A very rare watch sold for $1.5 million at auction a few days ago, a 14-karat gold heirloom belonging to John Jacob Astor IV, the man who opened the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Manhattan and died on the Titanic. His pocket watch, along with his body, was discovered shortly after the disaster. The man purchasing Astor’s timepiece was Patrick Grunh, a cryptocurrency entrepreneur and former top FTX executive. He intends the watch as a gift for his wife, a history enthusiast and Titanic obsessive. “She’s always been keen to own some piece of it,” he told me. 

Grunh’s acquisition comes awash in irony—the survivor of an infamous corporate shipwreck buying a souvenir from a famous actual shipwreck. (And somehow the watch still works!) What’s even more amusing is his general stance on investing: Grunh, a man deeply enmeshed in the #Crypto world, owns very little cryptocurrency: just a small sum in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, the ETF launched by Barry Silbert. And he has never held any interest in digital art and non-fungible tokens. “I have never really understood those collections that sold for several millions per piece, where you have nothing to look at and no history—nothing,” he said. 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-auction-pocket-watch-richest-passenger-john-jacob-astor-iv/

Timepiece Tribe ⏳

Gold pocket watch found on body of Titanic's richest passenger sells for record $1.46 million

Crypto

A very rare watch sold for $1.5 million at auction a few days ago, a 14-karat gold heirloom belonging to John Jacob Astor IV, the man who opened the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Manhattan and died on the Titanic. His pocket watch, along with his body, was discovered shortly after the disaster. The man purchasing Astor’s timepiece was Patrick Grunh, a cryptocurrency entrepreneur and former top FTX executive. He intends the watch as a gift for his wife, a history enthusiast and Titanic obsessive. “She’s always been keen to own some piece of it,” he told me.   Grunh’s acquisition comes awash in irony—the survivor of an infamous corporate shipwreck buying a souvenir from a famous actual shipwreck. (And somehow the watch still works!) What’s even more amusing is his general stance on investing: Grunh, a man deeply enmeshed in the #Crypto world, owns very little cryptocurrency: just a small sum in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, the ETF launched by Barry Silbert. And he has never held any interest in digital art and non-fungible tokens. “I have never really understood those collections that sold for several millions per piece, where you have nothing to look at and no history—nothing,” he said.   https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-auction-pocket-watch-richest-passenger-john-jacob-astor-iv/

Todd Smith

Is it ironic and or telling that Grunh has preferred to buy physical assets, like real estate, and collect historic artifacts?  At his Oregon home, he proudly displays a prized woolly rhinoceros skull, a cave bear’s skeleton and the remains of a juvenile Edmontosaurus, a T. Rex–era dinosaur. “Mostly we invest in things with the expectations that in 30, 40 years—if our kids ever need to sell it—then it is something that still has value,” he said. 

Here’s another amusing thought: Think about the endearing legacy left by Astor—and the Titanic. More than 100 years since the unsinkable ocean liner sank, Astor’s watch is worth seven figures. It couldn’t have been more than a trifle to him. He died at age 47 with a fortune worth $3 billion in today’s dollars. 

Now consider how history will likely treat FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who earned far greater wealth much faster. When FTX collapsed, Bankman-Fried, then 29, had amassed a roughly $25 billion fortune nearly overnight. Of course, Bankman-Fried’s fortune was illusory, and both his net worth and his company’s worth went to zero when FTX collapsed. 

Wealth, power, influence. Someone can amass so much more, so much faster today in such huge quantities—and lose it just as fast. That’s the internet age, with speed measured by keyboard strokes, not the movements of a pocket watch. Yet it can also feel so much less substantial—it’s all just digital ether. Time will tell, of course, as it always does, but it’s hard to imagine SBF’s shorts selling for $1.5 million a century from now.

Is it ironic and or telling that Grunh has preferred to buy physical assets, like real estate, and collect historic artifacts?  At his Oregon home, he proudly displays a prized woolly rhinoceros skull, a cave bear’s skeleton and the remains of a juvenile Edmontosaurus, a T. Rex–era dinosaur. “Mostly we invest in things with the expectations that in 30, 40 years—if our kids ever need to sell it—then it is something that still has value,” he said.   Here’s another amusing thought: Think about the endearing legacy left by Astor—and the Titanic. More than 100 years since the unsinkable ocean liner sank, Astor’s watch is worth seven figures. It couldn’t have been more than a trifle to him. He died at age 47 with a fortune worth $3 billion in today’s dollars.   Now consider how history will likely treat FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who earned far greater wealth much faster. When FTX collapsed, Bankman-Fried, then 29, had amassed a roughly $25 billion fortune nearly overnight. Of course, Bankman-Fried’s fortune was illusory, and both his net worth and his company’s worth went to zero when FTX collapsed.   Wealth, power, influence. Someone can amass so much more, so much faster today in such huge quantities—and lose it just as fast. That’s the internet age, with speed measured by keyboard strokes, not the movements of a pocket watch. Yet it can also feel so much less substantial—it’s all just digital ether. Time will tell, of course, as it always does, but it’s hard to imagine SBF’s shorts selling for $1.5 million a century from now.

Todd Smith

A group of likeminded people in Crypto are talking about this.