Monopoly Round-Up: The $2 Trillion Collapse of Bitcoin and Terrible Software Companies

Lots of important monopoly-related news, as usual. The Trump administration is fighting internally about whether to drop their antitrust case against Ticketmaster, profit margins are at their highest level ever, and a series of shocking special electoral wins by populists shows we could be on the verge of a political earthquake. And much more.

But before the full news round-up, I want to go into depth on two parts of our economy that got hit badly over the past few weeks in the financial markets. The first is crypto, and the second are software and analytics companies.

We’ll start with bitcoin and the proverbial “crypto winter.”

I’ll be brief, because this one doesn’t matter that much. Crypto has gone down by $1.7 trillion in market value since its October peak, with the decline accelerating last week. I have no idea why there was a market collapse, it may have to do with a hedge fund blowing up or some sort of market mechanic. Maybe we’ll never know. Crypto falls periodically. What matters is that this time there is a lack of confidence in the crypto narrative.

The reason is that the crypto story has fallen apart. That story, briefly, went as follows. The blockchain is a foundational groundbreaking technology, only known to a niche segment, and hamstrung by a hostile political environment. When it becomes legal and mainstream, cryptocurrencies would skyrocket in value as use cases became clear. There were a host of hopeful future events that investors could expect to drive value.

When Trump got elected, the story seemed to play out. Bitcoin jumped in value, and the first “crypto President” appointed friendly regulators. Congress passed the GENIUS Act to legalize "stablecoins" a type of financial instrument based on crypto, and there are now easier ways for investors to buy and sell various coins. There is even a decline in faith in the dollar, which supposedly bitcoin hedges against.

Only, it turns out there are no real use cases for crypto except for money laundering and fraud, and little real interest beyond “number go up” speculation. It’s not a very interesting technology, with AI taking the spotlight and legalized gambling and future markets taking the froth. Even some of the big crypto firms, like Coinbase, have given up on crypto and are just trying to become less regulated dollar-based banks. I suppose there’s still the possibility of a bailout