1/ JUST BACK from an amazing #roadtrip across my beautiful native state. Here’s #YellowstoneFalls from Artist’s Point—yep, this is real.
Next—warning, I’ll post photos of historically important firearms at Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, #Wyoming to illustrate 2 points about tech.
2/ Point #1: after centuries of no major advancement in firearms tech, a MASSIVE innovation occurred w/in a 10-yr period right before the US civil war & it’s visible in this exhibit. Invention of the repeating rifle changed the world—literally. Details abt why aren’t important...
3/ ...for this tweetstorm. What matters is that the invention MASSIVELY advanced tech in the industry by rendering everything that came before it utterly obsolete.
The analogy to payment/ledger technology is obvious. This is what #blockchain is doing to legacy payment systems.
4/ Point #2: When govts are slow to adopt new tech they may pay a big price. The rifle on the left was used by the US military at Battle of Little Bighorn. It was outdated but US govt didn’t realize it at the time. Native Americans had traded for repeating rifles (4th from left)
5/ ...& their superior technology was a major factor in their massacre of the US Army at Little Bighorn (also known as Custer’s Last Stand) in 1876. Thereafter the US govt adopted the new tech, and history changed again. The battle over which side controlled the superior tech...
6/ ...went back & forth. Ultimately the US Army won.
The point? Tech matters. It sometimes changes course of history by creating an inflection point. I think we’re approaching one of those inflection points in money & payments now—tho it will only be clear in retrospect.
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1/ I'VE BEEN THINKING about why the Fed left in place one of its anti-#crypto statements while rescinding all 4 others. The one it left in place was issued in coordination w/ the Biden White House's anti-crypto statement on January 27, 2023. Link here: federalregister.gov/documents/2023…x.com/CaitlinLong_/s…
2/ The Jan 27, 2023 guidance left in place by the Fed does many things, but here are the keys:
a. blocks banks from touching cryptoassets as principal, even in a tiny amount to pay gas/transaction fees,
b. blocks banks from issuing #stablecoins on permissionless blockchains +👇
3/ c. maintains a Fed policy preferring permissioned blockchains over permissionless ones--even tho the other federal banking agencies (OCC/FDIC) rescinded that.
What means?
**THE FED HAS MAINTAINED A REGULATORY PREFERENCE FOR PERMISSIONED STABLECOINS (ie, big-bank versions)**
@nic__carter @PirateWires THIS BOMBSHELL HAS BEEN AN OPEN SECRET in Washington for quite a while--so much so that it wasn't really a secret anymore. *FINALLY* someone put it in writing:
🚨**Elizabeth Warren had de facto control over Biden's economic & financial regulatory team.**
Historians, have fun...
@nic__carter @PirateWires AND LOOKY HERE...a name that insiders also surfaced when the White House & Fed went after @custodiabank, using the press to try to intimidate us into withdrawing our Fed applications by telling us the Fed Board would vote down our application--2 days before the vote happened:
1/ WE TOOK TERRITORY by issuing the first bank-issued #stablecoin on a permissionless blockchain & it's not what you think. 🧵 below. The real impact is on #tradfi--yes, #crypto took regulatory territory, but #tradfi is the real story in what @custodiabank did w/ @Vantage_Bank.
2/ Background: Fed Governor Waller's #stablecoin speech a few wks ago distinguished btwn "real" dollars & "synthetic" dollars, noting stablecoins are synthetic. Only the Fed + special types of entities legally authorized to take demand deposits can issue *real* dollars. federalreserve.gov/newsevents/spe…
3/ Crypto doesn't care abt that distinction, but to #tradfi that distinction is EVERYTHING. Why? bc tradfi must care about legal, accounting & tax rules. I can't give legal, accounting or tax advice, but when a bank authorized to issue a dollar issues a dollar, it's a dollar.💡
1/ Prime Trust's bankruptcy Plan Admin recommended that its #crypto custody customers--who thought they owned the custodied assets--take a haircut. Amount not clear yet (Celsius custody customers took a 27.5% haircut). These situations were sadly avoidable. courtlistener.com/docket/6769170…
2/ Context: bankruptcy is a process designed to maximize the recovery of assets for a bankrupt company's estate, while a bank's receivership is a process designed to protect a bank customers. When a non-bank fails, it goes to bankruptcy. When a bank fails, it goes to receivership
3/ So, the Prime Trust discussion is only a bankruptcy discussion because Prime Trust wasn't a bank.
Prime Trust went bust and has an asset shortfall, so a bankruptcy judge must decide whether its custody customers will get all their assets back or will take a haircut.
1/ NEW BLOG: "How To Keep The #Bitcoin Strategic Reserve From Morphing Into A Bailout Fund." Did you know SBF publicly advocated for a crypto bailout fund just 1 month before FTX failed? Story 👇Lesson: don’t let future Sams hijack the SBR for a bailout!!! caitlin-long.com/how-to-keep-bi…
2/ In the blog I analyze #bitcoin as a reserve asset (key is its favorable inflation rate differential)--but condition my support for a BSR on drafting legislation w/ 4 specific prohibitions to prevent insolvent-but-politically-connected people from ever using it for a bailout:
3/ The favorable inflation rate differential between #bitcoin & US dollar + strategic benefits make bitcoin worth considering as a reserve asset, but the consensus mechanisms of other #crypto can be too easily changed to permit higher inflation so I don't support including them:
🚨HUGE NEWS on #debanking & #OperationChokePoint2.0: a little birdie told me that @FDICgov Vice Chair Travis Hill just spoke at an ABA meeting & said there is no place at the FDIC for those who explicitly or implicitly supported its debanking initiative. Transcript not avail yet
Travis Hill is a Republican & is vice chairman of the FDIC—has been outvoted by Biden/Warrenites on the FDIC board, but that will change on Jan 20 when Gruenberg steps down.
It'll be soooooooo interesting to see if Hill went off-script. Don't forget Gruenberg's people still control the FDIC (head of comms is allegedly trying to silence online critics of #debanking, so I doubt such remarks would've made it thru official editing of his speech, which should be posted at this site soon): fdic.gov/news/speeches