Technology And Regulators: A Game Of Speed

Rarely does a month go by that there is not some fairly big headline detailing how the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has another company that launched as ICO in its crosshairs. For the past couple years, the agency has been going after those entities that raised money by selling "unregistered securities".

This is their standard playbook that extends back decades. The regulators feel it is their duty to "protect the public" from those with nefarious intentions. Of course, most of us agree with an agency such as this going after activities such as fraud. That is not what is happening here. We are not see a ton of cases referred to the Justice Department for prosecution. Instead, they are fining companies, or putting them out of business, because they did not "play by their rules".

Nevertheless, this is the battleground that is drawn.

What is most interesting about this is that cases the SEC is dealing with go back a number of years. This makes sense since it often takes time to investigate and build a case. Thus, we can say this is a normal course of action.

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Except for the fact there is nothing normal about this. We are dealing with something entirely new, a situation that caused the regulators to be behind the curve. They did not understand what was taking place to start and spent the first couple years trying to figure out what was going on.

Now, we see cases that are 3 and 4 years old being pulled into court. This is a crucial point to remember.

The craze today is no longer ICOs. That is yesterday's news. Instead, DeFi is all the rage. This presents a host of new challenges for everyone, especially the regulators.

Once again, like with the ICOs, this is akin to the Wild West. There is no sheriff in town as they say. The community is policing itself, for whatever that is worth. Many are getting taken to the cleaners by the antics of nefarious players who only have one goal in mind: bilk people out of money.

Of course, this is exactly what an agency like the SEC seeks to prevent. The problem is they are still stuck dealing with the ICOs, let alone approaching DeFi. This is just starting to get on their radar.

The question then becomes, how long will it take before they get to the bottom of this situation and decide to take action? This is something that is not going to happen next week or month.

It is here where we see the essence of all that is taking place. The "old world" which is the governments and regulators, are being confronted by the "new world" comprised of technology coders and innovators who operate at a pace far beyond what the old can deal with.

Innovation is happening at a pace never seen before in human history. A great deal of this centers around the fact that we can do things in the digital world much quicker than the physical. With so many individuals from around the globe involved, it is hard to even begin to target the core of all this. Essentially, there is none since it is coming from every direction.

Speed is the things that separates today from decades past. There is little doubt that the ability to innovate has never been greater. The time it takes to go from idea to implementation can be only a few months.

The same is true for adoption. DeFi is something that was floating out there for a number of years, at least as an idea. There were some applications that provided different services to people yet was not widely accepted. 2020 changed all that. Suddenly the industry went from very small to more than $10 billion being locked up, in under 6 months. In contrast, Bernie Madoff, one of the largest swindles of all time, was around $60 billion and took decades to build up.


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Therefore, the problem for the age old institutions is not what are they going to do with DeFi but, rather, what is coming next? What are these developers already working upon that will appear in the next couple years? As we know, there is something on the drawing board that few of us know about. One day, we will be reading an article detailing the incredible growth of this craze that, before clicking that link, we didn't even know existed.

Considering the fact that governments are now just learning how much of a problem the mega-technology companies are, it shows how slow they are to adapt. They will be spending the next couple years trying to figure out what to do with them. Once again, the challenge is that by the time they draw any conclusion, the technology companies changed the game.

The same is true within the world of blockchain and cryptocurrency. Once they figure out what their course of action is, the innovators develop a new game that everyone starts playing. This causes the "old world" entities to have to start all over again.

It is here where we see our reason for optimism. Even just focusing upon the world of decentralized data, we see incredible innovations coming out on a regular basis. Most of what deals with cryptocurrency fits into this category. Each week, more data is being generated using applications that house it on permission-less blockchains. While the "law" is trying to catch up, innovation keeps pushing forward.

In a game of speed, it is best to get out in front. This is how I see the race taking place. The innovators have the lead and are not about to give it up. In fact, by the time the trailing entities figure out they need to close the gap, it expands.

Each day there are new applications, tokens, projects, or features that add to this entire process. All of that will eventually have to be sifted through to determine whether it poses a "threat" to the public. Ironically, by the time that happens, the public (or market if you will) already decided and moved on.

Presently, there is a ton of discussion about CBDC. Scan the headlines and you will likely come across some article stating how some country is looking at this. The central banks are having meetings and setting up committees. Timelines are all over the place but some are stating they look to release it in 2021 or the year after that.

In the meantime, Bitcoin distribution keeps growing. Newer entrants are getting involved in the token. The same is true for Ethereum. Both are experiencing wallet growth at an incredible pace.

Then there are all the other cryptocurrencies that are roll out their projects. This is not happening in a year or two but is taking place right now. While the centralized entities hold their meetings, decentralized platforms are just coding.

It is a very simple race and one that I will bet on the side of technology. If speed is what matters, this is right up technology's alley. In a decentralized forum, while it looks slow and inefficient, it is the fact that projects are going in a thousand different directions that makes it so powerful. Suddenly, there is a time when things start to integrate with each other to provide something much bigger.

All the while, the regulators and governmental entities are trying to catch up.

Good luck on that one.


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Your current Rank (28) in the battle Arena of Holybread has granted you an Upvote of 18%

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Bang, I did it again... I just rehived your post!
Week 28 of my contest just started...you can now check the winners of the previous week!
!BEER
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It's just to say that the innovation currently hitting Crypto is always taking separate dimensions and there's too much data and information to keep up with. Imagine if someone takes a three months nap and wake up, the information from the Crypto world would have Just been too much imagine all that data and all that knowledge. The ICO can't keep up they'll Just be chasing clout. Marvelous read again. Cheers!

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The pace is incredible. Even on Hive we are seeing things rolling out in a much quicker fashion as compared to before. This while some challenges are going on with the hard fork.

Nevertheless, it is likely things will only accelerate in the future. This is the way things happen, if for no other reason that more people being involved. As more coders find their way to cryptocurrency and start developing projects, it will keep building.

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Yeah and I think I heard @theycallmedan talking about the SMTs as well coming soon, it's like coming too fast I mean the projects, three months ago DeFi was totally not a thing. And it's just so incredible how far we can still go. I'm hoping the same too for Leo

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Well he is working on helping to decentralize Hive Engine which could help to give people more confidence in it.

There is talk about SMTs being in the next hard fork and I would not doubt Dan has a finger in those discussions. However, I havent seen anything publicly coming from the witnesses, not that it means much since communication still isnt the strong suit.

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The crypto innovations are so fast that the Regulators are way way behind the system.... But they should start hiring crypto professionals and devs that could trace irregularities. Or they should let private companies incorporate cryptocurrencies in their Financial Systems (others have been doing this already since a couple of years ago). There is no stopping, the Fed and the SEC would have to accept the crypto situation. Financial Media such as CNBC, Bloomberg or even CNN show trade value of BTC in their indices reports.

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Yes they can do that and I am sure they are hiring all those people.

However, innovation, especially in something this early, tends to go in all kinds of unexpected directions. This means that everyone outside the core developers is playing catch up. For many projects, it means little. However, as we see, every once in a while (every couple years) there is something that takes off.

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(Edited)

That is the gist of it. Regulators are hopelessly behind and it's getting worse for them. Are they going to come out and say "stop the music and wait for us to figure this all out"? Not likely. That would be ridiculous.

What's happening also underlines the importance of nothing like a world government ever forming. We'd all be fucked if there was some giant global bureaucracy lording it over all of us with the power to stop anything.

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I surmise that is what the elites, those who are behind the governments are trying to achieve. They want to centralize everything since it is much easier to control. The greater the centralization, the easier it is to assert power over the entire system. This is what they are seeking.

It is up to us to generate the platforms and systems that can combat this. The more we have that is outside the system, the better it is for us.

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Fortunately, the world is made up of different civilizations. The Russians will never play along with such designs on part of the Western elites. Ditto for China. They've got their own plans. I think there will be multiple power blocs in the world in this century.

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Agreed. The governments of the world will never all agree with each other which is our saving grace. We can keep pushing forward while they are battling among themselves.

It does buy us more time to develop and grow.

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The best part of that is that there will be small independent countries or other jurisdictions that will always have special status of one kind or another. Such conditions arise when the big players have to compromise. Hong Kong is a good example. Switzerland is another. Then there are all the small island nations who are at a liberty to form ties with whoever they want at any given time. Often the large players wouldn't even want to stomp on the little guys if they can be useful in some way despite them being a nuisance in other ways. The elites will always have their tax havens no matter what. :)

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That is all true. We have no idea where the leadership will come from yet see a country like Estonia, small on the global scale, taking the digital lead.

The conversation gets really interesting if we think away from the nation-state mindset and start to envision a world of networks. After all, as many stated, the decision of a Facebook tends to impact people more than one made by they centralized national government.

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Our national and local governments still have quite a bit of influence over our lives. We pay our taxes to them and and rely on them for many services. A medieval type of world of international networks is clearly forming, though.

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Yes but as less tax money is flowing into the system, the harder things become for them. We are seeing a lot of work from home which is starting to hammer real estate values, that kills property taxes which go to the local governments. Thus we will likely see budget issues.

Unlike the national governments, they cant just take on debt to finance everything.

It is going to get very interesting here soon. We are going to see a sovereign debt crisis arising at some point. This will likely start in the Middle East as a lot of those countries struggle with lower oil prices.

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Property taxes aren't as large a share of tax revenue everywhere as they are in the US. Yes, local governments can't print money but in a lot of countries the national governments do it for them through subsidies.

I agree that we are likely to see many national governments either default on their loans or try and print their way out of debt leading to currency debasement. There will be a flight to the dollar as it is the global reserve currency at present. The US federal government will be the last of the dominoes to fall. Bitcoin and gold will appreciate tremendously relative to the failing fiats.

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The crypto innovations are so fast that the Regulators are way way behind the system.... But they should start hiring crypto professionals and devs that could trace irregularities, Lol! Or they should let private companies incorporate cryptocurrencies in their Financial Systems (others have been doing this already since a couple of years ago). There is no stopping, the Fed and the SEC would have to accept the crypto situation. Financial Media such as CNBC, Bloomberg or even CNN show trade value of BTC in their indices reports already.

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Maybe we the people should do away with the regulators. Most are inept and might be on some investment bankers payroll.

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I feel like regulators are holding us back and should liberalize the cryptocurrency market and let it governance itself. I don't think that blockchain and cryptocurrencies are more dangerous than stock or politics, so why all this wall from letting it be mass adopted? There are interests at stake and that is influencing the speed to which the cryptocurrencies are adopted, too bad for the mass public that they are restricted to using them at their full potential.

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Regulators are too old and slow to understand new tech, they won't even be able to successfully regulate anything they don't understand.

Under there's some younger people who actually know what they're talking about in office, the tech landscape is pretty much wide open. The worst that could happen with the current people in office within the countries that matter is a destruction of big tech companies, and that would only benefit us.

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Regulators never catch the train. The one who on the throne is just only sitting in the top of tower and seeking for his/her own favor, connection and power.

!tan >> Please help me tip this great post by @taskmaster4450

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