Crypto

A headline jumped out at me the other day: World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee calls crypto ‘dangerous’ and likens it to gambling The key points he made in an interview with CNBC are: Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, called cryptocurrency “dangerous” and likened it to gambling. Discussing the future of…

Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, the cryptocurrency exchange preferred by many, was interviewed by Bloomberg[1]. I’ve selected a number of key comments he made, as this feeds well into my arguments about DeFi (Decentralised Finance) versus CeFi (Centralised Finance). All commentary below is direct from Brian: … One in five households have used crypto, about 50…

I often return to a theme: where’s my guarantee? Where’s my backup? After the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank during the past week, it begs the question: where’s my guarantee? Where’s my backup? After losing money on MtGox ten years ago: where’s my guarantee? Where’s my backup? With the failure of FTX and Terra-Luna: where’s…

It made me smile when watching Billions during an exchange between Chuck Rhoades (the Attorney General) and a bitcoin miner in Episode 1 of Series 5 (nerdy). Bitcoin miner: "What's the dollar backed by, since we went off the gold standard?" Legislator: "Roads, the military, industry, the credit of the federal government, that sort of…

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) are getting more and more active about stablecoins and crypto assets. In a letter to G20 ministers published yesterday,  FSB Chair Klaas Knot Many said that many existing stablecoins would not meet the “high-level” recommendations to be set by global standard setters like the FSB. This is related to the…

The Wall Street Journal reports that Paxos,  a company focused upon stablecoins, has been issued with a notice they are to be sued by the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS). Sources cited by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) say the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) plans to sue Paxos for violating investor…

I posted a quote the other day on social media, remembering the old bank robber in America, Willie Sutton. You may not have heard of him, as it is almost a century ago but, during his forty-year robbery career, he stole an estimated $2 million. Today that would be around $35 million. He then spent…

I’ve enjoyed the rise and rise of the Libertarian dream of ungoverned finance. In 2022, facing the reckoning, it’s now quite funny to see the Libertarians saying we need regulations. As I’ve always said: you cannot have money without governance. The challenge here however is what governance? Do we need central banks and nations to…

Just when you think that cryptocurrencies are unregulated and ridiculous, the industry spends four years to work out a set of standards to ensure trust. Who would have thought it? Global cryptoasset standards This set of global principles of good practice in the Global Cryptoasset Standards has been developed to provide a common set of…

After 2022’s bloodbath of the crypto world where so many firms were lost – FTX, Celsius, Terra, Three Arrows Capital, Voyager and Vauld to name just a few – this year will be sorting out the mess. Regulations will come to the crypto markets as will consolidation and organisation. It’s interesting that Coin Market Cap…