Easter Sunday is the most important day in the Bible for the two billion Christians who live on earth. Jesus Christ smashed death with a pump-fake and escaped the tomb.
We celebrate by taking photos with men dressed in bunny outfits and sending kids on treasure hunts to find candy and eggs filled with cash. The holidays are strange.
The resurrection story is etched in my mind as someone who was raised in church. The events leading up to Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion have always been just as fascinating to me as the resurrection.
Judas, one of Jesus’s disciples, betrayed him in the days before his death. To quote Matthew chapter 26:
Then, one of the Twelve, Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and asked them: “What will you give me for him if I hand him over?” They gave him thirty pieces silver. Judas waited for the opportunity to deliver him.
You can get 30 pieces of gold for one of the “best friends” of yours who is also the Son of God. This deal isn’t good, can it?
I was curious to know the current value of 30 silver pieces.
These 30 silver coins would be worth anywhere between $91 to $441 in 2021 dollars depending on their purity.
This is one of the worst investments ever. You’ve probably seen him walk on water or heal blind people. He literally brought back one of his sons from the dead. He was viewed as an existential danger by the religious leaders in Israel. Jesus’ market value must have been at least $300,000.
If you’re the one who is going to commit a betrayal that is so horrendous, your name will become synonymous with “backstabber”, you should be compensated for your treachery. Judas, the disciple treasurer, was not so generous. He thought “Hmm… he is probably worth about $150!” It makes sense.”
The Son of God was literally traded for an Uber ride from JFK into Manhattan rush hour traffic.
Judas made a huge mistake, regardless of his morality or religion. Was this the worst deal in history ? Let’s see.
The Alaska Trade
In the 1740s the Russian Empire claimed Alaska. Their new territory prospered initially in the fur trading. Alexander II, however, realized that Alaska would be hard to defend against the British Empire in case of war.
William Seward, the US Secretary of state, brokered an agreement to purchase Alaska for $7.2M (or $140M dollars in 2021). The US received the deal with a positive reception, as Americans were hoping that Alaska would be used to increase trade with Asia. Some referred to this deal as “Seward’s Folly,” saying that the US acquired useless land.
Alaska was one of the biggest beneficiaries of an industrial revolution that was about to change the world.
Standard Oil was founded by JD Rockefeller in 1859. It would soon become one of the biggest companies in the world.
Oil was the fuel that drove the automobile industry, industrialization in developed countries, and progress.
In 1957, ninety years after Alaska was transferred, we found that it contained the most valuable resource on earth. Alaska will produce 160M barrels of oil in 2021, making it the fourth highest producing state in the US.
It is estimated that the state’s oil reserves are worth billions of dollars, but they were sold last year for less than $1 a barrel.
The Russians have a terrible sense of timing.
Jack Dorsey’s NFT
Sina Estavi, a “crypto-entrepreneur”, made history in March 2021 at the height of the crypto/web3 hype by buying an NFT of Jack Dorsey’s first tweet ( , seen below), for $2.9M.
Estavi, after purchasing his digital artifact told CNBC: ” B By bidding on Jack Dorsey’s first tweet in history and Elon Musk’s NFT, y wanted to highlight the importance of NFTs for the future of crypto- and tech-sphere.
You would pay $2.9M in an instant for the Mona Lisa if you had to. The same logic would apply here, I suppose. Idk.
Sina sold this NFT a year later for $48M. He said he would donate the $25M proceeds to charity. However, the auction ended a week after the listing with only seven bids, ranging between $6 and $277.
Not $277M
Not $277,000.
$277. Period.
Estavi, who was facing a 99.99999% loss on his “investment,” told CoinDesk that he would have said the same thing if he wanted to avoid responsibility for one of the worst financial decisions in the past decade.
I had set a deadline, but I may accept a good deal, or I may never sell the item.
It is a terrible thing.
Yahoo!’s Broadcast Debacle
Mark Cuban, along with Todd Wagner, founded AudioNet.com in 1994 as a way for sports fans to listen to games from other cities via internet radio. They soon expanded their coverage to include presidential elections and other live events. The company rebranded itself as Broadcast.com and went public in 1998 at the height of the Dot Com bubble.
Broadcast stock rose 250% in its first day of being a publicly traded company. It now has a market value over $1B, giving Cuban an estimated net worth $300M.
Yahoo! Broadcast was acquired by Yahoo! Yahoo! At the time, Yahoo!
It was just not worth it. Yahoo! had 570,000 Broadcast.com users in that period. Yahoo! paid $10 for each user in order to acquire a radio broadcasting website. This was not the most economical purchase.
The Dot Com Bubble continued to bubble, and in January 2000, Yahoo! Yahoo! was now worth over $125B and the most valuable company in the world. Cuban was aware that it was a dream come true.
Mark Cuban received his compensation in stock and not cash. He worked with Goldman Sachs on a hedge to protect his wealth should the market crash.
We all know the end of this story. This well-timed hedge allowed Cuban to keep most of his wealth, while Yahoo! Yahoo! shut down its broadcasting services only three years after purchasing Broadcast.com for $5.7B, making it one of the worst acquisitions of all time.
The Manhattan Trade
New York City’s original name was “New Amsterdam,” because the Dutch were the very first colonists to settle in the New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Connecticut areas.
The Dutch bartered with the Lenape tribe as soon as they landed on the east coast of America. The Lenape tribe lived in Manhattan, which was called Manahatta by the natives.
Peter Minuit was the third director at New Netherland. He wanted to legitimize Dutch control of the island and brokered a purchase deal with the Lenape to buy “Manahatta.”
According to urban legend, the island was bought for “$24 worth of trinkets.” However, a letter sent to the East Indian Company shows that it was actually purchased for 60 guilders or $1143 in 2020 dollars.
The total land value in Manhattan is estimated at $1.74T.
This was an awful deal for the local population. Native American tribes did not view property rights the same as Europeans. They likely didn’t know that they had “sold” the land. In 1641, thousands of Lenape tribal members and European settlers were killed in a bloody battle.
Peter Minuit is a real estate legend.
The Bitcoin Pizza Dude
Laszlo Haneycs is the worst deal ever made in history. From Judas to Lenape, no one has been worse than the man who traded his bitcoins for two pizzas.
Bitcoin was not widely known until May 22, 2010 – long before the term “Dogecoin”, “metaverse”, or “metaverse” were ever mentioned. Bitcoin was only known to those who frequented crypto forums like “Bitcointalk.org.”
Mr. Hanyecs and his family wanted some Papa John’s Pizza on that particular day. Laszlo was unable to pay for his pizza at Papa John’s because they wouldn’t accept Bitcoin. He turned to the Internet to find a solution.
Laszlo agreed to pay Jeremy Sturdivant, a 19-year old, 10,000 BTC (or $41 at that time) to deliver two large Pizzas to his home.
Bitcoin has performed well in the past decade. Those 10,000 bitcoins are worth $300,000,000 now. In retrospect, it was not a good move. Sturdivant also didn’t keep the crypto: he used his pizza pay to travel with his girlfriend.
