> But the problem is more fundamental than losing a bit of money. Crypto was built on the idea that you shouldn’t have to trust banks with your money, that people should be able to hold it themselves, hopefully somewhere a little more secure than a mattress.
Yes, and some of these tokens, like BTC, allow this since "crypto was built". You can clone and build https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin and set up your own wallet. Noone will touch coins in it if you're careful. They can lose their value but they will still be there.
If you trust someone else to hold your wallet, which is more or less a necessity when you trade/exchange your coins, that's whole other ball game. But having all your money in bunch of wallets kept by a single entity that is not you, is just plain stupidity.
> But having all your money in bunch of wallets kept by a single entity that is not you, is just plain stupidity.
I do exactly this with my dollars and it's worked out just fine. Modern society is based on trust. I don't want to have to inspect source code to ensure my wallet is secure.
This isn’t about where you keep your coins, not really. That’s an implementation detail. This is about the entire system of wealth protection built up around fiat currency.
The word of the week is “contagion”: even if you did no business with FTX at all, even if you have your coins on a hard drive locked in the doomsday seed vault, crypto is crashing because investors are learning that the old system that protects wealth is necessary after all.
Exactly right, and this is crypto's fundamental problem.
Say you have a small group of people who are all on the same page about what crypto is and how it should be integrated into society. Then another group comes along and recognizes it as an opportunity to pump and dump. The scammers create their markets and their tokens, driving the value up insanely until it all comes crashing down and innocent people lose everything.
There's really nothing the original group can do to stop the scammers because the entire point of crypto is that you're assuming everyone is a criminal anyway. It just doesn't work.
In the US, Fed took the "old system" for a ride with no brakes. In the UK central bank went to battle with PM over the "old system" a few weeks back. Old, or new, people in power have their ideas on how to make things interesting.
I thought it went like this:
>PM announces tax cuts
>no way those cuts can meet budget
>panic in market for long maturity gilts
>sudden spikes in benchmark rates are bad for everyone so BoE announces YCC
Did I miss something? Did Truss somehow take a swipe at the BoE? I'll be honest, I didn't pay super close attention.
Yes, and some of these tokens, like BTC, allow this since "crypto was built". You can clone and build https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin and set up your own wallet. Noone will touch coins in it if you're careful. They can lose their value but they will still be there.
If you trust someone else to hold your wallet, which is more or less a necessity when you trade/exchange your coins, that's whole other ball game. But having all your money in bunch of wallets kept by a single entity that is not you, is just plain stupidity.