Comment by hengheng
What I'm always missing with these takes is the "what if" component. Nobody really dares to paint the whole picture in articles like this. Authors seem to go as far as to find the moral infraction, and then stop. But that doesn't do what is happening justice.
No, crypto does not need regulation. Law-based order needs crypto regulation. That's a big difference already. But we can go further than that. What if we don't get crypto regulation, what happens to law-based order exactly?
Trump is not the kind of guy to build businesses and create wealth. He more like kinda goes through them. He's not the guy to invest, he's the guy to cash out. Right now, he's cashing out of the US economy. Lots of real value is there for him to extract that is completely unprotected.
Trump is right. All those assets exist, and he can take them, destroy them, and liquidate them. He has that power. He is permitted. It is a programme, and his execution is successful. There's no point saying "but he can't do that, it would be unethical". Sure it's unethical, dumb, and nonsensical, but at face value, he can do all of that. No point in saying "but he can't do that, America would never be the same". That argument is reactionary, of course everything was going to change anyways.
So, let's face it. A president that is not going to miss his chance to join the true billionaires club (10+ b), a ruling class of industry leaders like it existed 120 years ago. Whether he stays president doesn't even matter. Government programmes are going down the drain, America's influence in the world deteriorates, trade volume breaking down, a less smart military will have to deal with more conflicts.
The only question in that turmoil is going to be what constitues a winner. Right now, everybody is buying crypto like lottery tickets, and it becomes self-fulfilling. Mid-term it might be Florida real estate. Long term? Who knows.
I'd actually like for somebody to really paint this picture and fill in the details. Stopping at the first inflection point that is somewhat scary is unproductive, we've been reading those takes for a year now.
The inevitable bailouts will be breathtaking. We’re in a quadratic adoption phase to legitimize a currency faster than the public discovers its downsides. The first bailout will be in this administration and won’t look like an inflection point. It’ll look like printing fiat into a dark, lucrative, inaccessible hole.
Among average Americans, the biggest advantage for promoters is the widespread susceptibility to scams. FartCoin, $TRUMP, and BitCoin are equally buoyant unless you know just a little about the technology and culture. Demographics might change this before education does. That’s the second inflection point.
The third inflection point is how the politically-connected holders will manipulate hard forks, say due to a quantum breakthrough in Grover. Once we start seeing forged signatures, will we roll Ethereum back to last June? Or back to Tuesday?