Cryptomageddon & the Revenge of Old School Banking

FTX pulls a Lehman Brothers as the crypto industry licks its wounds

Crypto is screwed right now for the simple and obvious reason that under- and unregulated industries inevitably lean into unfair business practices and fraud to maximize profits for their owners. Always.

“Self-regulation” is an absurd oxymoron because people can’t and won’t ever limit themselves. Why would they, especially when so much money and power are at stake? If people can steal, they will.

The mystique of crypto centered on its decentralized, “Fuck the Man and His Systems” allure. Traditional banks and their regulators rip everyone off the slow, old fashioned way. Blockchain changed it all.

The whole idea of a “public ledger” is enticing. Every transaction is transparent, anyone can manage a chain by cracking big primes, and the Man and His Systems get circumvented by a cool alternative.

Since inception, though, the benefit of crypto has also been its Achilles Heel: bitcoin, tokens, and everything of value are nothing more than electrons spinning on servers, zero backing in the world.

Old school money, in contrast, is printed by governments; stocks are shares of actual companies’ perceived value; bonds are…