Exchange Invest Weekend 2950: Outer Space Special Part 2
From the Buzz post Lunar cocktail through post splashdown tours. Where capsules went to the remarkable Apollo 11 computer & more…
Exchange Invest is a unique information resource combining the day’s stories in a newsletter for investors in exchanges/financial markets infrastructure.
Exchange Invest was founded by former exchange CEO and author of the first bestselling book of fintech (“Capital Market Revolution!” FT 1999) Patrick Young. Monday through Friday our daily paid subscriber email discusses the business of bourses of all kinds across the world.
On this day in 1967, it was disclosed that an employee at the San Francisco Mint had walked out of the facility at least two months earlier with a 21-pound gold bar valued at $12,000.
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IN BIGWORLD
From Exchange Invest 2943: Friday, April 19th:
The Indian General Elections began last week with phase 1 of 7!
The process 543 members of the 18th Lok Sabha concluding June 1st with results on June 4th.
PM Narendra Modi of the BJP is seeking a third consecutive term from an electorate of 968 million individuals out of a population of 1.4 billion in the world’s most populous nation (having overtaken China earlier this year).
If you’d like more fun facts about the Indian elections check out the IPO-VID and Exchange Invest video feeds on Youtube, Tiktok and Instagram…
NEXT TUESDAY: IPO-VID LIVESTREAM
Guest: Roland Bellegarde
April 30th, 2024
1700 UK, 1800 CET, 1200 EST
Watch the stream on:
LinkedIn | Youtube |
Live on X — Link TBN
“Modernising Saudi Markets/Modernising Tadawul”
Roland Bellegarde was a Group EVP at Euronext and NYSE Euronext from 2000–2014. His many accomplishments include unifying the then 4 Euronext equity markets on one single order book and platform. Nowadays Roland is Senior advisor to the Group CEO of the Saudi Tadawul Group; actively participating in multiple projects modernizing and developing the Saudi Capital Markets. He is currently a Board member of the Saudi exchange, the Clearing House (Muqassa), the CSD (Edaa) and the innovation subsidiary (Wamid).
Exchange Invest Weekly Podcast
CBOE flings a Gauntlet,
Is Blue Ocean the Tide Towards 24 hour trading?
And DB1 Posts a Good Q1.
The Exchange Invest Weekly Podcast 242
Bitcarnage
I have had somewhat of an epiphany about Stablecoins. Now buying stablecoins as an investment and thinking they are supremely safe strikes me as a fool’s errand as various such coins do not seem to be backed by entirely plausible / viable ‘paper.’ However, this deal can make sense in one major way: IOSG And Kraken Ventures Lead $7 Million Funding Round For Stablecoin Developer Usual Labs (The Block) which is the delivery of stablecoins as the new form of cross asset / cross border settlement tool. Here I think there is a winning app looming (I mean broadly, no one stablecoin dominating per se). To that end, a bipartisan development where U.S. Senators Lummis, Gillibrand Take On Stablecoin Legislation With New Bill (CoinDesk) is very encouraging. It’s a case of U.S. Senators Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) tailoring a very narrowly focussed bill seeking to define how stablecoins — cryptocurrencies that maintain value with some other asset or currency — will operate in the U.S.
…However, a Crypto Advocacy Group Claims Stablecoin Bill Would ‘Violate Free Speech Rights’ (CoinTelegraph). The issue is in the Gillibrand-Lummis stablecoin bill as it would seek to outlaw algorithmic stablecoins which the Coin Center group see as an attack on code AKA free speech rights (first amendment) and thus unconstitutional. Otherwise, the group seems to support the proposed act.
I am not so sure this argument holds water. Here’s a definition of the product: Algorithmic Stablecoins: What Are They And How Do They Try To Hold Their Peg? (The Block). It seems to me the ban here is intentioned NOT because the algorithmic stablecoins have code and use it but rather because they tend to operate under collateralized and thus use tech function to seek to maintain their value at par with the coin. This sounds to me whizzy, exciting and…not stable which I think is the point of the Gillibrand-Lummis bill?
If you enjoyed this excerpt you may be interested to know that you can read Bitcarnage every day in Exchange Invest.
Alternatively, if you want to follow Bitcarnage — the daily update on happenings in the world of crypto and digital assets, then you can find Bitcarnage as a standalone on Substack.
IPO-VID LIVESTREAM PODCAST
Join us on episode 139 of IPO-Vid where we chat with Dr. Bharat Kulkarni, a renowned expert in agricultural commodities!
Now available from multiple different podcast sources:
EI Website . Spotify . Google Podcasts . Apple Podcast
Of Interest
As always, a review of interesting reading to provoke thoughts and consideration… Not sure we agree with much of it….but it’s thought-provoking!
Last week’s Space Special included a reference to our Bigworld series commemorating the 50th anniversary of the first lunar exploration, here’s our Exchange Invest Daily from Friday 19 July 2019 (Edition 1530):
This newsletter is brought to you with the calming influence of the Apollo 11 mission Apollo 11 In Real Time ‘livestream’ 50 years on in real time — just been listening to a great conversation about yaw and related pitch on antenna with concomitant picture issues… As EI races to pixel, the Command module docked with the lunar module sees the astronauts asleep rattling through space at a mere Mach 2.7, just shy of 200,000 miles from Earth. Right now somebody in Mission Control is having — I kid you not — an issue with their slide rule…
What The Cold War Space Race Can Teach Us On AI
FT
EI Bigworld Saturday 20 July 2019 (Edition 1531):
50 years ago Apollo 11’s 2 lunar astronauts had spent a couple of hours bouncing around the moon last night (late afternoon EST) and were now on the 4 day journey home…
At 02:56 GMT on 21 July 1969, Armstrong became the first person to step onto the Moon. He was joined by Aldrin 19 minutes later. The two astronauts spent about two hours together outside the lunar module, taking photographs and collecting 21.5 kg of lunar material to be tested back on Earth.
““The “Block 2” version of the Apollo Guidance Computer, designed in 1966, increased erasable memory from 1K to 2K words. Fixed memory was expanded from 24K to 36K. “
PLY: Weighing 70 lbs, some 75 Apollo Guidance computers were made, at an average cost to NASA of around $200,000 (equivalent to more than $1.5 million today). This article raises the pertinent point, “Apollo’s guidance computer was even less powerful than computers commercially available at the time, such as DEC’s PDP-11. Ironically, this phenomenon is a frequent byproduct of long-term, government-funded projects. Spicer says, “By the time that you’ve nailed down the project definition and the various technical requirements, and you’ve decided on an implementation technology, that technology has already changed! By the time that you’ve actually finished the project, the hardware is usually very outdated.””
…I too have noticed this up front albeit on the waterfront not in orbit. At a cocktail reception aboard a USS New York (LPD21) Navy transport ship a few years back which had only entered service a few years earlier (a decade ago now), I was shocked to discern the entire ships operating system was running… Microsoft Windows 95! Or maybe WIndows 98…
Meanwhile, in orbit 50 years ago, the Apollo 11 mission is around 10,000 miles from the moon, a little under 200,000 miles from the Earth, hurtling back home at, give or take, one mile per second…while the astronauts are having a sleep after their big day on the moon’s surface.
Friendship 7’s ‘Fourth Orbit’
National Air And Space Museum
Apollo 11 Fifty-State Tour, 1970–71
LPI USRA.edu
PLY: The fascinating touring afterlife of first the Gemini Friendship 7 mission and then Apollo 11 and the world’s first rock star astronaut, Yuri Gargarin (Vostock 1 never left Russia after it landed).
EI 1533 Tuesday, July 23 2019:
At this time 50 years ago, travelling at Mach 4.2 (3,200 MPH), the crew of Apollo 11 were sleeping some 130,000 miles above the Earth.
EI 1534 Wednesday July 24, 2019:
The Apollo 11 crew were sleeping soundly 50 years ago as the capsule hurtled towards Earth at some 9,500 feet per seconds, 10,300 KM/H and over 6,400 MPH or Mach 8.4, some 189 hours into the mission and some 43,000 miles from Earth.
“At 195 hours 18 minutes 18 seconds the Apollo 11 mission drew to a close when the astronauts made splashdown off the coast of Hawaii 50 years ago yesterday afternoon. An epic mission and just to prove it was not a fluke, by November 19th 1969, Apollo 12 saw another mission landing on the moon…
The Apollo 11 crew meanwhile had another 3 weeks of quarantine to endure before they headed to a well deserved state dinner.
I have to admit this morning it was tough not listening to that historic livestream of mission control…”
The Buzz Aldrin Lunar Cocktail
And Another Thing
PLY: “The Moonwalker” invariably my preferred order in The American Bar at the Savoy, a brilliant tale of how British ingenuity aided the astronauts during their earthly quarantine…
From EI 1694: Tuesday 25 February 2020:
Let’s celebrate a woman whose genius and hard worked helped change the world: Katherine Johnson.
As one of NASA’s crack mathematicians who helped land men on the moon in what is surely the most multidimensional of challenges, she played a wondrous role in breaking the glass ceiling in several dimensions simultaneously. Here’s to 101 years of her incredible, selfless achievement.
PLY: If you want to catch up with the major space capsules, you can see them here:
Visit All The Space Race Capsules
AOPA
Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia
National Air and Space Museum
PLY: Yuri Gargarin’s Vostock 1 capsule is in the RKK Energiya museum in Korolev, Moscow…unfortunately access to this museum of Russian space exploration has apparently been predominantly closed to foreigners and restricted to Russian tourists only for more than a decade. (A full size replica is on display in Germany Vostok 1 Spacecraft | Technik Museum Speyer) while the US National Air and Space Museum has a smaller 1/6th Scale Model, Vostok 1 Spacecraft.
Let’s finish our 2 weekend space mission by going back to where the 1960’s manned space missions began:
Yuri Gagarin Launches As First Human In Space On Vostok-1 R7 1961 — Footage And Radio
Julian Danzer Youtube
Watch John Glenn’s Historic Friendship 7 Launch
VideoFromSpace Youtube
PLY: Fun fact: Yuri Gargarin’s first orbital mission lasted 1 hour 48 minutes, 6 minutes less than Barbie the movie…
Books worth reading:
Finance Book Of The Week
In response to reader’s queries, we have added a book of the week column to the EI weekend edition — interesting books pertaining to exchanges and markets, investment et al.
- Anybody can sign up for EI Weekend for free at ExchangeInvest.com.
This week’s book was written by Bill Vlasic and Bradley A Stertz.
Here is the book that exposed the Daimler-Chrysler “merger of equals” as a bold German takeover of an industrial icon. Taken for a Ride reveals the shock waves felt around the world when Daimler-Benz bought Chrysler for $36 billion in 1998. In a gripping narrative, Bill Vlasic and Bradley A. Stertz go behind the scenes of the corporate drama of with a chaotic aftermath.
Get the book here.
*Paid link, as an Amazon Associate, Exchange Invest earns from qualifying purchases.
Suggestions welcome if you would like to nominate a book for us to cover!
Our next Book of the week will be unveiled Saturday in the EI Weekend Edition.
& don’t forget if you want all the news on the bourse business sent daily to your Inbox subscribe to Exchange Invest — via Exchange Invest.com — it’s only $375 per annum to join “The Exchange of Information.
VICTORY OR DEATH
*Paid link, as an Amazon Associate, Exchange Invest earns from qualifying purchases.
Victory Or Death” is a must-read book for anyone interested in the intersection of Blockchain, Cryptocurrency and FinTech giving a holistic view of the future of markets.
IPO-VID NOW ONLINE
Guest: Chris Skinner
April 23rd, 2024
1700 UK, 1800 CET, 1200 EST
Watch the stream on:
LinkedIn | Youtube | X | Facebook
“Do We Need Intermediaries?”
Best-selling author in both the technology and children’s book domains, Chris Skinner is an award winning independent commentator on financial markets and fintech through his daily blog, the Finanser.com, which is updated daily. He helped to found one of the first mobile banks in the world, and has advised CEOs and leaders from every continent of the world including the UN, the White House, the World Bank and the WEF. In 2023 he was recognised with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Payments Association, the largest community in payments.
His latest book (eighteenth!) is Intelligent Money, which discusses the implications of Generative Finance as Artificial Intelligence takes over the world.
LAST WORD
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