Cryptos Too Slow. Can’t Scale, Too Hard?

[analyst75 12]

“Everybody knows there’s no money in the Internet.”

 

That’s what Marc Andreessen was told when he founded Netscape.

 

He was in his early 20s and, by all accounts, starting Netscape was like sending coal to Newcastle. (That’s oldspeak for ‘a fruitless task.’)

 

Consider what Netscape was up against.

 

Until 1993, online commercial activities were illegal. You couldn’t do business online.

 

There was no trust. No money. No economic incentives.

 

Netscape set out to make the Internet a commercial medium. Because it utilized encryption, it was actually labeled as munitions by the U.S. government.

 

Congress believed that only the baddies would want to use encryption. Andreessen said: “Well, no, we’ll need encryption for credit cards online, for example.”

 

Their response: “Nobody’s doing that! Nobody will ever trust the Internet with their credit card numbers or any private information!”

 

Everyone thought it was a dumb idea.

 

During this time, Bill Gates went on David Letterman’s show and got made fun of for calling the Internet the “next big thing.”

 

It didn’t take long until Andreessen was vindicated. Today, he’s a billionaire tech investor through his fund a16z.

 

He’s also a big crypto bull.

 

During a recent podcast interview, Andreessen talked about the similarities between the early days of the Internet and crypto.

 

Here are three major points:

 

1.] All of the problems we see in crypto today are the same problems we saw with the Internet in its early days.

 

The fight against encryption was just the tip of the iceberg. There were many obstacles to mass-adoption of the Internet.

 

2.] Most saw problems. A few saw opportunities.

 

The early Internet was slow, couldn’t scale, and was hard for the average Joe to use.

 

Most people said “This won’t work.”

 

They were mostly right at the time. In its current state, it wouldn’t work on a mass scale. But that was beside the point.

 

Turns out, every single one of these problems were multi-billion dollar opportunities.

 

3.] In less than thirty years from now, the entire global economy could run on the blockchain.

 

This is why crypto is perhaps the greatest asymmetric bet in all of human history.” – Chris C

 

 

Profits from free accurate cryptos signals: https://www.predictmag.com/ 

[fxeconomist 11]

I like crypto volatility and price action around key levels I determine. Much more trading opportunities than in FX. That's why I started to spend more time to crypto CFD trading with Hotforex - price replicates movements of btc price on exchanges while funds are secured. 

[aimhi 10]

I noticed many brokers including hotforex, exness, lmfx etc can have btc wallets available so traders can deposit and withdraw their payments in crypto.

[fxeconomist 11]

On 3/16/2023 at 6:19 PM, aimhi said:

I noticed many brokers including hotforex, exness, lmfx etc can have btc wallets available so traders can deposit and withdraw their payments in crypto.

Does Hotforex support crypto??

[aimhi 10]

They have a payment wallet however i usually withdraw my payments in ewallet and the transfers are usually instant.

[RJo 10]

I'm still a dove regarding crypto trading. Not because of the instruments traded, but because of the lack of market centralization. It reminds me of the early days of forex trading where no broker-dealers offered trade clearing via the interbank market. This is basically betting against "the house" which is its own captive market-maker, has its own one-off price feed, and has its own one-off trade execution policies.

As a side note, I always opt out of broker-dealers' arbitration clauses within 30 days of account opening pursuant to the U.S. Federal Arbitration Act. Unscrupulous broker-dealers and platform sellers don't even provide opt-out terms in their trading/subscription agreements, but it still exists pursuant to federal statutes and federal court precedent. Sierra Chart also collects unspent platform subscription deposits from traders in their website's online "wallet." This subjects them not only to FINRA liability but CFPB liability as well. I figuratively atom bombed Sierra Chart with this info and they refunded all platform fees and data fees that I ever paid to them before I closed my Sierra Chart account.

On a more general note, virtually all broker-dealers are either partnered with, or straight up are, Wall Street investment banks and hedge funds. These are the folks that refer to retail traders as "cannon fodder" and "fish food." To me, any broker-dealer is nothing more than a counterparty to a series of my transactions. If I find any reason not to trust a broker-dealer, I'm out. Crypto trading, as it presently exists, fits the bill. Crypto owning/investment might be a different story, but I'm strictly a trader.

Edited November 16 by RJo