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868 sats \ 7 replies \ @SimpleStacker 18 Jun \ on: Opinion | The Genius Act Will Bring Economic Chaos econ
So this was written by Barry Eichengreen, a fellow economist... and I'm fairly disappointed with the opening paragraph, since it's entirely reliant on A) a Hollywood stereotype of the wild west, and B) an anecdotal accounting of crypto kidnappings, with zero statistical evidence regarding the magnitude of the problem in either case.
Leaving that aside, I find his concerns about WalmartCoin and AmazonCoin to be unconvincing. We already have dozens of privately issued currencies, from Robux to Cowboy Credits. Moreover, how many millions of dollars of Amazon gift cards are floating around, redeemable only from Amazon? I read that Starbucks is actually one of the largest custodians of funds due to the number of credits people have in their Starbucks account, but Starbucks isn't regulated like a bank. So whatever his concerns about WalmartCoin and AmazoinCoin are, they seem to be already present with or without the Genius Act.
I will say, however, that he's right to be critical about the reliability and transparency of stablecoins as they currently exist. As far as I can tell, stablecoins like Tether have not demonstrated proof of reserves that we can sufficiently trust they are fully backed.
That being said, if such were the case--why would he be so critical of putting a regulatory framework around it? If we take what he says at face value, that the states with more highly regulated free-banking systems did better, then shouldn't we welcome a regulatory framework for stablecoin versus letting it persist in its status quo?
The piece just seems a bit off in terms of logical consistency.
It's very hard to be logically consistent when emotions come into play.
Matt Levine for me is very logically consistent. Mostly because either he truly does not care or is able to fully detach his writing from his ideological convictions.
That's probably why @denlillaapan dissecting Matt's articles leads to interesting reads. Supercharged emotional and ideological conviction injected into cold, yet humorous, rational articles.
I guess when you're asked to write an opinion piece for the NYT, ideology matters.
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That's probably why @denlillaapan dissecting Matt's articles leads to interesting reads. Supercharged emotional and ideological conviction injected into cold, yet humorous, rational articles. good summary. Don't think I ever consciously considered why I love reading his stuff. Perhaps this is why?
He clearly thinks most crypto and bitcoin is shenanigans, but he's happy to engage it for thousands and thousands of words at a time, treating it fairly and/or accurately (but funny!)
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To be fair, most of recent mainstream Bitcoin has become quite shenanigany~~
thousands and thousands of words at a time
The amount of words he produces is impressive.
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how that guy stays interesting, day in and day out, for probs 3,000-5,000 words at a time, is insane. Aspirational af
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I will say, however, that he's right to be critical about the reliability and transparency of stablecoins as they currently exist. As far as I can tell, stablecoins like Tether have not demonstrated proof of reserves that we can sufficiently trust they are fully backed.
Umm....well this is exactly what this legislation stipulates: 1:1 reserve requirements.
It sounds fairly disingenuous to be against the legislation because "unbacked tether concern", when that is the exact remedy the legislation provides for.
TDS (Tether Derangement Syndrome) is a real thing....
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You said everything I wanted to and more
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