Is there a difference between a Painting and a Crypto Token?

Don't misunderstand me. I went to any number of Art Museums and Exhibitions. Love to see great paintings of all ages. But looking at the latest Mondrian painting that just got auctioned for $US 51 Million I start to wonder.

What is really the difference between a painting like this one and a crypto token like Bitcoin? Why is the world so obsessed with originals when any decent art school graduate could replicate the Mondrian quite easily?

I don't have the answer, only the question. Maybe you readers make some comment that helps me understand this better.

Beware of Financial Engineering!

When Times are good it is easy to forget Warren Buffett's famous dictum: "Derivatives are weapons of mass destruction". Recent turmoil in the UK Gilts market demonstrated that Financial Engineering (better called alchemy) has its limitations. And how much did the Pension trustees really understand when LDI was proposed as the magic solution? It just shows that the Quality of your Advisers is crucial for Investment success.

Don't get suckered by 'Celebrities' pushing NFTs

 17 Celebrities Just Got Warning Letters About Shilling NFTs

No reason to panic yet!

No reason to panic yet. While the short-term charts may appear to be horrible the long-term trend is still intact. This is a logarithmic chart of the S&P 500 and it shows that is still well within the uptrend. On the other hand, you can also see that there were quite long multi-year periods in the 1970s and between 2000 and 2012 where the Index moved sideways and the only return investors made derived from dividends.

The Importance of keeping Fees low in Low-Return Investment Era