Best of balajis.com on Kiwi News
Most upvoted by Kiwi News readers
10 stories from balajis.com have been shared on Kiwi News since 4 July 2023, with 27 upvotes and 2 comments in total. The latest was shared on 28 July 2025. They are listed below, most upvoted first.
Text under a title is an AI summary of the linked article.
- Bond Villain
Balaji argues that the losses hitting banks and insurers, including American Coastal's bond holdings, stem from Federal Reserve policy rather than state mismanagement, and he blames Jerome Powell and Janet Yellen for a 2021 bond devaluation. He says the government sold bonds in 2021 and then the Fed's surprise rate hikes devalued them, producing unrealized losses that become realized in bank runs or hurricane season. He cites Stanford researchers' estimate of trillions in unrealized losses, a 722-bank figure from an internal Fed report, and $100B in unrealized losses at Bank of America. He also argues that hedging was impractical or discouraged in 2021 because the Fed called inflation transitory.
- America's $175T Problem
The article argues that the United States and the wider Western world face a sovereign debt crisis worse than 2008, and that official figures understate the problem. It cites the Fed making more emergency loans in 2023 than during the 2008 financial crisis, and US interest payments on the national debt becoming the second largest government expense, ahead of defense. It also points to the dollar losing at least 25% of its value in four years, China dumping Treasuries, and a $175.3T true debt figure from the February 2024 Financial Report of the United States Government. The author concludes that the Magnificent 7 tech companies' combined market cap of $15.65T is under 10% of that debt, so AI cannot grow the US out of it.
- Gil Duran Faked A Quote For the New Republic
Blogger Balaji Srinivasan (the author's own byline is not given in the text) alleges that writer Gil Duran fabricated a quote attributed to him in a New Republic article, and that the magazine stealth-edited the piece multiple times without a correction. The post says the original video at 3:19:51 shows the speaker called for non-violent political action against Democrats in San Francisco, not "ethnic cleansing." It also claims Duran hid replies pointing out the fake, did not disclose past payments from California Democrats, and was previously fired from the San Francisco Examiner over a fabricated story.
- California Is Not A Democracy
California is described here as a one-party state that is not a democracy, because Democrats do not hold competitive multiparty elections and always win. The author claims that since one-party control was consolidated in the early 2010s, governance worsened and growth leveled off, and that more than one million citizens have left the state. The piece argues that Democrats have ended competitive elections in the states they control, that their actions show they care about staying in power rather than democracy, and that they use public money to reward party affiliates.
- All Property Becomes Cryptography
All property will be secured by cryptography, according to the post, which argues that financial and physical assets alike will move onchain. The author cites trillions of dollars in digital gold secured onchain, the legalization of stablecoins as a path for onchain stocks and bonds, and onchain smart locks that can secure doors and vehicles, with Hideyoshi Moriya's home unlocked by verifying ENS NFT ownership. The post says digital signatures could start engines and control capital equipment such as cranes and drones, and that scaled public blockchains are more secure than systems like the Pentagon, which it says gets repeatedly hacked. It names food and clothing as exceptions that will not be secured onchain.
- All It Takes Is All You Got
The author argues that US sovereign debt is headed for a crisis far larger than 2000 or 2008, and that the government will seize household assets to cover its obligations. The piece cites a Wall Street Journal line that rapid market growth "has ended badly in the past" and that instability in Treasurys could spread, and it places 2001, 2008 and 2020 on a scale from ignorable to decadal to civilizational. It cites Treasury's own statement that the Social Security and Medicare need of $175.3 trillion in present-value terms "can be satisfied only through increased borrowing, higher taxes, reduced program spending, or some combination." It also responds to Brent Donnelly's view that the debt does not matter, saying household assets of about $177 trillion are not government assets.
- The Bitcoin ETF is the spiritual reversal of Executive Order 6102
The article argues that the spot Bitcoin ETF approval reverses the centralizing trend set by Executive Order 6102, which required citizens to surrender gold in 1933 and was followed by the gold clause cases. It presents the 3-2 SEC vote as a conflict between decentralization and centralization, with Peirce's pro-liberty approval, Crenshaw's denial, and Gensler's reluctant approval. It quotes Crenshaw's dissent warning that spot Bitcoin ETPs would trade in an "unregulated, fragmented, continuously traded, global free-for-all" beyond U.S. regulatory reach.
- Balaji's FIRST Network State Conference in Amsterdam!
The Network State Conference 2025 will be held in Singapore on October 3, with over 3,000 registrations and in-person tickets at $99 or remote viewing available. The article argues that network states are becoming real, pointing to Ethereum-inspired popups such as Zuzalu and Etherlaken, Coinbase's Basecamp, Solana's Forma and Solana Economic Zones, Telegram's planned Telegram Network State, and Bryan Johnson's Don't Die Network State as examples. Speakers include Vitalik Buterin, Ben Horowitz, Amjad Masad, Ranveer Allahbadia, Andrew Huberman, and representatives of the governments of Singapore, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and El Salvador.
- The Network School
- The Men's Party
Republicans are becoming the men's party, according to this essay, which presents this as a shift toward presenting the party as the party of strong men and the women who love them. The author cites the Republican coalition, including married men, married women and single men voting Republican, and claims that as of 2022 only single women vote more than 50% Democrat. The essay also describes modern Republicans as ultra-libertarian, focused on firearms ownership, decentralization, deregulation, Bitcoin and anti-institutionalism, and argues that helping people become strong, rather than letting the weak fail, is the right strategy, with the condition that they share one's values.