The 3 Bank Accounts Everyone Retiring Abroad Needs
Americans retiring abroad need 3 bank accounts to manage money smoothly. Here's the simple system: U.S. home base, fintech bridge, and local account.
Understanding the Federal Reserve Balance Sheet, Quantitative Easing, and Tightening
Manoj Singh wrote an article for Investopedia titled Understanding the Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet (20 February 2026).
What's the Sticker Price of Exorbitant Privilege?
If you buy into this Pflueger/Yared perspective, then the price of exorbitant privilege is outspending your military adversaries. And the US has outspent other advanced economies by a large margin when you express defense spending as a fraction of GDP. I took its NATO partners…
The Invisible Landlord of Global Shipping
How Britain built a system where cargo-dependent nations pay rent forever. And why that system is finally cracking.
TV Programming Quirks: Why So Many Shows Have 65 Episodes
How the calculus of ’80s television programming lives on into the present day—and why the Disney Channel always seems to cancel shows after 65 episodes.
Construction Costs Rarely Fall
Not long ago we looked at construction productivity trends for the US and for countries around the world. We found that in the U.S., and in most other large, wealthy countries, construction productivity is stagnant or declining. Unlike manufacturing and agriculture, or the…
Actuarial Warfare: How Seven Insurance Letters Closed the World’s Most Critical Chokepoint and Why Markets Are Mispricing Duration by 300%
Private Reinsurance, IRGC Fragmentation, Interceptor Depletion, and a Dead Nuclear Fatwa Have Produced a Crisis No Military Victory Can Resolve
The Worst Acquisition in History, Again
Warner Bros.
Why GPU Useful Life Is the Most Misunderstood Variable in AI Economics
Amazon shortened GPU depreciation while Meta extended it—same month, same technology. The $3.6B divergence exposes the accounting discretion behind AI infrastructure economics.
Fraud Investigation Lessons From Finance
The financial industry has paid tens of billions of dollars in tuition on fraud detection. Here are some observations for investigators with badges, press cards, or GoPros.
The VC Corner | Ruben Dominguez | Substack
The VC Corner is where founders stay ahead: sharp news, fundraising strategies, battle-tested playbooks, and the tools to grow. Click to read The VC Corner, by Ruben Dominguez, a Substack publication with hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
Getting Started with OpenBB: The Ultimate Python Toolkit for Financial and Economic Data
Streamline your financial data workflow with OpenBB. Learn setup, data extraction, and automation using Python—perfect for analysts and economists.
The Accounting Uproar Over How Fast an AI Chip Depreciates - Slashdot
Tech giants including Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon have all extended the estimated useful lives of their servers and AI equipment over the past five years, sparking a debate among investors about whether these accounting changes are artificially inflating profits. Meta…
What Happens When an “Infinite-Money Machine” Unravels
John Cassidy on Michael Saylor, the head and co-founder of the business-software company Strategy, the firm’s bitcoin strategy, and the risks of betting on crypto.
The Merger Playbook: Crossbeam’s CEO Breaks Down Every Detail of the Deal That Worked
A founder's firsthand account of how he merged with a competitor to materially change the trajectory of his company.
College Sports Finances Database
Sportico is maintaining an interactive, real-time database that tracks the official balance sheets of public FBS university athletic departments.
Polymath Investor (@polymathinvestor)
Sharing this quick list on How To Analyze An Income Statement. I think it covers the basics pretty well.
How Underwater Shells Became the First Global Money | TheCollector
How did underwater shells from the Maldives become an instrumental form of currency in the Transatlantic Slave Trade?
The Intellectual Edge (@theintellectualedge)
Four basic steps to gauging a firm’s true financial position A good read:
What Is the Luhn Algorithm? The Math Behind Secure Credit Card Numbers
Find out how this simple algorithm from the 1960s keeps your wallet safe
Apple’s $20 Billion Ticking Time Bomb
If Google’s payments go away, Apple’s services business could take a massive hit.
The Wyoming Hospital Upending the Logic of Private Equity
Instead of cutting services to cut costs, one rural hospital plans to thrive by offering more.
Visual Vocabulary
THERE ARE IDIOTS: Seven pillars of market bubbles | Acadian Asset Management
What Do You Lose When You Abandon the Cloud?
Cloud repatriation might seem like a solution for high infrastructure costs, but it can prove short-sighted as an organization scales.
NCAA Finances: Revenue & Expenses by School - USA TODAY
Which are the most profitable college athletic programs in the country? See a ranked listed, including total revenue and expenses. Brought to you by USA TODAY.