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2025

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The Man Who Lost $20 billion in 2 Days

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We celebrate legends of markets here. I also want to note that on the way up, some are beaten by markets. Bloomberg News reported that Bill Hwang lost $20 billion in 2 days when Archegos Capital Management went down in March 2021.  Archegos had defaulted on margin calls from investment banks like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and Nomura Holdings.

Why It Matters: Hwang ran a family office that imploded in March and caused massive losses at a few big banks when Archegos couldn’t meet margin calls. Archegos had more than $20 billion of capital and total bets exceeding $100 billion.

Global banks lost nearly $10 billion from the Archegos fallout. Credit Suisse Group AG (NYSE: CS), Nomura Holdings Inc (NYSE: NMR) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) were among the hardest hit.

As they say, everyone remembers the last trade. What destroyed Bill’s family office was total return swaps and risky plays.

A total return swap is a swap agreement in which one party makes payments based on a set rate, either fixed or variable, while the other party makes payments based on the return of an underlying asset, which includes both the income it generates and any capital gains. In total return swaps, the underlying asset, referred to as the reference asset, is usually an equity index, a basket of loans, or bonds. The asset is owned by the party receiving the set rate payment.

But do not think far: when gravity could not hold Nigeria’s stock market just before the great recession of 2008, banks extended credits to investors to buy their stocks, holding the same stocks as collateral!

If you look carefully, if things go bad, banks will lose! I think we have stopped that now in Lagos as believers have been delivered.

If you have time, read about Bill. You will learn one or two things when it comes to investments.

Nigeria’s Best Profitable Sector Is Cement And I am Looking for CementTech Digital Entrepreneurs

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The best business in Nigeria right now is making cement. I mean, there is no rival. Cement firms are generating tons of money. Dangote Cement alone paid N40 billion on income tax in Q1 2021 when most of the banks combined for N42 billion. Lafarge, BUA and Dangote Cement generated a revenue of N960 billion in H1 2021, a 37% growth compared to the same period in 2020.

This follows a global trajectory where the construction industry is booming. But note one deviation: the big 3 of cement in Nigeria are returning humongous gross margins; Dangote 60%, BUA 46% and Lafarge 33%.  Dangote Cement made history in half year and quarterly revenues at N690.5 billion and N357.8 billion respectively, holding more than 70% of the market share. Nairametric has numbers for other companies.

Nairametrics reported in April that Dangote cement, increased its cement price from N2,800 to N3,800, representing a 35.71% increase. While speaking on the need for the price increase, he stated, “On the price side, we have been able to push prices up in all our countries despite resistance from local government as cement pricing is always a sensitive problem… However, the world economy especially freight cost was impacting all our inputs such as cement.”

Update: On the CementTech, one of our startups just noted that it would do it. So, the open call is closed. Do not send your ideas to Tekedia Capital as there is no need.

Artificial Intelligence: What is the future of Humanity?

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No, doubt, the unique significance of humans as natural being is hugely important for our understanding of culture and civilization and neglecting it may sound death knell to our existence. As it stands today, the term artificial intelligence (AI) has two meanings. The first is it’s narrow meaning – AI as a system that comprised of a powerful computer, a large data base, and a program that sorts desired patterns from that data base. It’s usually designed to do one thing that would normally require human intelligence and to do it faster and more efficiently than humans can. The system itself is not intelligent; it only simulates intelligence, hence ‘artificial.’

Such AI systems are already up and running that work with a database consisting of many thousands of X-rays of lungs, say, in various states of health together with top-level professional medical analysis of their state of health. The system then compares an X-ray of ones lungs with the database in order to check whether or not one have, say, a specific type of cancer. More specifically, it tends to extract statistics about visual patterns in the X-ray image and compare these to other extracted patterns in the database. Such systems can now make diagnoses in some cases with better accuracy than the best human doctors.

This is all good and is to be welcomed. However, facial recognition techniques can be used for intrusive surveillance by totalitarian regimes – this is already happening in China’s north-western province of Xinjiang, among the Uyghurs people where human rights groups believe China has detained more than one million Uyghurs against their will over the past few years in a large network of what the state calls “re-education camps”, and sentenced hundreds of thousands to prison terms. There’s increasing danger of it being used in other parts of the world especially countries with totalitarian regimes, and this poses a huge threat to humanity.

The second kind of AI is Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). This has two aspects. Firstly, there’s a desire and attempt to enhance existing humans by biotechnology, drugs, etc., so that they become super-intelligent. Secondly, the idea is to build a super-intelligent machine, perhaps based on silicon, that’s more intelligent than humans in every area. The late Stephen Hawking rightly put it thus: “The real risk with AI isn’t malice but competence. A super-intelligent AI will be extremely good at accomplishing its goals, and if those goals aren’t aligned with ours we’re in trouble.”

Will Technology change what it means to be human?

No doubt, technological advancement seeks to alter totally what it means to be human, but the great danger here is experimentation with the human germline and playing God by reprogramming the DNA of all generations to come. The British writer and lay theologian Clive Staples Lewis  put it well by saying: “What we call Man’s power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument…Man’s conquest of Nature, if the dreams of some scientific planners are realized, means the rule of a few hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men. There neither is nor can be any simple increase of power on Man’s side. Each new power won by man is a power over man as well. Each advance leaves him weaker as well as stronger. In every victory, besides being the general who triumphs, he is also the prisoner who follows the triumphal car…Man’s final conquest has proved to be the abolition of Man.”

The transhumanist AGI agenda which seeks to find a solution to physical death and to create a paradise is to my mind, a good idea, at least one that is going to shape the rest of our knowledge about life. But also one that poses a threat to human existence.

Conclusion

Despite the enormous benefits that comes with AI, dangers still lurk in technology’s ubiquitous and unrelenting encroachment in our lives, and this reminds us  that we’re already in a world increasingly adopting invasive surveillance techniques that threaten privacy, and aims at destroying life on earth if those goals aren’t aligned with ours.

Tekedia Live: Unlocking Value in Digital Platforms Across Sectors – Ndubuisi Ekekwe

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We will have a conversation at Tekedia Live today on “Unlocking Value in Digital Platforms Across Sectors “.  Time is 7pm WAT and Zoom link in the board.

Sat, Aug 14 | Unlocking Value in Digital Platforms Across Sectors – Ndubuisi Ekekwe

You have built the platform, how do you unlock value? We will see how modern empires are capturing value in this knowledge era. We will look at sectors, drawing cases on how each of us can go alpha.

Tekedia Mini-MBA school.tekedia.com

5 reasons why Crypto is Preferable to eNaira

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You must start preparing to accept the changes that are coming. Well, if you don’t prepare for them they are already prepared for you.

You said what do I mean? Imagine how El Salvador made bitcoin the legal tender in the country. 

What do you think the people have been doing before then? They have taken their time to know how to do microtransactions in Bitcoin using the lightning network (LN).

Nigeria is about to enter a new era where our currency is becoming purely digital. 

Have you asked yourself how a Crypto transaction works and how you can do it?

With the creation of eNaira, you will have to learn how to make payment with it and how to receive payment with it.

But beyond that is the fact that the eNaira initiative is commendable, Crypto is more preferable. 

There are many problems that cryptocurrencies solve that eNaira cannot solve. This article will explain them. I believe that at the end of this short article you will understand why bitcoin and other crypto are what the world needs.

 5 reasons why Crypto is preferable to e-Naira

The inflation reason

One of the global reasons for the rise in inflation is due to the fact that the money supply has no limit. The higher the money supply the higher the tendency for the price level to rise.

 This problem always leads to a ripple effect such as; low standard of living, depreciating currency, reduction in the real value of money and rises in prices of goods. 

The current inflation rate in Nigeria is 17.75%. When you compare it with the inflation rate of the US that is 5.4%, you will understand that the money is low in value. 

The creation of eNaira is simply a digital naira and has no limit in supply as well. This means while the unlimited supply of the naira fueled inflation, the unlimited eNaira will fuel inflation too. 

When compared to Bitcoin which has a limited supply of 21m, you will understand that this will help to solve the problem of global inflation.

inflation can only be solved when the money supply is actually and truly fixed by a monetary system that is not controlled and manipulated.  

The Hedge Reason

One of the reasons why people love cryptocurrency is because of the of stablecoins. Stablecoin is a type of cryptocurrency that helps to hedge the value of money against volatility. 

While stablecoins like USDT, USDC etc are pegged to the United States dollar, the eNiara is pegged to the naira.

The question that is begging for an answer is this. Is the eNara a stablecon or a volatile coin? Well, the answer is simple, it is a stablecoin that is highly volatile because it is pegged to the fiat naira.

 For instance, the rate of $1 to naira at the time of writing this is N510. Hence, the eNaira cannot protect our money from fluctuations like the USDT will do.

How do we fix this? It can be fixed by allowing USDT and eNaira to coexist, then the government can find a way to make tax revenue.

Freedom Reason

Decentralization means technological freedom. This is the promise of blockchain and cryptographic technologies.

 On the other hand, the centralized system of reserved banks means control and manipulation of the market forces.

With the creation of the eNaira, there is no freedom as to how you hold your money and what you spend it on. There will always be a limitation and control of your digital assets. 

You will be required to provide information before you can have the wallet.

In the crypto industry, you don’t need permission to own a wallet. 

You don’t need permission to transact. You don’t need permission to receive payment, not even permission from the commercial banks.

Censored Blockchain

While the eNaira uses the hyperledger blockchain, as the blockchain technology upon which the currency is built open, it is a permissioned blockchain.

  It makes it different from crypto that has a permissionless blockchain. Most crypto blockchains operate on a distributed open ledger, as such one person cannot dictate what will be and what will not be on the network.

The eNaira is 100% monitored and regulated by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Well, mining and issuance of coins is the sole responsibility of the reserve bank unless the power is delegated to third parties. 

Investment Reason

One of the beauties and features of Bitcoin is volatility. The volatility brings profit-making opportunities as the forces of demand and supply differences create arbitrage opportunities. 

So, many Nigerians are very interested in Crypto because of the ability to make a profit from the rising and falling of some good coins’ value.

With eNaira, there is no growth opportunity. The coin can only be used for domestic payment and not even a store of value. So, the use cases of eNaira are very few.

 But, people are making money from Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB and AXS due to the fact that they are assets. One good thing about assets is that their value always appreciate. 

Do you like to hold eNaira or crypto? The reason why El Salvador made bitcoin the legal tender is to improve the economy technologically and to protect the assets from the depreciating impact of inflation. 

However, we explained in this article how eNaira can benefit you, check it out here.