Monday, February 22, 2021
Ponzis and bitcoin as a response to a bad economy: the case of Nigeria
Usually when I think about gambling and speculative excess, I ve always associated it with giddy prosperity. When an economy is doing well, productivity is improving, new technology is being introduced, and unemployment is low, people have extra income that they can throw away at the casino. Or they put it into their brokerage account and, with the help of margin, generate speculative bubbles.
But lately I ve been rethinking this view. Speculative bubbles and over-gambling are just as likely to be driven by sick and decaying economies as they are by prosperous ones. And Nigeria is a prime example of this.