Investment Narratives and a Future Convergence
Vellum's June 2026 letter to investors: why crypto has ground lower while capital floods into AI and space—and the emerging thesis that crypto was always built for machines, not humans.
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Writing
Essays on Bitcoin, cryptoassets, monetary systems, market structure, custody, and policy—preserved with their original publication dates.
48 essays · 2017–2026 · 4 authors
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Where the record has been right, and early.
Open Source & Closed Borders
DeepSeek's $6M training claim rattled markets and Washington. What open-source AI and chip export controls reveal about a new era of tech nationalism.
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Crypto vs. Traditional Asset Markets
Crypto markets don't behave like stock markets. Why market cap and volatility mislead investors — and how a crypto asset differs from a cryptocurrency.
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What's the Deal with Tether? USDT and the Reserves Question
What Tether is, why its Bitfinex ties and reserve claims drew manipulation charges in 2018, and what regulators and attestations have shown since: NYAG, CFTC, and the GENIUS Act.
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Every essay, in order.
2026
Bitcoin Isn’t Dead. It’s Demoted.
AI has taken Bitcoin’s old job as the market’s cleanest bet on a digital future. That’s not the end of the Bitcoin thesis — it’s a return to the only one that was ever durable: the monetary case.
Investment Narratives and a Future Convergence
Vellum's June 2026 letter to investors: why crypto has ground lower while capital floods into AI and space—and the emerging thesis that crypto was always built for machines, not humans.
2025
Open Source & Closed Borders
DeepSeek's $6M training claim rattled markets and Washington. What open-source AI and chip export controls reveal about a new era of tech nationalism.
2024
Bitcoin and National Security (Part II)
Spot ETFs and a shifting Washington: how US policy-makers began treating Bitcoin as a strategic asset rather than a threat to national security.
2023
Bitcoin and National Security: The Truth Machine Argument
Bitcoin is a truth machine. Why a nation that values freedom should protect an incorruptible ledger, and how Jason Lowery's Softwar thesis frames Bitcoin as strategic power projection.
Bear Market Musings
Crypto skeptics multiply in every bear market. Why dollar-based crime, payment friction, and American complacency say more about our system than about crypto.
Gary, Gary, Gary
A year after asking 'What if Gary Gensler is right?', the verdict: the SEC chair's crypto crackdown no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt.
Pro Crypto and Pro Dollar
Being pro-crypto doesn't mean being anti-dollar. Why the internet-era analogy misleads regulators — and what is really at stake in the SEC's crypto campaign.
2022
What If Gary Gensler Is Right?
What if the SEC is right that nearly every digital asset except Bitcoin is a security? A crypto fund manager steelmans Gary Gensler's case.
Words Have Meanings…So Do Acronyms
Hedge fund, VC, ETF, security: as crypto goes mainstream, borrowed financial terms are causing real confusion — and real harm. Precision matters.
Bitcoin Becomes a Stablecoin?
The UST/LUNA death spiral shook crypto — and Bitcoin barely moved. Why Terra failed, why Vellum avoided stablecoin yield, and what stability really means.
Joe Knows Crypto?
Parsing Biden's Executive Order on digital assets: no red flags for crypto investors, but 20-plus federal agencies now have marching orders. What to watch.
2021
Stablecoins in an Unstable World
Stablecoins confuse crypto newcomers. What dollar-pegged tokens actually do, why they grew so fast, and what they signal about where markets are headed.
Six Reasons Why Bitcoin Is Superior To Monetary Gold
Gold and Bitcoin are both scarce, durable, and fungible — but Bitcoin is more portable, verifiable, divisible, and supply-capped. Six advantages, explained.
How Fiat Money Corrupted Savings & Made Us All Market Speculators
Before fiat money, a savings account built wealth. How currency devaluation pushed ordinary households into stock speculation — and politicized markets.
What is Crypto Really All About?
Crypto looks like libertarian economics from the outside — but institutions are driving the price. On crypto cards, irony, and what the space is becoming.
Pick Your Horse: Gift or Trojan
China's mining crackdown handed the West a choice: treat Bitcoin as a gift horse or a Trojan horse. Why the answer will shape monetary leadership.
Correction vs Crash
Was the 2021 crypto drawdown a crash or a healthy correction? What leverage washouts reveal about who was selling — and why long-term investors stayed put.
How Many Horses are in the Crypto Asset Race?
Thousands of 'cryptocurrencies' exist, but they aren't all currencies: a guide to the four kinds of crypto assets — coins, utility tokens, security tokens, and NFTs.
Bitcoin has already advanced global privacy and financial autonomy
Even if crypto vanished tomorrow, Bitcoin's legacy would stand: it exposed fiat's flaws, gave savers under failing regimes a life raft, and mainstreamed strong cryptography.
Vellum's new Whitepaper: "Bitcoin's Rise and the Coming Crypto Economy"
Vellum Capital's whitepaper 'Bitcoin's Rise and the Coming Crypto Economy' makes sense of the cryptocurrency space without being technical or sensational.
Will Bitcoin ever go to Zero?
Could Bitcoin ever go to zero? Why network effects and global consensus have made collapse nearly impossible — and what the real upside case looks like.
2020
Will Bitcoin go over $20K to reach a new ATH?
Will Bitcoin break $20K and set a new all-time high? A quick investor's guide to the value stack — from store of value to public consensus — behind the move.
Six things COVID-19 has taught us about Bitcoin
COVID-19 stress-tested Bitcoin in real time. Six observations from the 2020 crash — from leading-indicator behavior to what stimulus means for hard assets.
2019
Don't dismiss Bitcoin just because of its wild price swings
There are valid reasons to criticize Bitcoin — price volatility isn't one. Why speculation on future adoption, not failure, drives Bitcoin's wild price swings.
Forbes: "Here's What Investors Need To Know About Cryptocurrency"
Forbes features Vellum managing partner Eric Kovalak on valuing cryptocurrencies: why P/E-style models fail and how philosophy plus technology sets crypto value.
2018
Crypto vs. Traditional Asset Markets
Crypto markets don't behave like stock markets. Why market cap and volatility mislead investors — and how a crypto asset differs from a cryptocurrency.
Ohio becomes first state to accept tax payments using Bitcoin
Ohio becomes the first US state to accept Bitcoin for tax payments. Vellum partner David Veksler tells UPI why state adoption could stabilize Bitcoin's value.
Will Bitcoin burn the planet to ashes? Not so fast.
Will Bitcoin mining burn the planet? Three errors behind the alarmist headlines — and why Bitcoin's energy use addresses a far bigger resource problem.
Watch out for these five common Bitcoin scams
The five most common Bitcoin scams — fake mining contracts, malicious wallets, phishing, fake exchanges, and giveaway fraud — and how to avoid each one.
Jeffrey Tucker v. Peter Schiff: Is Bitcoin a revolution or tulipmania?
Jeffrey Tucker debates Peter Schiff: is Bitcoin a monetary revolution or tulipmania? Two free-market economists clash over the future of money.
It's Like Banning Algebra
Jeffrey Tucker discusses the latest market moves in crypto.
Jeffrey Tucker Joins RMIT University Blockchain Innovation Hub as Research Affiliate
Jeffrey Tucker joins RMIT University's Blockchain Innovation Hub as a Research Affiliate, working on cryptoeconomics and blockchain public policy.
Why Crypto Is Key to a Future-Proof Portfolio
Digital assets may be the most future-proof investment of our lifetime. Why Bitcoin sits at the center of the century's biggest technology and monetary trends.
Jeffrey Tucker at the Brain Bar
Jeffrey Tucker keynotes Brain Bar, central Europe's leading festival of ideas, on cryptocurrency, blockchain technology, and the future of money.
What's the Deal with Tether? USDT and the Reserves Question
What Tether is, why its Bitfinex ties and reserve claims drew manipulation charges in 2018, and what regulators and attestations have shown since: NYAG, CFTC, and the GENIUS Act.
Introduction to Bitcoin Custody Options
Bitcoin custody made clear: recovery phrases, cold storage, hardware wallets, and multi-signature — balancing theft risk against locking yourself out.
Bitcoin and the Future: Tuur Demeester on the Three Phases of Bitcoin Development
What's the future of Bitcoin, and how big will it get? Economist Tuur Demeester lays out the three phases of Bitcoin development.
2017
What Does It Mean To Own Bitcoin?
Bitcoin ownership means controlling a private key. A plain-English guide to addresses, wallets, signing, and what possession means on a public ledger.
Money Is a Practical Art
Textbooks say monetary history ended with central banks. Bitcoin reopened the question: money is a technology — a practical art — that markets can improve.
Bitcoin Mining Is Costly, Just Like Gold Mining
The classic critique of gold — mining wastes resources — applies to Bitcoin too. Why that cost is the price of money no government can print at will.
Three Stages of Ownership
Why do we need blockchain? Private property develops in three stages — creation, protection, and transfer — and Bitcoin secures ownership like nothing before.
How Will Banking and Credit Work in a CryptoCurrency Economy?
What happens to banks, central banks, and credit in a cryptocurrency-dominant economy? Speculation grounded in Christine Lagarde's surprising IMF remarks.
What’s Truly Remarkable about Bitcoin: It Exists
In 2013, saying Bitcoin was the real deal invited ridicule. Jeffrey Tucker on the barrage of criticism — and why Bitcoin's mere existence is the remarkable thing.
Bitcoin for Beginners
A 2013 primer that still holds up: what Bitcoin is, why the future of money is so hard to imagine, and how a peer-to-peer currency actually works.
How to Secure Bitcoin: 10 Essential Security Practices
A practical Bitcoin security guide from a wallet-recovery professional: how to secure your seed phrase, wallet, and computer so thieves can't get in and you never get locked out.
Why I'm Betting on the Future of Bitcoin
After five years in China's mobile-payment economy, US banking felt broken. Why clunky ACH, wires, and Zelle convinced me to bet on Bitcoin's future.
How to Live Like a Bitcoin Millionaire
You could sell your Bitcoin and live every dream now — or keep watching your net worth climb. On the strange psychology of spending appreciating money.