Re: Capital flight
Posted:
Tue Oct 03, 2017 8:04 am
by Saz
Yea I have to go to presentations on this shit weekly. Honestly much of it is over-hyped. LDN won't even have euro clearing anyway in short order and but they already have real time clearing and its not clear how something like utility settlement coin is much different. In any case its a regulatory matter because anything thats non-reserve currency is going to come at a discount due to risk, and its not clear that such real time settlement would be approved by regulators meaning banks would need to hold buffer capital anyway, destroying the biggest benefit to doing it real time. I also think there are systemic issues - banks essentially creating more money via convertible digital coins. I agree could be a huge help for KYC/AML but really they could do all that without blockchain in any case. Most of the applications people seem to have for blockchain can really just be done in a digital manner and they simply aren't yet because of legacy bullshit. There are a lot of things that are essentially ledgers where this would be huge, supply chain management or land registries for example, but i think a lot of this fintech stuff is bullshit.
I think all these banks will be in cryptos in short order. Goldman first of course because they are fundamentally a trading institution that banks on volatility and nothing better than the crypto market. Once they have the backend tech and reg structure in place they will go ham and the dorks at MS and shit will be forced to follow. ICOs are going to be the new IPOs, no reason to pay underwriters if you can just do an ICO. There will be plenty of $$$ to be made but it will be off the back of regulatory incompetence and arbitrage and not actual productivity or efficiency increases.