Sam Bankman-Fried once infamously described the crypto world as a series of black boxes that spit out tokens that go up in value, which is a pretty nihilistic, if accurate, view of what crypto is. But at its core, crypto is wild combination of contradictions. It’s nihilistic and idealistic; decentralized and dominated by a few mega-billionaires; trustless and faith-based; public and encrypted; transparent and inscrutable; and a utopian anarchist invention beloved by drug cartels, terrorists, and Kim Jong-Un.
Individually, delusion is an affliction; mass delusion is profitable.
FTX’s implosion shows us that the only thing that can resolve crypto’s roiling contradictions is a line that goes up. When the line goes down, like it did with FTT, none of it works.
Source: FTX has shown us how the crypto economy can collapse.
