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The Crypto Elites Are Plotting a Wall Street Merger

concoda.substack.com

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Re: The Crypto Elites Are Plotting a Wall Street Merger

#11

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

I thought the overall "shadowy Wall Street elite cabal" in this article was bizarre and a bit nauseating.

I actually mentioned this somewhat recently, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31156677, but the one place where crypto and blockchain actually does make sense to me is as a replacement for our (in the US) insanely outdated and antiquated settlement systems for banks.

I was a software developer well steeped in the "API world" of modern software development, and when I got into fintech/banking and learned about how our current banking technology works I had about 64,000 WTFs. The thing that finally "clicked" with me is when I understood that our current banking technology is really just a digital implementation of paper processes from basically the 1950s and 60s. That why so much of the stuff is big, batch-file-processing-based, and why things that seem like they should be quite simple and straightforward have loads of confusing and arcane rules (just see the NACHA specs for ACH transfers).

So seeing that large financial institutions are making use of blockchain technology (but without some of the stuff that is the achilles heel of many current cryptocurrencies, like proof-of-work) I see as a great thing to modernize our financial technology. This "crypto anarchists vs. wall street elites" bullshit is just something that plays out in a comic book-view of the world.

Re: The Crypto Elites Are Plotting a Wall Street Merger

#12

Post by melony »

discodave wrote: post #8

This blog post goes off the rails in the second sentence. > The crypto movement, the very rebellion that set out to defeat [WallSt/TheFed] hegemony, has provided them with the necessary new-age tech to enhance their existing order. Like what tech do banks or the government need from the crypto crowd? Trading has been electronic for decades, the credit card networks are orders of magnitude more scalable than any block…

Political momentum to migrate to newer technologies while bypassing compliance and regulatory requirements. Most of the banking "distributed" ledgers are so siloed that the number of parties running the nodes can be counted on one to two hands.

Re: The Crypto Elites Are Plotting a Wall Street Merger

#13

Post by coolspot »

discodave wrote: post #8

This blog post goes off the rails in the second sentence. > The crypto movement, the very rebellion that set out to defeat [WallSt/TheFed] hegemony, has provided them with the necessary new-age tech to enhance their existing order. Like what tech do banks or the government need from the crypto crowd? Trading has been electronic for decades, the credit card networks are orders of magnitude more scalable than any block…

They need retail FOMO and Crypto gives that. Probably less than 0.1% cares of underlying cryptography and computer science. Regular people are buying Shiba&Doge coins and NFTs to become rich quick.

Paypal, Coinbase, Crypto.com, Robinhood are all supporting that by hyping this “innovative investment” in their ads and providing easy way in.

Re: The Crypto Elites Are Plotting a Wall Street Merger

#15

Post by ______-_-______ »

outworlder wrote: post #9
discodave wrote: post #8

This blog post goes off the rails in the second sentence. > The crypto movement, the very rebellion that set out to defeat [WallSt/TheFed] hegemony, has provided them with the necessary new-age tech to enhance their existing order. Like what tech do banks or the government need from the crypto crowd? Trading has been electronic for decades, the credit card networks are orders of magnitude more scalable than any block…

They do not 'need' anything. Apparently there's some utility for a cryptographically signed ledger, but I suspect that's a 'blockchain' in name only. EDIT: I remember some banking 'crypto' projects announced by several institutions across the globe. Whether they are real projects or just a way to try to attract investments by pitching the latest fad, I do not know.

One is mentioned in the article, JPMorgan's Onyx. But as always, if your system is not open to the public and doesn't need to protect against hostile actors, the overhead of a blockchain is a waste. The technology that JPMorgan is looking for is called... a database.

Re: The Crypto Elites Are Plotting a Wall Street Merger

#16

Post by prichino »

francoi8 wrote: post #4
metadat wrote: post #3

Quoted post unavailable.

Unfortunately, it's a sandbox that consumes as much electricity as some mid-sized countries. An absolute obscenity.

Nice, can't wait for the day instagram and tiktok cannot afford to power their services.

Re: The Crypto Elites Are Plotting a Wall Street Merger

#17

Post by ryanSrich »

discodave wrote: post #8

This blog post goes off the rails in the second sentence. > The crypto movement, the very rebellion that set out to defeat [WallSt/TheFed] hegemony, has provided them with the necessary new-age tech to enhance their existing order. Like what tech do banks or the government need from the crypto crowd? Trading has been electronic for decades, the credit card networks are orders of magnitude more scalable than any block…

> The crypto movement, the very rebellion that set out to defeat [WallSt/TheFed] hegemony, has provided them with the necessary new-age tech to enhance their existing order.

While a bit hyperbolic, Satoshi did talk about the fragility of the financial system as the core driver behind inventing Bitcoin. It's even enshrined in the genesis block [1][2][3].

1. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block 2. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=52706 3. https://www.blockchain.com/btc/block/000000000019d6689c085ae...

Re: The Crypto Elites Are Plotting a Wall Street Merger

#19

Post by oneoff786 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #11

I thought the overall "shadowy Wall Street elite cabal" in this article was bizarre and a bit nauseating. I actually mentioned this somewhat recently, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31156677 , but the one place where crypto and blockchain actually does make sense to me is as a replacement for our (in the US) insanely outdated and antiquated settlement systems for banks. I was a software developer well steeped i…

So you see some garbage and conclude it is bad, therefore this other piece of garbage must be good

Re: The Crypto Elites Are Plotting a Wall Street Merger

#20

Post by pattusk »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #11

I thought the overall "shadowy Wall Street elite cabal" in this article was bizarre and a bit nauseating. I actually mentioned this somewhat recently, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31156677 , but the one place where crypto and blockchain actually does make sense to me is as a replacement for our (in the US) insanely outdated and antiquated settlement systems for banks. I was a software developer well steeped i…

> I thought the overall "shadowy Wall Street elite cabal" in this article was bizarre and a bit nauseating.

Especially since most of it is circumstantial, guilt by association or outright misleading. I don't know of anybody in crypto who still takes enteprise blockchains or the likes of JPM Coin seriously. In any case, it would give little credence to an accusation of collusion between Wall Street and the "crypto elite". It's just a private company using a certain technology.

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