Play Money Crashes Again

As worthless as fiat currencies are, being backed only by taxation, they're still more substantial than completely unbacked crypto's, which are just numbers spewed-out of a computer, dependent on being purchased by an even-bigger-fool to keep them afloat.

The Atlantic is reporting: "The cryptocurrency world is melting down, much as the subprime market did in 2007. Back then, scarcely understood financial products in high demand pitched the world into crisis. Is that about to happen again?

This is one question raised by the spectacular fall of FTX, a massive crypto exchange started by Sam Bankman-Fried, a press-loving billionaire (well, as of two weeks ago), generous financier of Democratic politicians and effective-altruism causes (as of two weeks ago), and young guy known as a good guy in the scammy world of crypto (you get the idea). Exactly what happened at FTX remains unclear, and how the sudden death of a $32 billion firm might affect the financial markets and the real economy remains unknown."

The New York Times adds: "A day after it filed for bankruptcy, the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX said on Saturday that it was investigating “unauthorized transactions” flowing from its accounts, as crypto researchers documented suspicious transfers of $515 million that may have been the result of a hack or theft."

The Cryptocurrency supporters will argue that the currency is sound, and that the problem is bad actors stealing the money. But, as the venn diagram points-out, one must have to have a flawed understanding of multiple parts of cryptocurrency to not realize the worthlessness of the entire concept:

The "mining" is a farce; digging-up real assets, like gold, silver, oil, or--heck, even board-feet of lumber, is real work. Work that provides real assets, ones that people will trade-for, and purchase. Computers spitting-out numbers are not real work. And numbers, prime or not, are not real assets. How much are you willing to pay me for the number 13? I'll be glad to sell it to you all day long.

Money, is a medium of exchange, not an investment. We all hope it holds its value while we own it. Real investments have to either pay dividends, offer the potential of gain, or both. Savings instruments pay interest. So-called "stable cryptocurrencies" are intended to be a medium of exchange, they are usually mathematically pegged to some other value (usually US Federal Reserve Notes). But, the rest of the cryptocurrency world are fictitious assets, traded for speculation. In other words, people who think they are investing in them are really gambling on the demand for play money. Nothing more, nothing less. No amount of government regulation will make cryptocurrency "real" anything.