Submitted via IRC for Bytram
British Prime Minister Theresa May and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are among the world leaders who've expressed alarm at the rise of virtual cash to move money offshore. The U.S. Congress held hearings this month, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin called on the world's 20 biggest economies to work together to make sure cryptocurrencies don't "become the next Swiss bank account." The concern comes after a successful international crackdown on tax havens in traditional banking.
"Every country is scrambling to come up with an answer," said Drake, who serves on the boards of 25 public and private companies. "There needs to be a regulated structure that won't kill the industry."
The earliest adopters of the practice were criminals, and their involvement has risen steadily, according to a three-year study by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a non-partisan Washington think tank. Next came users like Drake, who said he follows U.S. law by reporting his companies' holdings. Drake said better oversight would help legitimize the industry.
(Score: 2) by Virindi on Thursday February 01 2018, @01:46AM
Except that you stated right there the real problem with that system: that banks were not held to the standard that every other business is. Writing checks that you know you cannot cover is fraud. Agreeing to provide more goods than you can provide is fraud. All that should have happened, was a law that states that every note must be 100% backed (and that to cover the cost of storage etc, notes may decrease by a predetermined amount over time or whatever, as long as it is explicitly stated).
Instead we got to keep the concept of giving out more notes than you can possibly cover, and the entire economy was built on it! That is insane. The only reason that happened is because bankers had sufficient political power to force this scam to continue to be legal. And over time, rather than stopping the root problem, a series of industry-protectionist rules built up around the practice.
Making more promises than you can fulfill is not capitalism, it is lying to people to steal from them. And now, everyone thinks that is the only way the world can operate.