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by JumpCrisscross 3068 days ago
> If we see a widely traded and daily useful crypto-currency in use for general goods and services, we'll see a deleveraging of the banking system

Based on what? Cryptocurrency markets went from zero to doing practically every financial fraud, scam and deception in the book in a matter of months. Excessive leverage? See Tether. Ponzi scheme? See Bitconnect. Backroom dealing to help the well connected? See Ethereum.

Banks don't lever up, lie about the value of their holdings and borrow short to buy long because they're evil and destructive. They do it because there are massive monetary incentives to do those things. Those same incentives are present in cryptocurrencies. The only difference is the regulators haven't tuned in yet.

> banks are no longer keeping the ledger for society

Banking laws would be updated to regulate Coinbase, Bitfinex, et cetera.

1 comments

Not sure what is your point, could you open a bit?
Cryptocurrencies have prompted central trusted parties which have done everything we don't like banks doing times ten. If cryptocurrencies take over, which is a big if, we'll probably see the same people forming similar institutions with similar behaviors and similar regulators. This isn't because of some unseen conspiracy. It's because banks do the banks things they do because they're incentivized to do them. Those same incentives apply to cryptocurrency exchanges, wallet services, payment processors, et cetera.