
Thomas Jefferson was so deeply in debt after years of using leverage against his land to fund a lavish lifestyle that he resorted to auctioning off Monticello by selling ~11,000 tickets for $10 each (~$2-3MM today), turning his entire estate into a lottery He died before things played out and Monticello was sold to pay creditors Those identifying with the permanent underclass saw this as a shot at escaping. The idea of "hypergambling into elite status" dates back to the inception of the United States and continues to show up in markets and culture, manifesting itself into what we see as the hyperfinancialization of quite literally everything It’s one of the primary reasons I remain optimistic on crypto and speculation in general (beyond adoption of crypto rails) It’s the most efficient large scale lottery/casino we’ve seen in decades, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon















