Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Veteran Wall Street enforcers are landing new roles in virtual currencies

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 90 posts

Re: Veteran Wall Street enforcers are landing new roles in virtual currencies

#21

Post by marnett »

maxxxxx wrote: post #16
0xCMP wrote: post #3

I remember reading in a Michael Lewis book (Big Short maybe?) that Wall Street hires from the SEC and Rating Agencies in-order to know the in's and out's better as well as get better treatment. Hence the implication in the book that those who stay behind at the SEC and Rating Agencies are not wanted by the banks. Seems like they're copying from those who came before them.

That means working at the SEC is an auditioning process for big money bank jobs. Talk about conflict of interest.

This is statement is unfortunately true for every regulatory agency in the U.S. government.

- CFPB -> all consumer corporations

- FCC -> tech

- FTC -> corporations spanning many industries

- SEC -> finance

- FDA -> big-pharma

- USDA -> big-agra

...on and on and on...

Re: Veteran Wall Street enforcers are landing new roles in virtual currencies

#22

Post by sitkack »

maxxxxx wrote: post #16
0xCMP wrote: post #3

I remember reading in a Michael Lewis book (Big Short maybe?) that Wall Street hires from the SEC and Rating Agencies in-order to know the in's and out's better as well as get better treatment. Hence the implication in the book that those who stay behind at the SEC and Rating Agencies are not wanted by the banks. Seems like they're copying from those who came before them.

That means working at the SEC is an auditioning process for big money bank jobs. Talk about conflict of interest.

Also allows for favors w/o compensation.

Re: Veteran Wall Street enforcers are landing new roles in virtual currencies

#24

Post by marnett »

rayiner wrote: post #18
CryptoPunk wrote: post #9

This is what fuels the revolving door. Regulations create a class of workers with previous experience in the regulatory and political system, that fetch an access premium. Another example of this is members of Congress who become lobbyists seeing an average increase of 1,500% in their salary upon the career change.

Consider a different example: someone participates in adding threading to the C++ standard. They then get hired at a development tools company to help implement the standard. Anything unseemly there? Your characterization rests on the premise that the regulations are a priori negative. If you start from the premise that the regulations are good things, then there isn’t necessarily anything wrong or inconsistent about…

The typical practice of U.S. regulatory agencies is "I'm going to stall all efforts of change and push to repeal previously instated regulations."

Then they go and get a massive salaried position at a firm they helped make more profitable - this is inherently bad, and this strategy is happening in nearly every regulatory agency under the current administration.

Re: Veteran Wall Street enforcers are landing new roles in virtual currencies

#25

Post by JustAnotherPat »

>Days before Omega One announced his hire, Chilton said he wished he had invested in Bitcoin and its major rivals years earlier -- back when he was warning people as a CFTC commissioner to be careful while calling for more regulation. Generally, the wild price fluctuations are “mellowing out,” he told CNBC on Jan. 11.

Hilarious. Just for note, bitcoin (not even going to mention alts) was swinging 10% a day around January 11th and dropped to half its price in less than a month.

I guess once you're on the bankroll of some of these places, you give up on trying to sound credible.

Re: Veteran Wall Street enforcers are landing new roles in virtual currencies

#26

Post by tw1010 »

Could anyone explain to me a scenario where bitcoin and/or blockchain does not make a huge impact on the world within 5-10 years? There seems to be so much excitement and real action moving in its direction that I have a hard time imagining how exactly this would all just go nowhere.

Re: Veteran Wall Street enforcers are landing new roles in virtual currencies

#27

Post by glup »

Given that this is a thread on regulation of cryptocurrencies, can someone explain to me what is good (for countries, societies, the global economy, etc. and not individuals) about cryptocurrencies? I get that blockchains are useful for recordkeeping. But then I don't see what the appeal is of having a profusion of them co-exsiting as currencies. Am I missing something?

Related question, can I think of the cryptocurrency market as analogous to the FOREX market, but that these currencies don't have attached countries?

Re: Veteran Wall Street enforcers are landing new roles in virtual currencies

#28

Post by pjc50 »

tw1010 wrote: post #26

Could anyone explain to me a scenario where bitcoin and/or blockchain does not make a huge impact on the world within 5-10 years? There seems to be so much excitement and real action moving in its direction that I have a hard time imagining how exactly this would all just go nowhere.

It doesn't necessarily have to go somewhere good. Collapsing pyramid schemes caused a civil war in Albania.

I suspect all the financial-instrument like coins will end up banned in the West, and one or two of the blockchain apps will survive. Maybe "filecoin". There will also be a lot of things called "blockchain" that are very unlike cryptocurrencies; the X509 PKI of the future.

Re: Veteran Wall Street enforcers are landing new roles in virtual currencies

#29

Post by rayiner »

marnett wrote: post #24
rayiner wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider a different example: someone participates in adding threading to the C++ standard. They then get hired at a development tools company to help implement the standard. Anything unseemly there? Your characterization rests on the premise that the regulations are a priori negative. If you start from the premise that the regulations are good things, then there isn’t necessarily anything wrong or inconsistent about…

The typical practice of U.S. regulatory agencies is "I'm going to stall all efforts of change and push to repeal previously instated regulations." Then they go and get a massive salaried position at a firm they helped make more profitable - this is inherently bad, and this strategy is happening in nearly every regulatory agency under the current administration.

Well that’s the opposite of the scenario we’re talking about here, right? And I don’t think what you’re talking about is “inherently bad” either. Most deregulatory types also genuinely believe that deregulation will benefit consumers and the industry alike. If you participated in airline deregulation decades ago, and then went to go work for FedEx, whose business model was made possible by that deregulation, would that be bad? Even though deregulation massively reduced prices for consumers and helped foster the rise of near instant shipping and companies like Amazon who depend on it?

Re: Veteran Wall Street enforcers are landing new roles in virtual currencies

#30

Post by atomical »

tw1010 wrote: post #26

Could anyone explain to me a scenario where bitcoin and/or blockchain does not make a huge impact on the world within 5-10 years? There seems to be so much excitement and real action moving in its direction that I have a hard time imagining how exactly this would all just go nowhere.

I can think of a few reasons why most blockchain technology won't take off.

1) Centralized solutions are cheaper. Consider Amazon vs. Filecoin. Amazon can buy hard drives in bulk and receive large discounts. They can pass those savings onto their customers. The Filecoin users providing storage to customers will have to 1) convince customers that their technology is safe 2) offer cheaper service. There isn't a trust issue with Amazon. So why would customers move to Filecoin?

2) Centralized solutions are much faster. Yes, there is a bunch of work being done now to allow for smaller transactions (lightning networks, plasma). There's no proof this is going to work. High level scaling solutions remain academic.

3) Development takes longer because the software has to operate in a trustless environment. Every update, no matter how minor, requires an independent security audit. There are quite a few examples of why security audits are not optional.

4) Because money is involved forks can be contentious. The default is to do nothing. A centralized solution with a board of directors and CEO can outpace a blockchain community in development speed and time to market.

5) If the private keys are lost or stolen the consumer is screwed. That makes blockchain technology incredibly risky. It's still safer to pay friends with Chase QuickPay. Banks also have insurance. How can a blockchain be insured?

EDIT: Thought of one more.

6) Smart contracts are too rigid to replace the legal system. One option is to use an oracle as a source of information. However, using oracles to pull data from outside the blockchain means most of the logic is centralized.

Post reply on HN