Good explainer from The Atlantic about the coming end to all financial regulation in the US via crypto.

"If Congress passes FIT21 it would invent a novel asset class called 'digital commodities' - in essence, any financial asset managed on a blockchain. Digital commodities would be exempted from #SEC oversight. In the FIT21 bill, any firm or person can self-certify a financial product as a digital commodity, and the SEC would have only 60 days to object. This is a loophole big enough to fit an investment bank through.

Wall St. is talking up ‘tokenization’ meaning putting assets on a digital ledger. The putative justification is capital efficiency. [The real] justification is regulatory arbitrage: Investments on a blockchain would move out of the SEC’s purview & be subject to fewer disclosure, accounting, reporting, consumer protection, and anti-money-laundering rules.”

Also discusses stuff like stablecoin risks to the financial system (including Tether), the increase in fraud, and so on. But killing off the SEC - which is absolutely going to happen - is the biggest risk. There’s no world where letting the finance bros run games with the global economy completely free of all regulation has ever ended in anything other than disaster.

no paywall: archive.ph/iD2vy

the atlantic: