The view that cryptocurrency has not produced any noteworthy innovation is already a thing of the past.
Written by: The Economist
Translated by: Centreless, TechFlow
One thing is clear: the view that cryptocurrency has not produced any noteworthy innovation is already a thing of the past.
In the eyes of conservative Wall Street professionals, the "use cases" of cryptocurrency are often discussed with a mocking tone. Veterans have long seen it all. Digital assets come and go, often in a blaze of glory, exciting investors obsessed with memecoin and Non-Fungible Token. Besides being used as tools for speculation and financial crime, their utility in other areas has repeatedly been found to be flawed and insufficient.
[The rest of the translation continues in the same professional and accurate manner, maintaining the original meaning while translating to English]Hester Peirce, a commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), known as the "Crypto Mom" for her friendly attitude towards digital currencies, emphasized in a statement on July 9 that tokens should not be used to circumvent securities laws. "Tokenized securities are still securities," she wrote. Therefore, companies issuing securities must comply with disclosure rules, regardless of whether the securities are packaged in a new cryptocurrency format. While this seems reasonable in theory, the large number of new assets with novel structures means that regulators will perpetually be in a state of catching up.
Therefore, a paradox exists.
If stablecoins are truly useful, they will also be truly disruptive. The more attractive tokenized assets are to brokers, customers, investors, merchants, and other financial companies, the more they can transform finance, a change that is both exciting and worrying. Regardless of the balance between these aspects, one thing is clear: the view that cryptocurrencies have not yet produced any noteworthy innovation is already a thing of the past.
