Neuroscientist studying all things reinforcement learning.

Dr. Craig Taswell retweeted
Replying to @Wale
@Wale album “Everything is a lot” will go down as one of the best. Shit is honestly amazing….. this shit delivers on all levels!!!!!!
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Dr. Craig Taswell retweeted
At @River you earn 3.3% interest on your USD paid in BTC. Meanwhile big banks pay you pennies while they rake in record profits.
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Dr. Craig Taswell retweeted
This is why banks oppose stablecoin yield. If stablecoins pay interest, deposits leave banks. That means less leverage, less lending, and less profit. Blocking yield is solely about protecting the banking model.
Stablecoins are better than banks. But this part of CLARITY ACT sets rules around when stablecoin yield is allowed. It prohibits digital asset service providers from paying interest/yield when the only condition is holding a stablecoin. But it does not apply to rewards that are tied to specific actions. Incentives connected to actions like transactions, transfers or settlements, wallet or application use, and participation in loyalty programs. The effect is to separate passive balance based yield from activity based rewards. Stablecoins can still generate returns when they are used within a network or application, but not when they are held idle. If this sticks, they would not be permitted to function as interest bearing instruments in the same way as deposit accounts. Banks see what’s coming and this blocks competition.
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Dr. Craig Taswell retweeted
“As the Senate Banking Committee prepares to mark up a crypto market structure bill, Congress should remember that the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank was not an accident – it was a preview. That failure exposed how crypto-linked deposits, digital-speed bank runs and opaque markets can overwhelm regulators before risks are visible.” This framing is deeply misleading. The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank was not a “preview” of crypto risk – it was a textbook example of traditional banking failure. SVB didn’t fail because regulators couldn’t see the risks. The risks were obvious, documented, and measurable – massive exposure to long-duration Treasuries, unhedged interest-rate risk, and extreme deposit concentration. When rates rose, the losses were already locked in. That isn’t opacity. That’s incompetence. Labeling this a “digital-speed bank run” is a convenient distraction. Speed didn’t cause the collapse – fragility did. Fractional reserve banking has always been vulnerable to runs because banks borrow short and lend long while holding only a fraction of deposits in reserve. That structural weakness existed long before smartphones or crypto. Technology didn’t create it – it exposed it. Every major banking panic in history happened without crypto, without mobile apps, and without real-time settlement. The mechanism is unchanged. Confidence breaks, withdrawals follow, leverage is exposed. Blaming the clock instead of the structure avoids the real issue. The reference to “crypto-linked deposits” is equally disingenuous. SVB was overwhelmingly a tech and venture capital bank. Crypto exposure was marginal and immaterial to its balance sheet. And Signature Bank – repeatedly cited to support this narrative – didn’t collapse at all. It was solvent, met capital requirements, and was operating normally until regulators shut it down on a Sunday to send a message. That was a policy decision, not a market failure. Conflating offshore frauds like FTX with regulated U.S. banks that failed due to duration risk and regulatory blind spots is not serious analysis. It’s narrative construction designed to justify a predetermined policy outcome. If Congress actually wants to prevent future crises, the focus should be on interest-rate risk management, deposit concentration, regulatory failure, and the inherent instability of fractional reserve banking. Scapegoating crypto avoids those hard conversations – and ensures the same mistakes get repeated. SVB wasn’t a warning about crypto. It was a warning about how fragile the legacy banking system still is – and how quickly that reality gets rewritten when it becomes politically inconvenient. Lest we forget, the anti-crypto army is alive and well - and gaining renewed momentum.
Shame on you @SenBlumenthal. Blaming crypto for the SVB and Signature collapses is either ignorant or willfully dishonest. Those banks "failed" because of massive interest-rate risk, duration mismatches, and bad balance-sheet management - not Bitcoin, not Ethereum, not “contagion.” Rewriting history to score political points doesn’t make the financial system safer. It just exposes how unserious this argument is. foxnews.com/opinion/sen-rich…
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Dr. Craig Taswell retweeted
Shame on you @SenBlumenthal. Blaming crypto for the SVB and Signature collapses is either ignorant or willfully dishonest. Those banks "failed" because of massive interest-rate risk, duration mismatches, and bad balance-sheet management - not Bitcoin, not Ethereum, not “contagion.” Rewriting history to score political points doesn’t make the financial system safer. It just exposes how unserious this argument is. foxnews.com/opinion/sen-rich…
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Dr. Craig Taswell retweeted
Most people have never heard of the Cantillon Effect. But once you understand it, you’ll see the world of investing differently. What is it? In the early 1700s, Richard Cantillon noticed a simple pattern: When new money enters an economy, it doesn’t reach everyone at once. And whoever gets it first benefits the most. Here’s how it works today: New liquidity enters through the Fed and through bank lending. Both follow a similar pattern: → Markets and large balance sheets get first access → Large corporations and well-connected borrowers tap cheap credit next, they invest and expand at today’s prices → Asset prices tend to rise as new liquidity chases finite assets → Consumer prices often follow → Wages rise last, usually after purchasing power has already declined Fed data shows how lopsided the playing field is: - The top 10% hold nearly 90% of equities. - The bottom 50% holds about 1%. It’s a simple but powerful monetary transmission. Understanding this won’t change the system. But it might change how you think about where to store your savings. For those of you who don't know, I write all about topics like this every week in The Informationist. Last week, we dove deep on this one. Link in bio if you want to read the full explanation.
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Dr. Craig Taswell retweeted
Can yall watch this and stream belly right after .. we creeping up them charts wit HIPHOP in real time
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Dr. Craig Taswell retweeted
Feel that? That’s the system splitting at the seams.
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Dr. Craig Taswell retweeted
(11/n) Would appreciate any discussion or feedback! My special thanks to the co-authors @VincentCostaPhd , @CT333 , @k_rothenhoefer , @BrunoAverbeck , @ali_r_soltani who have made this work possible
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Dr. Craig Taswell retweeted
Excited to finally share this preprint on bioRxiv! Here we uncover a novel role of amygdala in reinforcement learning (RL), within the framework of arbitration between competing models of the environment: doi.org/10.1101/2024.09.13.6… (1/n)
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"F*ck you and all your expectations I don't even want your congratulations..."
Kendrick Lamar Mídias
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Dr. Craig Taswell retweeted
Kendrick really dropped . Sometimes you have to take a step back and really thank God for being able to live during the same time as someone like him . Kendrick continues to be a role model when all the other models fell for the role . What a blessing . The Elohim .
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Dr. Craig Taswell retweeted
So here is the thing about guidelines. If all you ever do is follow them then you’ll never discover anything new. Guidelines are not rules…for a reason. And using them to cocoon yourself in a false sense of confidence/knowledge is a path to mediocrity.
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Dr. Craig Taswell retweeted
#SfN23📣 Excited to present my PhD project on role of amygdala in reinforcement learning: I’ll discuss how impairment due to amygdala lesions can be conceived as deficits in reliability-based arbitration process. Special thanks to @VincentCostaPhd @CT333 for help with datasets!
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Dr. Craig Taswell retweeted
The August issue of Behavioral Neuroscience is out!!! psycnet.apa.org/PsycARTICLES… including exciting new work on the roles of amygdala and ventral striatum in gains and losses. doi.org/10.1037/bne0000558
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Dr. Craig Taswell retweeted
Without a moral compass, most people will justify anything.
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Dr. Craig Taswell retweeted
As requested . Tonight
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Dr. Craig Taswell retweeted
Good point
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Dr. Craig Taswell retweeted
Give people the rope, they’re either gonna climb it or hang themselves.
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Dr. Craig Taswell retweeted
You may not always get what you see. Interested to know why? Join Mark Walton and your ViDA community to learn and hear about asymmetric reporting and updating value by dopamine during inference-guided choice.
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