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I think for me the disconnect is that in developed financial systems most of these points are not a big issue or not even desirable given current regulation and
by RandomLensman 5y ago
I think for me the disconnect is that in developed financial systems most of these points are not a big issue or not even desirable given current regulation and supervision.
Few examples: (i) immutable data can clash with privacy laws, (ii) double spend is generally not a problem in centralized systems, (iii) distributed ledgers means you don't have full control of your books and records, (iv) ownerless contracts cause problems with KYC/CFT/AML/sanctions, (v) there are still courts and government force that can compel people to do things etc. ...
In order to really use these it would need a sizeable shift on how the financial structure looks like. That might happen but a lot of what I see is just a fast run through the best errors in finance over the last hundred years. For example, I see mispriced contracts because people don't understand forwards, free options being giving away etc., stuff that to me (not a lawyer) looks like ignoring securities laws, ...
I am not totally bearish on some of these ideas and technologies, but right now I think they are used and envisioned too narrowly by trying just to replace things that are often poorly understood. Example: I think the idea of making market making directly investable is great (i.e. not just being shares of an investment bank or similar). There are probably real applications outside of crypto (index components vs ETF maybe). Similarly, for DeFi to really "make it", I think it needs to be able to do unsecured lending.
- jiriknesl 5y agoI think your points prove the motivation lots of cryptocurrency authors have. They don't want politicians and bankers to set the rules. They want developers to set the rules. So they build systems enabling ideas they stand behind. Just like with open source. I guess if there were no open source, all operating systems would have backdoors, strong cryptography would be banned, we would have very strict software patents, etc. Everyone would be in a cage built by politicians & closed source devs. As we're now in the financial system. Cryptocurrencies, in ideal situation, should serve as open source counterpart to closed source world.