Top all-time · #2912
Matt Ranger
Personal blog · singlelunch.com · on HN as VHRangereconomicsai
Matt Ranger writes SingleLunch, a personal blog at singlelunch.com about economics and ai. Since 2019, 26 different Hacker News readers have linked it 59 times, most often “The Tether Ponzi Scheme”. The last post was in 2024, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (17) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link Matt Ranger's posts mainly on Tether and crypto, and on economics such as wages and money. Several are cited as reading for these topics, though one commenter disputes the economics post.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 17 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Matt Ranger's website
Most-linked posts?
- The Tether Ponzi Scheme9 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2021-05-19
- An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2022-01-17
- /2023/09/13/the-bad-economics-of-wtfhappenedin1971/4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2025-01-15
- Inflation is not cost of living – Single Lunch3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-09-20
- Why Stephen Wolfram’s research program is a dead end3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-04-23
- Why I'm lukewarm on graph neural networks2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-09-03
- The Bad Economics of Wtfhappenedin19712 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-09-14
- A Nobel worthy game theory problem – Single Lunch2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-10-18
- Is USDC Another Tether?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-07-31
- A decade later, Reddit's comment sorting still fails to do its job2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-09-17
What Hacker News says?
Tether, which is the most used so-called "stablecoin" (As its value is pegged to the USD) is extremely seedy at best and has had brushes with the law already [0] or is outright a Ponzi scheme [1] and plenty of people arguing for/against crypto know and have said so already. Personally, even though I'm a proponent of cryptocurrency in general, I wish it'd disappear in spite of any short and middle-term calamitous con…
Comment linking /2021/05/19/the-tether-ponzi-scheme/
on “It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency”Submitted An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation as a story · 622 points
HN discussionif you would like to continue your mental journey, I recommend reading this: https://singlelunch.com/2020/10/21/badeconomics-putting-400m...
Comment linking /2020/10/21/badeconomics-putting-400m-of-bitcoin-on-your-company-balance-sheet/
on “El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender”Submitted The Tether Ponzi Scheme as a story · 261 points
HN discussionooo, read this! https://singlelunch.com/2023/09/13/the-bad-economics-of-wtfh...
Comment linking /2023/09/13/the-bad-economics-of-wtfhappenedin1971/
on “El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender”Submitted BadEconomics: Putting $400M of Bitcoin on your company balance sheet as a story · 167 points
HN discussionif you genuinely are interested in an answer to your question, I recommend this blog post by Matt Ranger: https://singlelunch.com/2020/10/21/badeconomics-putting-400m...
Comment linking /2020/10/21/badeconomics-putting-400m-of-bitcoin-on-your-company-balance-sheet/
on “El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender”Submitted Why I'm Lukewarm on Graph Neural Networks as a story · 149 points
HN discussionhahaha it was a good idea to remove that last sentence from your comment I'll nibble at the bait regardless: Your comment of spending patterns is missing the forest for the trees. A modern, capitalist infused, economy works like a big cardiovascular system, or like an engine. That is to say, it's happiest when blood/oil is pumping through it. Therefore, you can compare to a certain extent the different states an eco…
Comment linking /2020/10/21/badeconomics-putting-400m-of-bitcoin-on-your-company-balance-sheet/
on “El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender”Submitted How badly is cryptocurrency worsening the chip shortage? as a story · 90 points
HN discussionCorrect. This effect is known in economics since forever - new technology has - An "income effect". You use the thing more because it's cheaper - new usecases come up - A "substitution effect." You use other things more because of the savings. I got into this on labor economics here [1] - you have counterintuitive examples with ATMs actually increasing the number of bank branches for several decades. [1]: https://si…
Comment linking /2019/10/21/the-economic-effects-of-automation-arent-what-you-think-they-are
on “The impact of competition and DeepSeek on Nvidia”Submitted The State of Stablecoin Risks as a story · 81 points
HN discussion> Far from 'weakly enforced regulations' most Western nations have very well and strongly enforced regulatory regimes. There are rules upon rules about what is allowed and what is not. They are as regulated as the system will allow. That is, companies dump lots of money into Congress to increase the chances of existing regulations being weakened and new ones neutered, and it works (see: Dodd-Frank [0]). And sadly, I…
Comment linking /2021/05/19/the-tether-ponzi-scheme/
on “In second largest DeFi hack, Blockchain Bridge loses $320M Ether”Submitted The economic effects of automation as a story · 59 points
HN discussionWell it's simple. - Cryptocurrency market is a scam.[0] - It spends inordinate amount of electrical energy that can be better spent maintaining existing bank/credit card infrastructure [1] - It's a scam[2] - It contributed to overall graphics card shortage [3] - It has another scam (NFT) growing on top of an existing one [4] Have I mentioned it's a scam? What irks me the most is people are acting as if crypto curren…
Comment linking /2022/01/09/an-anatomy-of-bitcoin-price-manipulation/
on “In second largest DeFi hack, Blockchain Bridge loses $320M Ether”Submitted The Bad Economics of Wtfhappenedin1971 as a story · 40 points
HN discussionUh, author here, I have no idea how you could ever think I'm a proponent of MMT. I'm a vocal critic: https://www.singlelunch.com/2018/10/01/bad-economics-shame-o... As for BTC, yes, I hate it and am vocal that PoW cryptocurrencies should stop existing. But this piece isn't focused on that.
Comment linking /2018/10/01/bad-economics-shame-on-you-planet-money-mmt-episode/
on “An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation”Submitted Ego T6 Electric Lawn Tractor Review – Gas landscaping isn't worth it anymore as a story · 16 points
HN discussionBecause she's one of the biggest proponents of Modern Monetary Theory and most economists view it as snake-oil. MMT claims to offers a fix/cure all our economic problems - everyone can have limitless money to spend as long as "sovereign" governments are the ones handing out the free money. And like snake-oil theories it collapses under the mildest of empirical tests. I could go on, I guess (random google) an article…
Comment linking /2018/10/01/bad-economics-shame-on-you-planet-money-mmt-episode/
on “The U.S. can now set its own rates for mail from China and other countries”Submitted Graphs shouldn't be networks of pointers: how I made node2vec 700x faster as a story · 9 points
HN discussionHaving looked into tether really deeply I think they're between 50% and 90% backed as you stated. https://www.singlelunch.com/2022/06/14/the-state-of-stableco... Tether depegging would be an apocalypse nonetheless
Comment linking /2022/06/14/the-state-of-stablecoin-risks-june-2022/
on “Tether ordered to produce documents showing backing of USDT [pdf]”Submitted A decade later, Reddit's comment sorting still fails to do its job as a story · 8 points
HN discussionPeople have been concerned about this for quite some time. It seems the answer that question is definitely not. Here is a somewhat dramatic write up: https://www.singlelunch.com/2021/05/19/the-tether-ponzi-sche...
Comment linking /2021/05/19/the-tether-ponzi-scheme/
on “Luna Cryptocurrency Collapse: How UST Broke”Submitted The past, present and future of ML hardware as a story · 4 points
HN discussionHere's a good, up to date primer: https://www.singlelunch.com/2021/05/19/the-tether-ponzi-sche...
Comment linking /2021/05/19/the-tether-ponzi-scheme/
on “Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip”Submitted Is USDC Another Tether? as a story · 4 points
HN discussionAlso note this rebuttal: https://singlelunch.com/2023/09/13/the-bad-economics-of-wtfh... With related discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39144867
Comment linking /2023/09/13/the-bad-economics-of-wtfhappenedin1971/
on “WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)”Submitted Why I'm lukewarm on graph neural networks as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThey did. https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2021/attorney-general-james-... Also: https://www.singlelunch.com/2021/05/19/the-tether-ponzi-sche...
Comment linking /2021/05/19/the-tether-ponzi-scheme/
on “US Fed Official Calls Tether a ‘Challenge’ to Financial Stability”Submitted The Bad Economics of WTFHappenedin1971 as a story · 3 points
HN discussion
