Crypto Soldiers On Despite Bloodbaths

So, mobsters mopped up like never before via the crypto app giving new meaning to the warning, “If it’s too good to be true, go for it”. That’s a WSJ article’s take, esp in Binance’s guilty plea showing “What Cryptos Really About.”

The WSJ Streetwise coverage recently marveled: “So, it turns out that of the two largest crypto exchanges, one was a fraud and the other was a money launderer. Whoever could have guessed?” The two biggest cases, the paper mused, have exposed bitcoin & other cryptocurrencies “in dramatic fashion, so now all we have to do is sit back & wait for the inevitable collapse in value. Except the [naively resilient] market price suggests this is wrong.” Not that bitcoin did not fall a little after Binance agreed to pay a $4 billon fine recently, yet it mostly has soldiered on as if that BILLIONS in fines meant little to its admirers.

So, what gives? The market’s reaction to such usually bad news suggests Bitcoin must be something more than helping illegal drug peddlers, money launderers & porn buyers avoid the financial system & cops. (Altho, as the WSJ reminds, “Bitcoin isn’t a particularly good way to hide from the cops, as repeated police busts have demonstrated.”) As noted, it still gives legit gamblers desired cover & is viewed by some as a hedge on Uncle Sam’s inflationary tendency to pay for its mushrooming debts by printing money. A rush on small bitcoin purchased in recent months has also driven a record in trading. Never mind that “Bitcoin has failed to live up to its original promise of being cheap online cash” for EVERYONE. Crypto still HAS somehow kept reinventing itself to the market’s satisfaction. Could it be that crypto is just “so technically satisfying [like a drug] that it must be the solution to something, but quite what remains a mystery”?

Davd Soul