Thread by @punk6529

1/ The European Union could be the natural home of crypto.

It won't be, I believe.

But it should and could be. It would be the best jujitsu move it could do.

2/ A few hours ago, I made the case that the natural home for crypto to take roots and flourish is the United States.

The USA has the right environment to support crypto and, in fact, the largest crypto market in the world.

Let's see the case for the EU

https://twitter.com/punk6529/status/1457278102405623811

3/ Let's start with some simple background items

✅Economy the size of the United States
✅Constitutional democracies with support for human rights
✅Strong history in financial services
✅Vast cultural and artistic heritage
✅Amazing brands
✅Acceptable tech capacity

4/ The EU also one advantage that the United States does not have.

There is no Howey Test in the EU.

There are a variety of existing and future regulations to look out for, but nothing as automatic and broad reaching as the Howey Test to classify crypto projects as securities

5/ The EU also has a completely different strategic position than the United States relative to crypto.

The EU has completely missed the web era. The largest tech company in Europe is still, somehow, SAP.

There are no major EU platforms

6/ This bothers the EU a lot (that they have no strategic digital autonomy in the FAANG era) and they proceed to get very concerned & make ineffectual moves

❎Try to launch national champions in global networked businesses

❎REGULATE with ideas like GDPR which helps incumbents

7/ You cannot beat Facebook and Twitter in 2021 by launching a sub-scale derivative competitor.

You beat them by moving immediately to the next generation of tech (the decentralized generation).

6529 has some access in the EU & has been yelling about this for nearly a decade

8/ Unfortunately, so far, with the exception of a literal handful of politicians across the whole EU, none of them see the opportunity.

There is no strategic vision for technology right now in the EU

9/ The second lens that the EU could use to look at crypto with is human rights.

The EU is more concerned about topics like privacy than the United States is.

But nobody has made the leap that crypto can provide more human rights, not fewer

10/ The third lens for the EU. The ECB does not, indirectly, run the world's payment rails. If the USA deep national security state is afraid of losing control, what is the EU afraid of?

The EU is subordinate to the USA already on these matters.

11/ The funniest thing about FATCA is not that the EU complied with it, it is that it got nothing equivalent in return.

If the issue was "let's all work together on money laundering", the Delaware would start reporting back to, say, Spain.

😂😂😂 at that thought

12/ So, in summary, the advantages for the EU are:
✅Leapfrog into a new generation of technology
✅Loosen FAANG grip in EU
✅Support its commitment to human rights

So, this sounds great, is it going to happen?

13/ So far, I regret to inform you that I believe it is not.

The EU is reverting to form, where it believes the answer is: a) the state, and b) regulation and c) centralized control

It will be a mental leap too far

14/ What I believe is going to actually happen with crypto is that the United States will eventually do the right thing.

The industry will flourish in the United States and then, in about a decade, the EC will be convening panels to understand why EU is behind in Web 3.0 economy

15/ I hope I am wrong. The EU has suffered significantly by its inability to stand up a tech industry.

I think the EU is going to continue to lose relative technological and geopolitical power as it continues to fail to grasp the implications of exponential technologies.

16/ I do not think that is good for the world.

An EU that is falling behind economically, that cannot compete technologically is a disaster waiting to happen.

Europe has dragged the world into war many times. It is better for it to be strong and prosperous

17/ What do you mean the EU is falling behind?

Here is US vs EU GDP per capita in nominal terms.

In other words, without adjustors for purchasing power parity changes, in other words without getting boosted by EU deflation

In other words the euros you can spend abroad.

18/ The EU never really recovered from the 2008 financial crisis.

The EU has effectively missed the wealth generation of the technology industry.

And given how technology builds on prior technology, unless something changes, will fall further behind

19/ I live in Europe. There is plenty of patting themselves on the back about things that are better than the USA.

Or how the USA has problems and its best days are behind it.

And, sure, some things are better in EU & there are plenty of problems in the United States.

20/ But there is no self-reflection about why the EU is falling progressively behind the USA economically.

In fact, there is almost no coverage of this topic.

I have never seen the chart above (from the World Bank) in the European media.

21/ So I will close here. I will keep pushing the EU to be more ambitious, but I have my reservations.

Which is why, with all its flaws, we cannot abandon the fight for Washington DC to the centralized system lobbyist in the hope that someone else will save us

22/ For more threads on NFT and how to save the open metaverse, go here

https://twitter.com/punk6529/status/1448399827054833668