1. Stock prices have risen due to inflation expectations, not the prospect of a swift recovery. After an initial liquidity crunch that led to a nearly 35% drawdown of the S&P 500, the index rallied strongly and is now only down ~15% from it's all time
“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen. ” — Vladimir Lenin It feels like more has happened in the past 3 weeks than in the past 3 years. I believe that decades from now history will recognize the Coronavirus Crisis as the trigger that ended an
In May 2020, the long-anticipated halving (aka The “Halvening”) of Bitcoin’s block reward will be triggered, reducing the number of bitcoins mined from 12.5 to 6.25 per block. This will reduce Bitcoin’s inflation rate from ~3.7% to ~1.8%, below that of the US Dollar
Since President Richard Nixon took the United States off the last remnants of the Gold Standard in 1971, gold has actually outperformed the S&P 500 index in nominal terms. In the 50 years ended January 2020, the price of an ounce of gold in nominal dollar terms has
In an Aggressive and Thoughtful Approach to Investing, I outlined the principles used to construct my investment portfolio for maximum capital accumulation. In this post, I describe the current and two most likely macroeconomic environments that I believe investors should prepare themselves for. I believe that in the 2020s we
My first principle for being both Aggressive and Thoughtful is Conviction > Diversification. It is not only central to how I think about investing, but is core to how I think about making long-term plans for the future. I've always been inspired by great leaders and visionaries who
It may seem crazy, but I stopped saving for retirement, and started investing for maximum capital accumulation. This has led me to construct an unorthodox investment portfolio based on a set of principles, convictions about specific assets, and beliefs about the investment environment of the 2020s. My thoughts on how
How do you store your Bitcoin? Do you keep it in a storage unit like this? [caption id align="alignnone" width="602"] Walter White’s mountain of drug money in storage unit. [https://blog.thomashepner.xyz/caption] Or maybe hidden like this? [caption id align="
I left my job at Amazon to become a self-taught Data Scientist. Months later, I moved across the country with my wife, from Seattle to Raleigh, so she could enroll in Duke University’s Physician Assistant program. After the ICO Bubble popped in 2018, I invested nearly all of my
“Because there are no truly free places left in our world, I suspect that the mode for escape must involve some sort of new and hitherto untried process that leads us to some undiscovered country; and for this reason I have focused my efforts on new technologies that may create
I have multiple Bitcoin t-shirts, had a Bitcoin bumper sticker on my car for a year, own and run a Casa Bitcoin Node (you probably don’t know what this is), read obsessively about Bitcoin on #cryptotwitter, and talk about it every chance I can get with friends, family, and
Aging will be seen as no more inevitable than teenage pregnancy is today. Within 100 years, and likely far sooner, aging will cease to exist. And you might be thinking to yourself, “That’s impossible! That cannot possibly be true! Aging is a natural part of life and cannot be