Powers On. is a monthly opinion column from Marc Powers, who spent much of his 40-year legal career working with complex securities-related cases in the United States after a stint with the SEC. He is now an adjunct professor at Florida International University College of Law, where he teaches a course on âBlockchain, Crypto and Regulatory Considerations.â
These past few weeks have been tumultuous, especially for newbies to the crypto market. First, on May 8, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, was the host of
Saturday Night Live where he promoted Dogecoin (DOGE) â a highly speculative, volatile cryptocurrency with present meaningful business model other than being a meme for tipping others. Then, a few days later, Musk dissed Bitcoin (BTC) in a tweet, stating that Tesla would no longer allow purchases of its electric vehicles with BTC because of its purported substantial, environmentally unfriendly energy usage.
Bitcoin fever is the primrose path to digital servitude
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25 May 2021 • 12:00pm
Bitcoin is already a barbarous relic in fintech time. It has failed to make the grade as a daily means of exchange after 12 years of agitation, bar money laundering, cyber extortion, and Iranian sanctions-busting.
It has not progressed beyond the stage of a speculative asset. It is captivating but is not what the evangelists promised.
Some of the other 8,000 cryptos may acquire social utility. Goldman Sachs says Ethereum could muscle into financial contracts, becoming the “Amazon of information”. Fixed stablecoins may find a profitable role, though they still have an umbilical cord to dollars, euros, or yen, and import their credibility from a central bank exchange peg, and therefore are not currencies at all.