January 7, 2022 ☼ crypto
Source: Stephen Diehl (Link)
The argument laid out in this article is a quite complicated edifice, and requires a large amount of knowledge at the intersection of several fields of study that, quite frankly, the public should not have to concern themselves with learning to safeguard themselves against fraud. Public money should just work for most people without them having to be concerned with the details. This is ultimately where cryptocurrencies tap into the ignorance, desperate faith in technical solutionism and political resentment of the public and weaponize it for the aims of these libertarian private money charlatans to engorge themselves. These guys aren’t building a new financial system, they’re just lining their own pockets.
History repeats itself first as tragedy and then as farce. The wild economic oscillations of yesterday’s gold standard is today’s dog meme mania. Human nature is remarkably invariant through the ages and if we don’t learn the lessons of history then we’re doomed to repeat the mistakes of past generations. This time around If we’re very lucky then crypto assets simply end in a market crash and a series of progressive New Deal-like reforms to our financial system. If we’re unlucky then they accelerate the expansion of a shadow financial system used to enrich the already wealthy, increase wealth inequality to historically unprecedented levels, decrease faith in democracy and further fan the flames of populism. These trends ultimately converge to leave humanity’s fate to the wild oscillations of market manias, charismatic demagogues and strong men who promise to save us from ourselves. And we’ve seen how that story ends.