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Hello, I'm Sam Holmes and welcome to Spectator Out Loud. Every week, a few of our favorite writers read their pieces from the latest issue.

This week we'll hear from Martin Vander Weir on the Crash of Crypto,

Laurie Graham on the difficulties of downsizing, and Michael Mosbucker, on the history of the fur industry.

First up, Martin Vanderweer.

Crypto Crash explained what goes up must come down. Market turmoil looks set as the theme of the week.

So let's take a close look at a trading arena more prone to mayhem than most.

Why has Bitcoin lost half its value since November?

First, I could make a case that since crypto investment has become at least a small part of many mainstream portfolios,

its prices tend to respond to the same signals that influence conventional share indices, rather than following fantasy flight paths of their own.

So just as Futsi and NASDAQ investors are seriously rattled by the prospect of war in Ukraine on top of existing fears about interest rate rises and tighter money,

so crypto fans are also naturally nervous.

And when tech fanciers are losing money on stocks such as Netflix and Peloton, the maker of

digitally connected exercise bikes, which led a sell-off of former lockdown winners at the end of last week.

So Bitcoin holders, likely in many cases to be the very same people, are cashing out too.

That applies especially to the sort of higher-risk punters who face margin calls when their

bets turn bad. Added to all this, I could point out

that Bitcoin trading and mining, which consumes insane quantities of electricity to power the

computers that generate new Bitcoin units, is already banned in China, that Russia looks

likely to follow suit soon, and that President Erdogan of Turkey, whose citizens have gone crazy

for crypto, says his government is at war with the whole concept. Only our old friend President Naib Buckele of El Salvador

is swimming the other way. Having recently declared Bitcoin to be legal tender, he invested another

...