> If you had a bunch of people trading between USD and GBP amd EUR and doing nothing else, that would be negative sum and look an awful like what people do with cryptocurrency.
That does happen. About a decade ago I dug into FX flows. The trade in USD was eighty times trade flows.
FX is a nasty business, huge profits to be made, profits that can be multiplied by the slightest bit of undetectable (now the traders know how to cover their communication traces) fraud.
Cryptocurrency is pure scam, true. But, in my educated opinion, the international financial system is dominated at the highest levels by out and out crooks.
The state of international finance, how it works against its consumers and saps the life out of the very economic activity it fosters (economic activity at the level we have would not be possible without sophisticated financial systems) is a huge incentive for developing crypto.
I just wish that there was a better solution (even a viable solution) than crypto
Complex social and economic problems do not have simple easy answers.
That does happen. About a decade ago I dug into FX flows. The trade in USD was eighty times trade flows.
FX is a nasty business, huge profits to be made, profits that can be multiplied by the slightest bit of undetectable (now the traders know how to cover their communication traces) fraud.
Cryptocurrency is pure scam, true. But, in my educated opinion, the international financial system is dominated at the highest levels by out and out crooks.
The state of international finance, how it works against its consumers and saps the life out of the very economic activity it fosters (economic activity at the level we have would not be possible without sophisticated financial systems) is a huge incentive for developing crypto.
I just wish that there was a better solution (even a viable solution) than crypto
Complex social and economic problems do not have simple easy answers.