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Bill to grant crypto firms access to Federal Reserve alarms experts

Infernal 4y ago
Bit of title gore here, I was thinking of the security experts that must run the alarm systems at the Fed (what with their precious metal holdings and all) and wondering why access to those experts would be blocked and why crypto companies would need alarms experts anyway…
throwaway4good 4y ago
https://archive.ph/efCrd https://archive.ph/efCrd
kwatsonafter 4y ago
I'm honestly a little surprised that cryptospace is even still a thing at this point. No practical uses. Grift. Scams. This is the banking schemes of the 1800s played out with modern machines and cryptography. I genuinely feel sorry for all those people that got rich quick from BitCoin and now are going to have to go back to being, "not rich." Worse yet a critical mass of people still desperately holding on could bolster the price long enough to stall a complete failing of cryptocurrency markets outright. Who know magic computers monopoly money without government oversight would backfire on everyone? I guess sometimes your velociraptors turn on you.
- sprash 4y ago
  The real scam are central banks. Bitcoin is an attempt to make them obsolete. But if I were a central bank desperately clinging to power and with the ability to create and destroy money with the press of the button I would make bitcoin seem as unstable as possible. The price is the only thing they can manipulate at this point. The fundamentals are solid.
  - paulgb 4y ago
    It’s funny how unflinchingly the narrative shifted from “bitcoin is an inflation hedge outside of government control” to “the government is manipulating the price of bitcoin through inflation”
    - thr0wawayf00 4y ago
      And it completely ignores the bubble that the crypto world created through things like NFTs, whose only value to their owners is the promise that they'll be worth more tomorrow. It's just the digital incarnation of Beanie Babies.
      - sprash 4y ago
        The "everything bubble" which also affected crpyto was created by central banks with the various QE programs and the relentless money printing. Don't blame crypto for creating a bubble.
        thr0wawayf00 4y ago
        You can absolutely blame crypto for creating the NFT bubble. The banks flooded the economy with cash but they didn't tell everyone to start buying NFTs. All of these exchanges, stablecoins and crypto-derivative products were built solely on the self-propagating hype that needed the cheap cash flowing into the system. The banks didn't tell anyone to go buy crypto, the crypto companies did, which effectively tied the performance of the crypto market to the stock market because the average consumer saw crypto as a more enticing speculative investment, not a currency. If the crypto community was as focused on the fundamentals as you argue, there would be a lot more conversations around not allowing these billion-dollar exchanges creating derivative products with unsustainable rates to capture the market. But they did and the crypto world is where it is today because of it. The Fed may have cut the trees down, but the crypto community threw them in a pile, doused them in gas and set the whole thing on fire and it wound up burning out of control. How do you blame the Fed for the fire?
    - kkielhofner 4y ago
      A partial list of narrative shifts after each use case/benefit proved to be infeasible: - Digital cash (volatility, transaction rate, gas fees, etc). Only potential counter argument here is Lightning which essentially compromises on many of the original design goals of Bitcoin and comes with its own set of issues[1] PLUS still has the pesky volatility problem - Store of value (Volatility) - Inflation hedge (Volatility, essentially tracks other markets) - Outside government control (Law enforcement and tax authorities routinely seize, tax, and disrupt cryptocurrencies). There is the “fleeing a dictator” scenario but that’s a very limited use case that in no way supports the current market value. - Banking the unbanked, remittances (See El Salvador [2]). Money quote from the article: “There is no experiment where a currency was introduced with such strong incentives and still failed,” Fernando Álvarez, an economist at the University of Chicago I feel like registering “whatarewecallingbitcointoday.com” or some such to track these. 1 - https://medium.com/bitcoin-blockchain/lightning-network-on-btc-is-a-dead-end-even-if-it-works-as-claimed-d550d17053b1 https://medium.com/bitcoin-blockchain/lightning-network-on-b... 2 - https://restofworld.org/2022/el-salvador-chivo-bitcoin-wallet/ https://restofworld.org/2022/el-salvador-chivo-bitcoin-walle...
  - kelnos 4y ago
    If Bitcoin's price is subject to manipulation like this, then the fundamentals are definitely not solid. If you want to replace central banks with something that isn't under control of governments, I'd think that a central feature of that thing would have to be that it can't be manipulated by governments. Seems like Bitcoin fails that test, if what you are saying is true.
    - Sebguer 4y ago
      Exactly, either you're a threat to governments and thus need to treat them as adversarial, or you're not. Crypto is in no way safe from state actors, unless those state actors are profiting from it.
      - sprash 4y ago
        The government collects taxes denominated in USD which is enforced with violence. This is why USD is in demand. As soon as this (in case of income tax even unconstitutional) collection mechanism by force fails the dollar becomes worthless over night.
        ntoskrnl 4y ago
        We might find out if that's true soon enough. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/23/tax-return-backlog-is-crushing-the-irs-as-pileup-exceeds-21-million.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/23/tax-return-backlog-is-crushi...
        tsimionescu 4y ago
        You really need to look into the history of currency of you truly believe any of this. Currency is worth something because other people are willing to trade it for something useful at a stable exchange rate. Now, having a central bank that controls the currency, and a government that enforces that control, can help protect the stability that gives that currency value in times of economic instability, but that's only occasional interference. We know this because, in the past when states were weaker and less able to do this, huge swaths of people ignored their state currency, more or less, and used other states' currencies, ones that were more trustworthy (counterfeiting used to be a serious concern) and stable. Even today there are countries where people are in practice using the US dollar as their currency, ignoring local official currencies, simply because the dollar is recognizable and its price is extremely stable compared to their official legal tender. How does this square with your theory that the dollar would lose all value overnight if the US government stopped requiring it?
  - timmytokyo 4y ago
    Bitcoin will never make "fiat" currency obsolete. It's ridiculously volatile, its transactions are irreversible (and therefore a magnet for fraud), it's inconvenient to use, and it doesn't scale. It's also brutally unforgiving in the sense that losing access to your wallet means losing all your money. These things might appeal to a few hardcore anarcho-capitalists or day-traders, but no rational person would choose Bitcoin over the existing banking system.
    - sprash 4y ago
      The volatility is generated by the central banks. They were printing money like there is no tomorrow since 2008. Now they are destroying it again with interest rate hikes and balance sheet reduction.
      - lumost 4y ago
        BTC volatility has been far in excess of even volatile commodities like oil. You can’t blame the government for crypto volatility.
      - tsimionescu 4y ago
        The coin has had 50% swings over the whole time it has existed, far before the current monetary policy changes by the Fed.
  - CaptainZapp 4y ago
    Let's just say that I trust the ECB, The Bank of England, The Swiss National Bank or even The Fed a hell of a lot more than all those slick talking shysters shilling crypto. To each his own, I suppose.
- mgraczyk 4y ago
  Believing that the technology is worthless is just as naive as believing the space should have $2T in capital. There are tons of interesting things you can do with cryptocurrency and blockchains. Most are financial products, but some are just easier ways to develop software. None of this justifies the insane valuations of most coins, but I have built products that would not have been possible in the pre-ethereum world. For example, who wouldn't want a system that forces banks to track customer balances in a secure, private, and auditable data structure? This is completely possible with cryptography that was researched as a byproduct of cryptocurrency development. It would be a marginal improvement on the existing banking system, but it would provide real, practical use and would improve confidence in the banking system.
  - byefruit 4y ago
    Genuinely interested in what products you've developed that weren't possible pre-crypto.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - mgraczyk 4y ago
      I built an ICO platform that allowed companies to raise funds and I did not escrow the money or get approval from any financial institution. We operated outside the US. It would have been impossible to do anything remotely similar in terms of UX without crypto. Best alternative would have cost $XX millions to set up and would require users to wire money to an escrow entity. Nobody would have used that. We built ours with 2 engineers and very little capital in less than a month.
      - justapassenger 4y ago
        So, you’ve built a platform to help scam people (that’s what ICO were) in a way that doesn’t involve financial institutions (that give people at least some protection). Yeah, that’s what current uses of blockchain are all about.
- somenewaccount1 4y ago
  20k is near the floor of what it cost to mine crypto at scale, I think that's why it's a support point. Large miners have capital reserves to hold the Bitcoin if they can't sell it profitably. I'm guessing 2 years runway for well managed large operations. Which means one more 1/2ing in 2024, a price spike, and then it's final collapse 6-12 month later. My magic 8 ball is done answering questions now.
  - paulgb 4y ago
    > Large miners have capital reserves to hold the Bitcoin if they can't sell it profitably. I'm guessing 2 years runway for well managed large operations. “Well managed” is the key sentence here. A number of larger miners became addicted to using cheap capital to fuel massive hashrate growth, and it’s coming back to bite them. Riot Blockchain had about one quarter of cash left as of their last filing; they’ve been selling off digital currency holdings into a falling market.
323 4y ago
Welcome to the power of lobbying, where one of the top-20 donors to the 2020 Biden campaign ($5.2 mil) was a crypto company (Alameda Research): https://www.opensecrets.org/2020-presidential-race/joe-biden/contributors?cycle=2020&id=N00001669&src=b&type=f https://www.opensecrets.org/2020-presidential-race/joe-biden... SBF, the billionaire owner of that company says he plans to donate $100 mil - $1 bil in the next election because it's the most efficient use of money possible: https://cryptopotato.com/ftxs-sbf-says-he-could-donate-100m-to-1b-on-2024-us-presidential-campaign/ https://cryptopotato.com/ftxs-sbf-says-he-could-donate-100m-...
- eezurr 4y ago
  Another way to look at lobbying is that it helps grow/sustain our economy and the successful companies at the government level. i.e. "if you made it this far (and have the money to show), you've proven to us [the government] that we can depend on you to bolster our economy". It's a self perpetuating economic positive feedback loop. -- My 2 cents (ps I'm not a fan of crypto)
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    That view can be used to justify any type of corruption. You're paying a mayor to give you a permit? Proof you're a pillar of the local community. Paying the police not to investigate your sex trafficking? An important part of the local labor market.
  - 323 4y ago
    One problem with this view is that some entities don't necessarily optimize for money (think foreign governments).
    - lumost 4y ago
      It’s also debatable whether an elite firm would lobby to create further growth, or simply entrench their market position.
- UncleMeat 4y ago
gjsman-1000 4y ago
"... alarms experts" I hate this headline. Which experts? How many experts? Do most experts agree or disagree (is this an actual representative sampling)? Do many experts just not have an opinion? Do the experts have enough experience in this kind of situation to make a recommendation? How do you know if they are actually experts? Why should we listen to the experts even if they are? Who do these experts work for? Do these experts have conflicts of interest? Have these experts been wrong previously? If so, by how much? I could give a rip about generic experts and a few quotes.
- throwoutway 4y ago
  Couldn’t agree more (about these types of headlines). It’s easy to find a random expert that believes anything you need them to. Many things are controversial
politician 4y ago
There is basically no danger in this. Federal Reserve master accounts and simply accounts at the Federal Reserve Bank(s)- and transactions between FRB member banks are subject to the same SAR, KYC(C) OFAC, and BSA regulations. Truly, integrated banks would be safer not riskier due to the amount of oversight.
mjburgess 4y ago
Anti MLM and ponzi law was passed when large numbers of people lost money in these schemes, and they got so out of control that they became politically destabalising. (incidentally, cf. when an entire country ended up in civil war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_schemes_in_Albania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_schemes_in_Albania ) I think western govs will enact legislation that basically puts an end to the whole crypto industry when there's large loss. And the legislation will, I think be very simple and fair, it will say: crypto must work as its claimed. As soon as you're legally required for your product to do what you say it will, in crypto, there goes the whole industry.
- jsutton 4y ago
  I think you're correct about the legislation to an extent, but you're being facetious about that destroying the crypto industry. Face it, even in the sea of scams, there are a wealth of crypto projects that have delivered and do exactly as they say. It's an industry that is here to stay. There will be large shakeouts every few years, but that's relatively normal in a burgeoning new industry.
  - mjburgess 4y ago
    This isnt my view. I dont think any crypto project delivers -- and this is an extremely strong claim requiring only a single counter-example. I'd love to hear the counter-example. I dont think a distributed immutable ledger whose state changes one when everyone recomputes it is a good technology for almost anything. Think of this from a devops/data-eng perspective... what, in your infrastructure, do you want to work that way? In practice, we are always able to assume a non-trivial amount of trust which would eliminate almost all of that excessive computation. OR, if not, coordinate in such a way that we can acquire non-trivial amounts (eg., first exchanging keys). This technology is an engineering revolution in the minute "data-engineering cyptographic problem space". That might be a business somewhere. I dont think it has almost anything to do with any marketable proposition. I cannot think of any single business case thus far offered where removing the blockchain doesnt produce a better product.
    - 4y ago
snarfy 4y ago
> Cynthia M. Lummis (R-Wyo.) > Two Wyoming-based crypto firms championed by Lummis stand to benefit. Both companies, Custodia Bank and Kraken Financial Does anybody know what ties Lummis has to these firms, other than they are Wyoming based?

Bit of title gore here, I was thinking of the security experts that must run the alarm systems at the Fed (what with their precious metal holdings and all) and wondering why access to those experts would be blocked and why crypto companies would need alarms experts anyway…

throwaway4good 4y ago

https://archive.ph/efCrd https://archive.ph/efCrd

kwatsonafter 4y ago

I'm honestly a little surprised that cryptospace is even still a thing at this point. No practical uses. Grift. Scams. This is the banking schemes of the 1800s played out with modern machines and cryptography. I genuinely feel sorry for all those people that got rich quick from BitCoin and now are going to have to go back to being, "not rich." Worse yet a critical mass of people still desperately holding on could bolster the price long enough to stall a complete failing of cryptocurrency markets outright. Who know magic computers monopoly money without government oversight would backfire on everyone? I guess sometimes your velociraptors turn on you.

sprash 4y ago
The real scam are central banks. Bitcoin is an attempt to make them obsolete. But if I were a central bank desperately clinging to power and with the ability to create and destroy money with the press of the button I would make bitcoin seem as unstable as possible. The price is the only thing they can manipulate at this point. The fundamentals are solid.
- paulgb 4y ago
  It’s funny how unflinchingly the narrative shifted from “bitcoin is an inflation hedge outside of government control” to “the government is manipulating the price of bitcoin through inflation”
  - thr0wawayf00 4y ago
    And it completely ignores the bubble that the crypto world created through things like NFTs, whose only value to their owners is the promise that they'll be worth more tomorrow. It's just the digital incarnation of Beanie Babies.
    - sprash 4y ago
      The "everything bubble" which also affected crpyto was created by central banks with the various QE programs and the relentless money printing. Don't blame crypto for creating a bubble.
      - thr0wawayf00 4y ago
        You can absolutely blame crypto for creating the NFT bubble. The banks flooded the economy with cash but they didn't tell everyone to start buying NFTs. All of these exchanges, stablecoins and crypto-derivative products were built solely on the self-propagating hype that needed the cheap cash flowing into the system. The banks didn't tell anyone to go buy crypto, the crypto companies did, which effectively tied the performance of the crypto market to the stock market because the average consumer saw crypto as a more enticing speculative investment, not a currency. If the crypto community was as focused on the fundamentals as you argue, there would be a lot more conversations around not allowing these billion-dollar exchanges creating derivative products with unsustainable rates to capture the market. But they did and the crypto world is where it is today because of it. The Fed may have cut the trees down, but the crypto community threw them in a pile, doused them in gas and set the whole thing on fire and it wound up burning out of control. How do you blame the Fed for the fire?
  - kkielhofner 4y ago
    A partial list of narrative shifts after each use case/benefit proved to be infeasible: - Digital cash (volatility, transaction rate, gas fees, etc). Only potential counter argument here is Lightning which essentially compromises on many of the original design goals of Bitcoin and comes with its own set of issues[1] PLUS still has the pesky volatility problem - Store of value (Volatility) - Inflation hedge (Volatility, essentially tracks other markets) - Outside government control (Law enforcement and tax authorities routinely seize, tax, and disrupt cryptocurrencies). There is the “fleeing a dictator” scenario but that’s a very limited use case that in no way supports the current market value. - Banking the unbanked, remittances (See El Salvador [2]). Money quote from the article: “There is no experiment where a currency was introduced with such strong incentives and still failed,” Fernando Álvarez, an economist at the University of Chicago I feel like registering “whatarewecallingbitcointoday.com” or some such to track these. 1 - https://medium.com/bitcoin-blockchain/lightning-network-on-btc-is-a-dead-end-even-if-it-works-as-claimed-d550d17053b1 https://medium.com/bitcoin-blockchain/lightning-network-on-b... 2 - https://restofworld.org/2022/el-salvador-chivo-bitcoin-wallet/ https://restofworld.org/2022/el-salvador-chivo-bitcoin-walle...
- kelnos 4y ago
  If Bitcoin's price is subject to manipulation like this, then the fundamentals are definitely not solid. If you want to replace central banks with something that isn't under control of governments, I'd think that a central feature of that thing would have to be that it can't be manipulated by governments. Seems like Bitcoin fails that test, if what you are saying is true.
  - Sebguer 4y ago
    Exactly, either you're a threat to governments and thus need to treat them as adversarial, or you're not. Crypto is in no way safe from state actors, unless those state actors are profiting from it.
    - sprash 4y ago
      The government collects taxes denominated in USD which is enforced with violence. This is why USD is in demand. As soon as this (in case of income tax even unconstitutional) collection mechanism by force fails the dollar becomes worthless over night.
      - ntoskrnl 4y ago
        We might find out if that's true soon enough. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/23/tax-return-backlog-is-crushing-the-irs-as-pileup-exceeds-21-million.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/23/tax-return-backlog-is-crushi...
      - tsimionescu 4y ago
        You really need to look into the history of currency of you truly believe any of this. Currency is worth something because other people are willing to trade it for something useful at a stable exchange rate. Now, having a central bank that controls the currency, and a government that enforces that control, can help protect the stability that gives that currency value in times of economic instability, but that's only occasional interference. We know this because, in the past when states were weaker and less able to do this, huge swaths of people ignored their state currency, more or less, and used other states' currencies, ones that were more trustworthy (counterfeiting used to be a serious concern) and stable. Even today there are countries where people are in practice using the US dollar as their currency, ignoring local official currencies, simply because the dollar is recognizable and its price is extremely stable compared to their official legal tender. How does this square with your theory that the dollar would lose all value overnight if the US government stopped requiring it?
- timmytokyo 4y ago
  Bitcoin will never make "fiat" currency obsolete. It's ridiculously volatile, its transactions are irreversible (and therefore a magnet for fraud), it's inconvenient to use, and it doesn't scale. It's also brutally unforgiving in the sense that losing access to your wallet means losing all your money. These things might appeal to a few hardcore anarcho-capitalists or day-traders, but no rational person would choose Bitcoin over the existing banking system.
  - sprash 4y ago
    The volatility is generated by the central banks. They were printing money like there is no tomorrow since 2008. Now they are destroying it again with interest rate hikes and balance sheet reduction.
    - lumost 4y ago
      BTC volatility has been far in excess of even volatile commodities like oil. You can’t blame the government for crypto volatility.
    - tsimionescu 4y ago
      The coin has had 50% swings over the whole time it has existed, far before the current monetary policy changes by the Fed.
- CaptainZapp 4y ago
  Let's just say that I trust the ECB, The Bank of England, The Swiss National Bank or even The Fed a hell of a lot more than all those slick talking shysters shilling crypto. To each his own, I suppose.
mgraczyk 4y ago
Believing that the technology is worthless is just as naive as believing the space should have $2T in capital. There are tons of interesting things you can do with cryptocurrency and blockchains. Most are financial products, but some are just easier ways to develop software. None of this justifies the insane valuations of most coins, but I have built products that would not have been possible in the pre-ethereum world. For example, who wouldn't want a system that forces banks to track customer balances in a secure, private, and auditable data structure? This is completely possible with cryptography that was researched as a byproduct of cryptocurrency development. It would be a marginal improvement on the existing banking system, but it would provide real, practical use and would improve confidence in the banking system.
- byefruit 4y ago
  Genuinely interested in what products you've developed that weren't possible pre-crypto.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - mgraczyk 4y ago
    I built an ICO platform that allowed companies to raise funds and I did not escrow the money or get approval from any financial institution. We operated outside the US. It would have been impossible to do anything remotely similar in terms of UX without crypto. Best alternative would have cost $XX millions to set up and would require users to wire money to an escrow entity. Nobody would have used that. We built ours with 2 engineers and very little capital in less than a month.
    - justapassenger 4y ago
      So, you’ve built a platform to help scam people (that’s what ICO were) in a way that doesn’t involve financial institutions (that give people at least some protection). Yeah, that’s what current uses of blockchain are all about.
somenewaccount1 4y ago
20k is near the floor of what it cost to mine crypto at scale, I think that's why it's a support point. Large miners have capital reserves to hold the Bitcoin if they can't sell it profitably. I'm guessing 2 years runway for well managed large operations. Which means one more 1/2ing in 2024, a price spike, and then it's final collapse 6-12 month later. My magic 8 ball is done answering questions now.
- paulgb 4y ago
  > Large miners have capital reserves to hold the Bitcoin if they can't sell it profitably. I'm guessing 2 years runway for well managed large operations. “Well managed” is the key sentence here. A number of larger miners became addicted to using cheap capital to fuel massive hashrate growth, and it’s coming back to bite them. Riot Blockchain had about one quarter of cash left as of their last filing; they’ve been selling off digital currency holdings into a falling market.

323 4y ago

Welcome to the power of lobbying, where one of the top-20 donors to the 2020 Biden campaign ($5.2 mil) was a crypto company (Alameda Research): https://www.opensecrets.org/2020-presidential-race/joe-biden/contributors?cycle=2020&id=N00001669&src=b&type=f https://www.opensecrets.org/2020-presidential-race/joe-biden... SBF, the billionaire owner of that company says he plans to donate $100 mil - $1 bil in the next election because it's the most efficient use of money possible: https://cryptopotato.com/ftxs-sbf-says-he-could-donate-100m-to-1b-on-2024-us-presidential-campaign/ https://cryptopotato.com/ftxs-sbf-says-he-could-donate-100m-...

eezurr 4y ago
Another way to look at lobbying is that it helps grow/sustain our economy and the successful companies at the government level. i.e. "if you made it this far (and have the money to show), you've proven to us [the government] that we can depend on you to bolster our economy". It's a self perpetuating economic positive feedback loop. -- My 2 cents (ps I'm not a fan of crypto)
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  That view can be used to justify any type of corruption. You're paying a mayor to give you a permit? Proof you're a pillar of the local community. Paying the police not to investigate your sex trafficking? An important part of the local labor market.
- 323 4y ago
  One problem with this view is that some entities don't necessarily optimize for money (think foreign governments).
  - lumost 4y ago
    It’s also debatable whether an elite firm would lobby to create further growth, or simply entrench their market position.
UncleMeat 4y ago

gjsman-1000 4y ago

"... alarms experts" I hate this headline. Which experts? How many experts? Do most experts agree or disagree (is this an actual representative sampling)? Do many experts just not have an opinion? Do the experts have enough experience in this kind of situation to make a recommendation? How do you know if they are actually experts? Why should we listen to the experts even if they are? Who do these experts work for? Do these experts have conflicts of interest? Have these experts been wrong previously? If so, by how much? I could give a rip about generic experts and a few quotes.

throwoutway 4y ago
Couldn’t agree more (about these types of headlines). It’s easy to find a random expert that believes anything you need them to. Many things are controversial

politician 4y ago

There is basically no danger in this. Federal Reserve master accounts and simply accounts at the Federal Reserve Bank(s)- and transactions between FRB member banks are subject to the same SAR, KYC(C) OFAC, and BSA regulations. Truly, integrated banks would be safer not riskier due to the amount of oversight.

mjburgess 4y ago

Anti MLM and ponzi law was passed when large numbers of people lost money in these schemes, and they got so out of control that they became politically destabalising. (incidentally, cf. when an entire country ended up in civil war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_schemes_in_Albania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_schemes_in_Albania ) I think western govs will enact legislation that basically puts an end to the whole crypto industry when there's large loss. And the legislation will, I think be very simple and fair, it will say: crypto must work as its claimed. As soon as you're legally required for your product to do what you say it will, in crypto, there goes the whole industry.

jsutton 4y ago
I think you're correct about the legislation to an extent, but you're being facetious about that destroying the crypto industry. Face it, even in the sea of scams, there are a wealth of crypto projects that have delivered and do exactly as they say. It's an industry that is here to stay. There will be large shakeouts every few years, but that's relatively normal in a burgeoning new industry.
- mjburgess 4y ago
  This isnt my view. I dont think any crypto project delivers -- and this is an extremely strong claim requiring only a single counter-example. I'd love to hear the counter-example. I dont think a distributed immutable ledger whose state changes one when everyone recomputes it is a good technology for almost anything. Think of this from a devops/data-eng perspective... what, in your infrastructure, do you want to work that way? In practice, we are always able to assume a non-trivial amount of trust which would eliminate almost all of that excessive computation. OR, if not, coordinate in such a way that we can acquire non-trivial amounts (eg., first exchanging keys). This technology is an engineering revolution in the minute "data-engineering cyptographic problem space". That might be a business somewhere. I dont think it has almost anything to do with any marketable proposition. I cannot think of any single business case thus far offered where removing the blockchain doesnt produce a better product.
  - 4y ago

snarfy 4y ago

> Cynthia M. Lummis (R-Wyo.) > Two Wyoming-based crypto firms championed by Lummis stand to benefit. Both companies, Custodia Bank and Kraken Financial Does anybody know what ties Lummis has to these firms, other than they are Wyoming based?