Ok - I have been watching this FTX soap opera play out and yeah - wow.
The fact that these 'kids' can get sooooooo far is actually amazing. As for the investment managers at Softbank et-al who investors in this - they should all immediately resign. Even the most brief look at the relevant balance sheets would see it was a huge house of cards. To invest their clients money in something near guaranteed to fail is reckless in the extreme.
So, in my understanding, one of the points of Crypto was that banks and other traditional institutions became redundant as by design the blockchain was a decentralised, although very very inefficient system. Thus, it's hilarious that so many people decided to put their money into a centralised institution (aka bank) without any regulation or oversight by any government or regulatory body what so ever! Regardless of their ills, at least the vast bulk of banks in most developed economies are very close to being totally safe often with government guarantees of deposits in many cases.
Does this mean Crypto is dead? Not at all. Sadly many of the leaders in the Crypto community were shouting loudly that FTX et-al was nothing but a scam yet few (if any) in the mainstream media have listened. The hypocrisy is the recent pile on by many over how 'bad' Crypto is because of this collapse. FTX is completely separate issue to crypto.
No doubt I'm a crypto sceptic. I have characterised it as a trendy modern fad with little substance. The missing piece to take crypto to the next level is also the piece which gives it it's value amongst the proponents - that being value stability. To achieve this, means the speculators which give its current value will have little opportunity to make money and the value will stabilise at some level with similar fluctuations to that of more traditional currencies thus giving some certainty to broader business and the confidence to adopt it.
Has it cost me money in forgone opportunity? Probably. That could also be said for a phonebook of other spec investments I have not adopted. I'm more in favor of asymmetry when investing my money - particularly at the spec end of things. That is, potential for massive upside growth with minimal (if any) downside risk. FTX aside, I still don't see any compelling case for putting my money in crypto whilst it has no inherent value or purpose. If that costs me more money in opportunity cost forgone into the future - maybe. Only time will tell but for now I'm entirely fine with that. Of course if things change into the future I may reassess my position but for now I'm good with staying out
