Ian R. Cohen

IRC Legal Business Brief: For the Kids

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Date:

March 24, 2026

Author:

Ian R. Cohen

Principal

The speed at which everything moves today. We are frogs in boiling water. Jaded by technological advances, we see something amazing released and five minutes later wonder why it can't do more.

In Block No. 02 we explore old systems and their scarcity, new systems and their abundance, and one protocol that ties them together.

Business - Secure Your Bank Accounts

I've seen this play out more times than I should. Two partners have a dispute. One of them runs to the bank and empties the account. Hundreds of thousands, gone.

Now you may be thinking this is illegal or even criminal. But the police won't be helpful with what they view as a business dispute. If your partner is on the bank account and can legally withdraw funds, you could be in for a lengthy process before seeing that money again. This could lead to major business disruption: missing payroll, missing rent. Think about when your debit card has been hacked. How quickly did the bank help you recover your funds?

If you find yourself in this situation, here are the immediate steps you should take:

Lock down any other assets your partner may have access to;
Document everything; and
Consult with an attorney who can help you review company documents for rights and remedies.

The real solution is planning before the dispute happens. Operating agreements should clearly address partner departures, valuation methods, and transfer restrictions. Buy-sell provisions, control mechanics, and indemnification provisions are all relevant. Waiting until funds disappear is the worst time to learn what your documents say.

If you built quickly and are now scaling, it's time to review your partnership documents and install real safeguards. New solutions, like digital wallets with multi-signature setups, are also viable options.

If this is something you need to address, call me and I will talk through it with you.

AI - Abundance

Digital abundance has been happening for decades. Music, books and pictures used to require physical forms. Tapes and CDs, paper, film. Only one person could possess each item at a time. Expensive and bulky equipment were needed to produce and consume. But now streams, downloads and social media shares happen with a click. The device in your pocket is your mobile command center.

Information condensed from massive libraries where the Dewey Decimal system reigned supreme, to “untrustworthy” Google and Wikipedia searches. Now people take their chatbot’s word for it.

Beyond impacting the arts with expert image and music generation, AI is upending professions and industries. We are quickly moving past the phase where AI is passively waiting to respond. Rapidly from here you will be able to send it off into the world on its own to conduct unlimited tasks.

People are seeking to create full digital workforces. Spinning up sales, marketing, finance and customer service teams without human capital and overhead. As these processes become sharper, the cost and friction of doing business will decrease. Where does that leave you?

Don’t sit idle. In the last week I started using Claude Cowork. Impressive in its capabilities, it can create and update documents and Excel files on its own with minimal prompting. Without any coding experience whatsoever, I was able to use it to build a simple tap game in minutes.

A large contingent of people are being dragged into this new era. Many will ignore it. Others will try to prevent it. Legislators in New York are already seeking to suppress these new capabilities by looking to ban chatbots from providing legal or medical advice.

AI is the Infinite Era. Ideas and execution previously out of reach without full teams and a multi-million dollar Series A round are now possible and soon to be the norm.

Bitcoin - Scarcity

While AI presents potentially unlimited opportunities, Bitcoin is engineered scarcity. With a finite cap of 21 million: Bitcoin is the zig while everything else zags.

Nations and central banks will continue to increase the money supply unabated for various reasons. But Bitcoin’s supply is already predetermined to slow to a grinding halt. As of March 9, 2026, only 1 million more will be produced on a stable and predictable schedule until 2140.

If AI causes the cost of production and consumption to decrease dramatically, it will be problematic for economies that have relied on increased inflation and debts for decades. When prices drop, tax revenues drop, and deficits explode.

In parallel, AI doesn’t just deflate prices, it displaces workers. Governments will step in. This is one reason the concept of Universal Basic Income (UBI) is making another comeback. But what is the value of the dollar if everyone receives a set amount for simply existing?

No longer an experimental software, Bitcoin holds the fuzzy math accountable. It holds governments accountable. This monetary network is an atomic clock providing absolute certainty. Bitcoin is a check and balance on the Infinite Era.

If dollars are a melting ice cube, Bitcoin is the ice bucket.

IRC - The Life and Times

I remember the sound of the world before it was always ‘on.’ The screech of a dial-up modem. A gatekeeper that reminded us the digital world was a place you visited, not a place you lived. That was my childhood. Untethered, slower, and more predictable.

I’m raising three boys in a world that looks nothing like the one that raised me. My wife and I feel the tension every day. How much technology? How soon and what does it cost them if we get it wrong? Policing screen time while one of the first words from our one-year-old was “phone” as he reached for the device in my hand. There’s no playbook for parenting at the most consequential technological threshold in history.

The advice that made me successful will ruin them. I tried to capture this in a letter to my kids. Why they need to think differently today and what it means to stay human in a digital world. It’s in The Links below.