Ben Ersing

Ben Ersing

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Ben Ersing

Longer form, largely unedited takes.

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Ben Ersing
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Stablecoins Emerged in 1904

Blog iconBen Ersing
Apr 18

Stablecoins have effectively existed since 1904 when Panama adopted the U.S. Dollar as its official currency. Since then, numerous other countries have "dollarized" to various extents - today the USD is the primary currency in 8 countries, and 21 widely accept it for day-to-day purchases. For the most part, dollarization has done its job: no "money printer go, brrr" (see articles by Harvard and The World Bank for more), but it can be a charged topic for some. In 2008 I was living in Ecuador (...

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Curiosity Will Eat the World

Blog iconBen Ersing
Apr 18

Early-stage founders and investors take big swings on highly experimental concepts. If these bets succeed, they unlock massive potential. Even if they don’t, they generate uniquely valuable learnings that compound over time. These accumulated insights create a sustainable competitive edge - one that becomes more powerful with each new experiment. We call this “pattern matching.” Historically, this hard-won wisdom was closely guarded with insights shared realtime in private settings in the for...

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Quick Take: The Wedge for Web3 in Healthcare

Blog iconBen Ersing
Mar 26

For over a decade, I’ve worked across the health-tech landscape - first as an operator, now on the investing side. One trigger I’ve long watched for is a U.S. government-backed stablecoin or CBDC - a sign of legitimacy and emerging regulatory clarity that could finally open the door for web3 to begin to take hold in healthcare. That door is now beginning to crack open. Here are a few early thoughts: My take is slightly contrarian: onchain health records and tokenized patient data are tarpit i...