I was referring to free markets in general, and as far as that goes, I don't believe there are any examples of it working anywhere, untarnished. Same with any other ism's they all look good on paper but there are always other factors that'll alter their courses and twist them into something original. Like, the differences you'll find between Cuban, Russian, Chinese, North Korean types of communism, all very different from each other fro a variety of reasons. To be fair, that goes for democracy, capitalism, you name it (to make sure it's clear that this talk doesn't turn into a political one).
The FTX fiasco is all about someone who swindled folks into depositing their cryptos in Friedman's exchange accounts for "safe keeping", meanwhile he illegally leveraged those cryptos and look what happened, eh (same thing that happens to those who do the exact same thing on a personal level, "as above so below"), it's just stupid. Although the dumbest part of it all is the fact that folks are using the exchanges as bank accounts which is counter to the fact that crypto can easily and safely be kept by the individual, avoiding the possibility of the FTX catastrophe. A cryptocurrency is very different from an exchange, I hope folks understand that. Btw, banks do the same thing with our money. Do you think that if everyone who put their money in a bank decided to take it out all at once that the bank(s) would be able to come up with it? Nope. The regulating that your congress is talking about, at the moment has to do with the exchanges. Then there's whether or not certain crypto's are to be deemed as commodities, securities, blah blah
As far as the losses that have occurred in the name of crypto "investing", I think it's really sad of course. But this is just another form of gambling akin to the other financial markets. Biggest difference is the volatility which stock traders aren't accustomed to. At certain times, some of these things can make a move in a day that can take months in the stock market. It's very difficult to make balanced decisions when markets move that fast. Meanwhile there's a ton of different legal ways for folks to gamble their lives away, casinos, racetrack, online poker, stock market... I think everyone's main beef with crypto is that they don't understand it at all, don't know how to profit off it.
No doubt about it, our obsession with money seems to be killing us, hopefully we figure out another ism to get us out of this mess. Money isn't bad though, it's a way to exchange energy for goods and services, ingenious. But we wind up with a ton of problems when it has no basis, gets reprinted and diluted, like where we are with fiat.
Crypto is already here, sorry to say, it's been creeping into the world system for at least 13 years now. Sometimes the general public loves it, other times they forget about it and sometimes they hate it. But it's still here and being used many different ways other than as investments. Some can be perceived as incredible innovations and others as a big joke, because they are. Do your own research if you're interested for any reason or follow the herd, there's 2 sides to this story. I see this as the birthing of something important and I want my foot in the door, and if not, I have the self control to not bite more than I can chew (didn't bet my child's education money on it).
PS, sorry for repeating myself so much, I don't think I said anything up there that I haven't already said in bits and pieces throughout this thread. I just think the tech is exciting and can be quite rewarding if dealt with respectfully, like anything else. I think I'm done talking about it, time will tell what this will all turn into, I have no crystal balls
@Uncle Jack , Bukowski is an awesome source of quotes
www.lewrockwell.com
iaindavis.substack.com
off-guardian.org
www.currentaffairs.org
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www.reuters.com
