Crypto, right now, is to finance as fantasy football is to football Paypal and Square aren't banks... but they are regulated under securities law and the thing

Crypto, right now, is to finance as fantasy football is to football Paypal and Square aren't banks... but they are regulated under securities law and the things they do are not nearly as crazy as the things that the "real" banks do with money behind the scenes. I think that's cool; the regulations are there for a reason. The regulations are there because they underpin the promises made by society. Like, you put stuff in your 401k and you get to retire one day. That's a big promise and the paperwork is justified. Regulation is a sort of "guard labour" which society puts in place to ensure the system is legible, or comprehensible on some level. It doesn't work too well, but it's the best we've got. I'd be OK with a world where there is "regulated" crypto and "unregulated" crypto, and on the unregulated sort you can lose all your money and that's fine and maybe nobody goes to jail. But the regulated money can't cross over into that place (e.g. GME can't make huge bets on it, you know your retirement funds won't end up there by stealth).