Crypto

I’ve talked a lot about a global basket of digital currencies becoming the norm. Then, as I started developing ideas for my next book – CeFi vs DeFi – I realised that the way the world is moving is to have both. Why can’t we have stablecoins based on a basket of USD and RMB…

I was quietly annoyed by one of the headlines I saw the other day: Using crypto for crime is not a bug — it’s an industry feature It’s an attack on the whole idea of cryptocurrencies in an opinion piece by Financial Times columnist Jemima Kelly. She talks about being heckled for saying that crypto…

Over the past years the financial industry has had a weird relationship with the cryptocurrency industry. The former was launched thousands of years ago; the latter just over a decade ago. Maybe that’s why. But, during my experience, we started with financial markets saying cryptocurrencies didn’t matter; then that the technology, namely blockchain, mattered but…

I’ve seen so many updates about Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) lately that it’s obviously an inevitability. Maybe … Bear in mind we have CBDCs and cryptocurrencies. Are the two in competition or complimentary? I think that’s a really important question. The question is: which do you trust more? Trust in CBDCs is that, because…

I hadn’t really noticed the rise and rise of crypto firms sponsoring sport until recently. There are quite a number from Bedford to Crawley to Watford. Then there were the Super Bowl ads, such as that wonderful one from FTX last year. A year later, FTX has disappeared, as has many of its counterparts and dependents….

A headline jumped out at me the other day: World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee calls crypto ‘dangerous’ and likens it to gambling The key points he made in an interview with CNBC are: Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, called cryptocurrency “dangerous” and likened it to gambling. Discussing the future of…

Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, the cryptocurrency exchange preferred by many, was interviewed by Bloomberg[1]. I’ve selected a number of key comments he made, as this feeds well into my arguments about DeFi (Decentralised Finance) versus CeFi (Centralised Finance). All commentary below is direct from Brian: … One in five households have used crypto, about 50…

I often return to a theme: where’s my guarantee? Where’s my backup? After the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank during the past week, it begs the question: where’s my guarantee? Where’s my backup? After losing money on MtGox ten years ago: where’s my guarantee? Where’s my backup? With the failure of FTX and Terra-Luna: where’s…

It made me smile when watching Billions during an exchange between Chuck Rhoades (the Attorney General) and a bitcoin miner in Episode 1 of Series 5 (nerdy). Bitcoin miner: "What's the dollar backed by, since we went off the gold standard?" Legislator: "Roads, the military, industry, the credit of the federal government, that sort of…

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) are getting more and more active about stablecoins and crypto assets. In a letter to G20 ministers published yesterday,  FSB Chair Klaas Knot Many said that many existing stablecoins would not meet the “high-level” recommendations to be set by global standard setters like the FSB. This is related to the…