The stories I am tracking...
A glance behind the curtain and inside my notepad 🗒️
I want to do something different today – give you a peek inside my notebook at the stories I am tracking and why. During my 15 years in newspapers as a reporter and then editor I always kept a list of the stories I felt I should be tracking, speaking to people about and keeping on top of. This list used to be in my notepad, today it is a Google Doc. Some of these stories were obvious, others less so. Some were interesting situations that never materialised into anything more dramatic, others were already full-blown sagas.
The beauty of writing a newsletter for you is that I can just share this list now. Let me know what you think about these stories, what is interesting you, and whether you would like it to be a regular feature. Note, this list is not the stories that I think are the most important in the financial world right now. For instance, inflation and market volatility are not included - it is a given I will follow those. Instead, these are ten stories that I think are interesting and will develop further. There is obviously a focus in this list on the areas that Off to Lunch is interested in - signal over noise, long-term over short-term, and what is going on outside London in the UK. Anyway, let’s get going…
The Merge
This is the name given in the cryptoworld to an upgrade of ethereum, the second biggest cryptocurrency after bitcoin. “The merge” is a complex process and after a series of delays it is due to occur this summer. It is a significant moment for crypto. The ethereum market is worth more than $200 billion, even after the recent crash in prices and the questions about the credibility of some digital currencies, so this needs to go smoothly. The upgrade involves changing the blockchain technology behind ethereum - in simple terms, changing how it tracks and verifies transactions. Ethereum will move from a “proof-of-work” model, which is used by bitcoin, to a “proof-of-stake” model. Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of ethereum, says this will make it faster, more secure and way more energy efficient, potentially by as much as 99 per cent according to some estimates. These benefits will happen because transactions will become less complex to complete and ethereum will not need to use as many data centres around the world to power its mining (which involves computers verifying and adding new transactions). I am interested in what happens in the lead-up to “the merge” and how crypto markets behave afterwards…