Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by discodave 1514 days ago
This blog post goes off the rails in the second sentence.

> The crypto movement, the very rebellion that set out to defeat [WallSt/TheFed] hegemony, has provided them with the necessary new-age tech to enhance their existing order.

Like what tech do banks or the government need from the crypto crowd? Trading has been electronic for decades, the credit card networks are orders of magnitude more scalable than any blockchain, ACH exists.
4 comments
ryanSrich 1514 days ago
> The crypto movement, the very rebellion that set out to defeat [WallSt/TheFed] hegemony, has provided them with the necessary new-age tech to enhance their existing order.

While a bit hyperbolic, Satoshi did talk about the fragility of the financial system as the core driver behind inventing Bitcoin. It's even enshrined in the genesis block [1][2][3].

1. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block 2. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=52706 3. https://www.blockchain.com/btc/block/000000000019d6689c085ae...

link
coolspot 1514 days ago
They need retail FOMO and Crypto gives that. Probably less than 0.1% cares of underlying cryptography and computer science. Regular people are buying Shiba&Doge coins and NFTs to become rich quick.

Paypal, Coinbase, Crypto.com, Robinhood are all supporting that by hyping this “innovative investment” in their ads and providing easy way in.

link
outworlder 1514 days ago
They do not 'need' anything. Apparently there's some utility for a cryptographically signed ledger, but I suspect that's a 'blockchain' in name only.

EDIT: I remember some banking 'crypto' projects announced by several institutions across the globe. Whether they are real projects or just a way to try to attract investments by pitching the latest fad, I do not know.

link
______-_-______ 1514 days ago
One is mentioned in the article, JPMorgan's Onyx. But as always, if your system is not open to the public and doesn't need to protect against hostile actors, the overhead of a blockchain is a waste. The technology that JPMorgan is looking for is called... a database.
link
melony 1514 days ago
Political momentum to migrate to newer technologies while bypassing compliance and regulatory requirements. Most of the banking "distributed" ledgers are so siloed that the number of parties running the nodes can be counted on one to two hands.
link