Peter Cresswell

There was a great tweet by @sassal0x about the progress that Ethereum has made since 2017 when it first hit the price of $150. What’s different since we last hit this price? A lot. Ether first hit $150 on May 22nd 2017 - how has the Ethereum network grown since then? pic.twitter.com/woggzoXLkk — Anthony Sassano (@sassal0x) April 5, 2019 Price is not progress. Progress is progress. And by many different measures, Ethereum is showing great progress.

Today was a wild day for the crypto currency markets. At this point, swings of $100 USD for Ether are starting to become more common which is bonkers since the price of Ether at “closing” today was about $400 or so. Ethereum is starting to bite into Bitcoin’s market share, both in the financial sense and in the attention space. Even Vladimir Putin seems to be getting interested. I’ve been a huge believer (and decent ETH holder) in the project since I heard about it a few years back. It’s going to radically change the world (side note; I’ve never said this about other projects before so I’m not some kool aid drinker by heart). Today’s volatility can be gut wrenching to watch in real time and I’ve certainly stepped back from the console on a couple of occasions to avoid motion sickness. But if you ask yourself if Ether will be worth more 5 years from now the answer is certainly a huge “Yes”.

Home Capital Group has been in the news lately, mostly due to its stock crashing over 60% in one day. I guess that sort of thing will get you in the news. The cause of the crash? HCG announced that it had secured a $2 billion loan with terms that would make the most predatory loan shark blush. Home Capital said the credit line is intended to “mitigate” a sharp drop in Home Trust’s high-interest savings account balances, which sank by $591 million from March 28 to April 24, at which point the total balance was $1.4 billion. Home Capital warned on Wednesday that further outflows are anticipated.

The Toronto housing market is in the middle of a complete core meltdown at the moment with housing prices rising some 30% or more across the city year over year. That’s insane and clearly has nothing to do with the meager wage increases people may have recently seen. At the same time, the Ontario Liberals have been in power for what seems like forever at this point to most in Ontario. The leader, Kathleen Wynne, has an approval rating that is orders of magnitude less than Trump. Mostly that’s a reflection of Ontario’s desire for change at this point since Kathleen really hasn’t been leader of the party long enough to justify that kind of thrashing.

The Toronto housing situation - the great, big bubble staring everyone in the face (or, at least, all those who aren’t paid to ignore it) is starting to show signs of its age. Predicting the exact moment of it’s potentially explosive demise is a fool’s game. But the symptoms are piling up. Here are just a few of them that have come to mind recently. The rich are nervous and frustrated One of my clients works in the health care space directly with well paid individuals. Mostly doctors. It’s not uncommon for conversations to turn to housing and what my client hears is mostly groans about a lack of affordable options and constantly being outbid in bidding wars.