TL;DR: A new paper redefining what Crypto means has just been published, with staggering implications for siloed economic thinking. Among them: local “Truth” in economics may drive cyclicity. Philly Fed numbers and Unemployment filings are out, and while not 3I/ATLAS, October still looks set to “rock” the world.

Crypto & Investing in the Post-Truth World

[I apologize for the Peoplenomics length and depth of what follows.  But it’s information of a general research nature that could be important to a lot of people in the future. ]

From the beginning,  if we may?  (Yes, could be a riff on Clif High’s Sci-Fi world arriving…sci-fi and post-truth sharing linguistic commonalities, see?)

Hard as it is for people to believe it, at my core, I’m a data-driven guy.  As part of that, I track the best and brightest brains I can find in order not to be  “follow the money” but rather a “follow the Future” kind of writer.  Now, toward this end, there’s a professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota, who I have followed for years.  Best of class thinker.  He has a new paper out and this one is a dilly. Hang on, this is the kind of “big gulp” we usually do on the Peoplenomics side.  But in mid “blow-off” it’s good to look out the windows in mid launch, once in a while.  Get an eye on early trajectory and begin to guess at down-range impact.  In 3-2-1…

Cryptocurrencies have long been sold as technological marvels—Bitcoin, blockchain, NFTs, and the rest all touted as breakthroughs that would liberate finance from bureaucrats and central banks. Yet Andrew Odlyzko’s new essay on point (just out) takes a sharply different tack. He argues that the real story isn’t about technology at all, but about what the crypto mania reveals about us. The central lesson is how trust, herd psychology, and the human appetite for illusion are reshaping society into a “post-truth” world.

In this framing, Bitcoin is not the revolution it pretends to be. It is instead a vivid case study in how collective imagination, inertia, and influencer-driven trust can create alternate realities—realities with market valuations, political impacts, and global consequences. The fact that nearly all of the core technical ingredients of Bitcoin were available decades earlier only sharpens the point: the technology waited in the wings until the crowd was ready.

This perspective shifts the debate. Whether cryptocurrencies succeed or fail on their own merits is almost secondary. What matters is that they demonstrate how easily faith can be redirected away from institutions and into fragile, unverified claims—often in defiance of evidence or common sense. Odlyzko’s analysis ties this to broader patterns: the rise of disinformation, the spread of deepfakes, and the seductive “hallucinations” of AI.

Abstract. Cryptocurrencies have given rise to extreme excitement and controversy. There is a continuing debate on whether they will flourish or disappear. This essay argues that an even more interesting and important issue involves the implications of the cryptocurrency mania for the evolution of our society. What matters about cryptocurrencies and related subjects, such as blockchain, are not really their technology. That technology is neither novel nor revolutionary. The key factors are trust and crowd psychology, and those are driving us towards
the post-truth world, in which groupthink helps create “alternate realities.” The cryptocurrency scene provides insight into these developments, which are consistent with those in many related areas, such as growth of disinformation, of deepfakes, and of AI.  (The complete paper is at cryptomania.pdf. Highly recommended._ This essay will appear in ACM Ubiquity.)

What does this mean in real time? It means the same forces that once inflated tulips, railroads, and dot-coms are alive in today’s markets—only faster and even more contagious. In a post-truth investosphere, October won’t just be about earnings or Fed policy; it will be about which narrative the herd believes in most. That’s the fuel for blow-offs, and why watching the topology of “truth” is now just as important as watching the charts.

In other words, cryptocurrencies are not an isolated oddity of financial history. They are a marker of the age we are moving into: a time when the psychology of trust and the manufacturing of belief systems may matter more than any technical achievement. The implications ripple far beyond markets and money.

From the standpoint of LRP (long-range planning) and preservation of generational wealth, the identification and operationalizing of Post Truth Investment strategies becomes a real issue.  As we have written before: crypto is nothing but a single (complicated) made-up “secret number.”  It holds no intrinsic value.  But, to Odlyzko’s point:  Doesn’t matter if you’re trading in the “Emperor’s New Clothes World” does it?

Investing in the Post-Truth World

The paradox for investors is that in a post-truth investosphere, reality and return have parted company. The traditional calculus—anchoring decisions on earnings, assets, or productivity—has given way to a new game where narrative momentum outweighs balance sheets. In such a climate, the real skill is not discovering value, but forecasting belief. Markets reward those who can sense where the herd will move next, even if that movement is divorced from fundamentals.

For long-range planners, that makes the challenge doubly hard. Generational wealth prefers ballast and continuity, yet post-truth markets thrive on illusion and volatility. The guidance here is not to chase every mirage, but to recognize that alternate realities can sustain price and confidence far longer than logic suggests. The prudent course is to hedge exposure, participate cautiously when the crowd’s imagination runs hot, and always keep a tether to assets that remain real no matter what narrative bubble bursts next.

The Role of Truth in Previous Bubbles

What Odlyzko is really pointing toward is that bubbles spread not just by greed but by infection of flawed “truth assumptions.” Once accepted, they replicate across markets and generations like a communicable disease. A few examples stand out:

• Tulipmania (1630s): the “truth assumption” was that rare tulip bulbs were inherently scarce stores of wealth, worth more than gold. The distortion collapsed when the assumption met reality—bulbs could be grown and propagated.

• South Sea Bubble (1720s): investors assumed government charters guaranteed prosperity, mistaking political favor for economic substance. The “truth” snapped back when trade revenues never materialized.

• Railway Mania (1840s Britain): the belief was that every mile of track equaled certain riches. The asymptote broke when many routes proved uneconomic, leaving steel and sleepers but no sustainable profit.

• Florida Land Boom (1920s): the assumption was that American migration south was endless, so land prices could only rise. Hurricanes and recession corrected the delusion brutally.

• Dot-Com Bubble (1990s): “eyeballs equal earnings” was the new math. Growth in website visits was treated as interchangeable with revenue, until the asymptote of cash flow reasserted itself.

• Housing/CMO Crisis (2008): the most poisonous assumption of all—that “home prices never fall.” Leveraged across derivatives, it metastasized globally, and when truth reasserted itself, the financial system nearly failed.

• Crypto/Stablecoin Boom (2010s–2020s): the current presumption is that digital scarcity alone creates durable value. Yet as Odlyzko notes, this is just another “truth assumption”—a fragile consensus, not an economic foundation.

Each episode shows how seductive false truths become contagious local/mass “truths.” Once embedded, they override caution, spread through networks of trust, and leave wreckage when the topology -eventually – snaps back. The investor’s paradox is to recognize that these anomalies feel real while they last—yet are ultimately viral distortions of the truth baseline.

In an odd twist of events, Wednesday marked the (Peoplenomics) pre-publication of the first section of my new book “Mind Amplifiers” Human Use of Cognitive Prosthetics.”

Taken together, Odlyzko’s insights on the changing Topology of Truth – and our own focus on how these may also relate to shifts in cognitive prosthetics, and you begin to sketch out (at least in theory) a schema where Truth is only a consensus and where cognition is blooming toward an under-appreciated end.  (Spoiler alert: We are all World Observers and – as such – part of the emerging central nervous system of all Creation…)

About here you should realize that we will be doing additional research on Durability of Truth and sizing of Persuasion Blocks as an additional metrics behind “fundamental economic analysis.”  Do investors need a “Truth Index?”

Ah…Enough!  Maybe too much theory.  Let’s check how our predicted Blow-Off is rolling in the pre-open, shall we?

By the way, the reference paper (Youseffmir, et al) is MATLAB graph. See page 17.  In particular, you will want to consider in your news-readings how the “placement of what we can now behold as truth-adjustments impacts ultimate bubble form.  Which may, or may not, provide avenues of predictive utility.

Simplified for Life Indexers (not us Mass Indexers):  Read the news – spot events that will change the topology of  local Truth going forward. Adjust plans, accordingly.

Economic cycle derivation work (my recent decomposition of cycles) extracted this which was shared with Peoplenomics subscribers last weekend.

This gives you a pretty clear sense of the gap between “Cyclical Truth” and the rolling impact of current/local  Truth topology delta, doesn’t it?  Notwithstanding, is there a correlation between radicalization and “loss of truth” in economics?  Wow, huh?

Meanwhile, back on Earth: Economic Data Streams are buzzing…

Two On the Cash Balances Screen

Philly Fed Manufacturing report:

“The diffusion index for current general activity rose 24 points to 23.2 in September, its highest reading since January (see Chart 1). Almost 40 percent of the firms reported increases in general activity this month (up from 30 percent last month), while 17 percent reported decreases (down from 30 percent); 43 percent reported no change (up from 36 percent). The new orders index rose 14 points to 12.4 this month, and the shipments index rose 22 points to 26.1.”

And two graphics lay out new current Unemployment filings.

So…er…like we were saying…notice how UI filings were already going down before the Fed bent to Trump and lowered a quarter?  Again, look for a “slow drip of C-4” (an explosive…)

The rest will be along when it will be along. Though in the ChartPack on the PN side this week, we will take a stab at “top of bubble estimation” although the “density of delusion” is a factorial hemorrhoid. How to assign numbers to crazy?

Pressing Ahead  Backwards

Let’s look in on the ICU (internet consuming users) ward and see how Truth is holding up, shall we?

Notice how the media battle (ongoing_) is a good indicator of the Post-Truth status of the country.  Some examples?  Media tries to protect Antifa with tired al-Qaeda talking points | Blaze Media.  In fact, we happen to agree with TRUMP DESIGNATES ANTIFA TERRORIST ORGANIZATION. Across the aisle? WGA Rips ABC for Pulling ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ From Air.

Ever read the book Commanding the Heights?  Not old enough?  So here’s how it laid out back in 2002:  Daniel Yergin’s Commanding Heights (2002, with Joseph Stanislaw) traced the 20th-century struggle between government control and market liberalization, showing how nations repeatedly swung between state-driven economies and free-market reforms. The book’s insight for today lies in its recognition that the “commanding heights” are never just factories, oil fields, or finance—they are also the levers of narrative. As production globalized and deregulation spread, media itself became a strategic high ground: shaping investor sentiment, legitimizing policies, and mobilizing public consent. In this sense, Yergin’s framework foreshadowed modern media warfare, where control over perception and storylines often determined outcomes as decisively as control over tanks or pipelines.

After Yergin’s Commanding Heights  set the stage for how power shifted between governments and markets, the natural progression into the realm of media warfare is David Patrikarakos’s War in 140 Characters (2017). Where Yergin showed how economic control defined the 20th century, Patrikarakos showed how social media and narrative control define the 21st. It documents how tweets, memes, and online personas became weapons as real as tanks or tariffs, making the battlefield as much about perception as about territory.

From there, the trajectory continues through works on economic statecraft and chokepoints, but War in 140 Characters is the pivot point — the book that turns Yergin’s story of global economic liberalization into today’s Age of  Narrative and media conflict.

Hard to make a tradeable pendulum out of Truth balance. However, here’s one more swinging indicator to consider: Students are TURNING on their violent leftist teachers!!

Our Big Bottom Line?  The Post-Truth investosphere has been seeded and in the making for more than 20-years.  As much as anything, simple tabulations of media acceptance of radicalism (BLM/Antifa) may be useful indicators of media credulity. Which, in turn, could be a useful metric when making portfolio allocations….

Noticed in Passing

Social tensions on boil:  3 police officers shot dead, 2 wounded in Pennsylvania; suspect killed.

Come to America then bitch about it?  Um…no… US judge orders deportation of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil

You do realize 100-years ago, virtually no childhood vaccines were administered, right? Ousted CDC director says RFK Jr. will change vaccine schedule.  Coming up on 100-years from? 1920s–1930s: The diphtheria toxoid vaccine is rolled out on a larger scale, becoming one of the first true “childhood” vaccines to see routine use.  And yet, humans somehow lived…

Economically, here’s another one to ponder:  What happens to the Pharma and cancer treatment centers around the country if this story has legs and isn’t just propagandized bullshit?  Russia Rolling Out “Free” 100% Effective Cancer Vaccine?  Moreover – inquiring minds out here in the woods are asking – why isn’t CDC telling us the “what’s real” behind this?  I have an answer which no one will like, so best keep it close to the vest. (But bet you can guess.  Here’s a hint: $$$)

Around the Ranch: Rocktober Fest Landings?

One of the smartest of my long-term strategic planning and look ahead cadre shared a what amounts to a “colleagues” note Wednesday.  To his (expert/SME) eyes, 3I/ATLAS may not be an issue…but…

“…there is a very good chance that this October we will be seeing an unusually large number of meteorites. As in really unusually large number. All the regulars, plus…

In early October 2025, Earth will pass through the debris trail of the newly discovered interstellar comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN), which may result in a new meteor shower

. Scientists also predict two established meteor showers for October, along with possible fireball activity from the Taurid swarm.

Earth encounters Comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN) debris

Source comet: The interstellar comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN), spotted by an amateur astronomer in September 2025, has an unusual trajectory from outside our solar system. It passed closest to the sun on September 12, leaving behind a debris trail.

Peak date: Earth is predicted to cross the comet’s orbital plane around October 5, 2025. (Tatman: That’s AI speak for we will be passing *thru* the debris trail. As this is a probable first solar encounter for C/2025 R2 (SWAN), it should be a hefty debris trail.)

Potential display: While comets are unpredictable, skygazers will be watching to see if this crossing creates a new meteor shower, with some estimating the possibility of a visible show. (Tatman: Or worse. The global impact episode of 12,800 some years ago set fire to the Northern Hemisphere from Syria to Alaska. Well, the parts of the hemisphere which weren’t ice covered. Whilst the SWAN debris will likely not be that bad, it could be ugly, with a number of impacting and/or atmospherically exploding meteorites. We’ll see.)

READER NOTE: SWAN is NOT 31/ATLAS. Atlas will be passing Mars around 3 October. Earth will not go thru any ATLAS debris trail. (Well, if it has one. So far, it doesn’t seem to have a tail, it has a crown, facing towards the sun, not away from it, and the emissions given off have recently been changing color, from red to greenish. I keep waiting for an announcement that it is slowing down. If it slows down, it *is* a spacecraft. If it doesn’t slow down, it only *might* be a spacecraft. I guess we’ll see.)”

If someone shows up around Thanksgiving and says they’re “Here to serve man” be suspicious.  And ask yourself “Would I ‘pair well’ with cranberry sauce?”

We now return you to your regularly schemed programming.  Good luck, Jim.

Write when you get rich,

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