Crypto currency is today's 2008 housing collapse just waiting to happen.

[Yavin4]

Too many people are too heavily invested in an asset whose value is based entirely on an invented perception of its worth. I know that it's setting record highs after Trump's victory but that just adds to my argument about an invented perception. Nothing screams "highly speculative investment" if a majority of an asset's worth is dependent on a political outcome in a single election.

Injecting crypto into our financial system will make a few people obscenely rich while off loading the risks of failure onto everyone else.

Trump eyes pro-crypto candidates for key federal financial agencies

The early discussions have centered on a set of financial regulatory agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission. For important leadership posts, Trump’s aides have considered a mix of current regulators, former federal officials and financial industry executives, many of whom have publicly expressed pro-crypto views, according to five people familiar with the matter. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the deliberations, cautioning that the process is still in its early stages and the list of candidates is changing.

These appointments are critical: Under Trump, the heads of the SEC and other agencies will have the power to determine whether crypto will become a larger, more formalized part of the financial system. The choice has vast implications for the global economy, and the stakes are high, as evidenced by the 2022 collapse of the crypto giant FTX — and the risks it raised for a catastrophic contagion.

https://www.archivebuttons.com/articles?article=https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/11/11/trump-crypto-regulation-bitcoin/

[sboatcar]

1. From working in cybersecurity for awhile now

Cryptos are like 85% for criminal activity. It could use regulation, but I'm not sure how that's even possible.

[Irish_Dem]

2. The last thing Trump wants is regulation of his grifting schemes.

He wants free rein.

He wants to be the richest man in the world.

[Yavin4]

4. Exactly. That's its only true value, transactional anonymity.

Take that away with regulation and it's worthless. Keep the anonymity and no one will be able to track anything.

[Joe Cool]

3. There's no doubt about it.

Crypto is going to be the cause or one of the main causes of the next economic downturn.

[Deminpenn]

5. I think that, too

My Spidey sense just feels as if this is one big Ponzi scheme.

[Klarkashton]

6. At least with housing there was something tangible

That was being traded. With this it is absolutely nothing. It's pure glorified gambling.

[PeaceWave]

7. How about energy consumption? Crypto is the nail in the coffin for global warming.

[Macrophylla]

8. I can see that

I will give you my indicator...the number of posts on social media and references to crypto on financial media. Loads of crypto investment garbage on tick tock...like shitloads of it. It's the next greatest thing according to financial media outlets.

This is the point where the demise starts.
If you hear anything like..this is the new normal ....start paying attention to what happens.
Dot com bust, housing market crashes and bear markets all start with that talk.
I would add automobile sales and inventory are getting ready to say something.

[Yavin4]

13. Since 1980, we've created an economy where there's intense pressure to get rich.

Being middle class with a regular job is seen as being a failure. Now, it's all about being rich as Elon Musk. So, people will jump on speculative investments.

[brush]

9. Might as well go to a Vegas casino as crypto cause you're gonna lose sooner or later.

Most likely sooner as there are always crooks like Sam Bankman-Fried who abscond with the funds and rips off investors.

The crooks, btw, always convert the stolen funds to dollars, gold or other solid currencies.

Wonder why that is?

[Nigrum Cattus]

10. Another grift

All cryto will be worthless once a viable quantum computing system is available.
It is created from nothing and will be worth nothing. Third, we are restarting nuclear
power plants for the sole purpose of powering A.I., what is the upper limit of power
for the machines as opposed to humanity ?

[MineralMan]

11. I advise staying away from crypto altogether.

But, that has been my position for many years. There is no there there.

[Jit423]

12. And just think, the US wanted Saddam out of the way because he wanted to trade in EUros.

Now we are trading links of numbers in the atmosphere.

[jmowreader]

14. A lot of people have compared crypto to Tulipmania

That's not quite accurate. After the market fell out in Tulipmania, YOU STILL HAD TULIP BULBS!! You could plant them in the yard and they'd still be pretty.

Same deal with the housing bubble, the baseball card bubble, Milo Minderbinder buying an entire year's Egyptian cotton crop...all those bubbles were backed up by some tangible good that would continue as before. You'll probably lose a lot of money in the process but someone's eventually going to want that stuff.

But with crypto, there are only two things you can do with it - sell it to someone else who thinks he's going to get rich off it, or buy illegal things like drugs or murders. If you can't find someone to buy your crypto, you don't want drugs and you can't think of anyone you want killed, it's absolutely worthless.

When crypto first came out I thought it would be a perfect conduit for international trade. When you as an American hay grower sell a shipload of hay to a Chinese cattle rancher, one of you has to convert money from Chinese yuan to US dollars. (I picked this particular item because one of my nieces' husbands is in this exact business; his year is a month of planting grass seed, a month harvesting hay and ten months of currency trading. Needless to say, after the Tariff King got elected I'm a little worried about them; his entire customer base is overseas.) But with bitcoin as a conduit, you'd use a computer system where the customer buys BTC at the rate for his currency and the system makes USD fall out of it into your bank account at the rate for ours. That's...not what happened.

[Yavin4]

15. "you can't think of anyone you want killed"

Well...

[jmowreader]

16. Well...killed badly enough that you want to go to court over it

A woman named Kelly Gissendaner wanted her husband whacked. The whacking happened. She was not around when the whacking happened. She was executed for it anyway.