The State of Stablecoin Risks | Hacker News Reader

The State of Stablecoin Risks

singlelunch.com

81 pointsVHRanger89 comments

Yep, when the run on the so-called stablecoins happens it will take down the exchanges more-or-less all at once (since they all have large holdings of USDC and USDT and use USDC/USDT to swap between one another). The exchanges will freeze withdrawals as they'll have huge holes in their balance sheets and the entire system will implode in spectacular fashion. If you have any money left in crypto at this point, then you get what you deserve.

USDC claims to have the entirety of it in short term US treasuries. I don't know enough about banking to understanding whether the evidence in the article conflicts with that though.

> If you have any money left in crypto at this point, then you get what you deserve.

Yeah, I heard this in 2017 too. In reality neither of us knows how things will look a year from now. Short term will probably be ugly though.

This kind of systemic risk did not exist in the crypto space in 2017. USDC didn't even exist yet, and USDT was a small player. The exchanges have always been the major risk factor for crypto (see: Mt. Gox and the other exchanges that have swallowed their customers crypto along the way), but it's not until the last few years that the fate of all the exchanges have been linked together. That's why this time is different.

Theft is bad, but it isn't an existential risk to the whole system. The value is still there, just moved.

Leverage is a different matter entirely, because "fractional reserve" style financing inflates the money supply. The monetary economy is like a juggling act. Increasing velocity makes it look more valuable, but when velocity slows down, the system becomes insolvent.

Tether was not a small player in 2017, not sure if you remember but people were already sounding the alarm bells about it. Obviously it's bigger now, but so is the whole market.

Having USDC to compete with USDT puts things in a less risky position, not more. All evidence points to USDC being fully backed. The "bank run" scenario this article alludes to seems like a huge stretch.

You appear to not understand how banks work.

Yes, USDC is fully backed at the moment. Mostly by deposits in SBNY. However SBNY has most of its money lent out. Therefore the size of a run that USDC can survive is set by how much investments its banks, mostly SBNY has, which https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/sbny/financials/... says is somewhat over $9 billion.

There is over $50 billion of USDC outstanding. So trying to redeem about 1/5 of it will result in a run on SBNY that SBNY can't handle.

Our financial system knows what to do with that situation. It is outlined in https://www.fdic.gov/consumers/banking/facts/payment.html. SBNY gets shut down, a new bank buys them, and depositors with accounts over $250,000 see their bank accounts reduced TO $250,000. USDC, as the largest of those depositors, would then no longer be backed.

So in the event of a crypto panic, about 80% of the money backing USDC is likely to go poof. Not because USDC did anything wrong, but because that is how banks work. It is not for nothing that banking has been described as "picking up pennies in front of a steamroller".

> Our financial system knows what to do with that situation. It is outlined in https://www.fdic.gov/consumers/banking/facts/payment.html. SBNY gets shut down, a new bank buys them, and depositors with accounts over $250,000 see their bank accounts reduced TO $250,000. USDC, as the largest of those depositors, would then no longer be backed.

That is..not how it works. Are you assuming all of SBNY's loans are worthless / bad debt? If SBNY folded the loans would get sold to pay back the creditors. They wouldn't get the full value obviously, but those loans don't just magically disappear. They'd certainly get more than the 20 cents on the dollar you are claiming..

Even your own link covers this..

> If for example, a depositor has only a single account with a balance of $255,000, he or she would be paid $250,000 through FDIC insurance and would receive a claim against the estate of the closed bank for the remaining $5,000 which is not insured. The depositor would be given a Receiver's Certificate as proof of this claim and would receive payments as the assets of the bank are liquidated.

Someone being so confidently and condescendingly wrong is peak hackernews.

The bond market is almighty [1], and given that daily volume seems to be around $bn 500 or 600 [2], it seems that it would not be too hard for USDC to unload $bn 50 of treasuries in a fairly short time (despite worries about bond market liquidity [3]).

However, as the article points out, if USDC gave most of the money to a bank (SBNY), then it is not obvious that the bank put it in short term treasuries - the bank could have done the usual thing of putting it into longer term loans ("maturity transformation"). Given that USDC constitutes nearly half of that bank's balance sheet, but cash/cash equivalents less than a third, things could get interesting on the way down.

[1] > In the 1990s, the Democratic political adviser James Carville said: “I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or as a .400 baseball hitter. But now I would like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.” https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-29/the-daily...

[2] see eg. https://www.finra.org/filing-reporting/trace/data/trace-trea... (click on a recent weekly report) or https://www.statista.com/statistics/189302/trading-volume-of...

[3] see eg. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-24/treasurie... (Note: also a running gag in Matt Levine's Money Stuff column...)

Short term treasuries still take time to change into US Dollars. A bank run could make USDC insolvent in the short term, in theory.

That's why you have FDIC insurance to cover the time period between say, a 30 day treasury and the worst case bank run.

That being said, such an event hasn't really happened in decades. So it's relatively low chance of happening.

> That's why you have FDIC insurance to cover the time period between say, a 30 day treasury and the worst case bank run.

Well, usually banks use your money for much riskier loans (business loans, personal loans, mortgages) which is why you need FDIC. Not because treasuries take too long to sell.

The volume on US treasuries is like half a trillion a day, so it shouldn't take very long to liquidate even large amounts of USDC's holdings..

Even worse is that a lot of these stablecoins have their funds deposited with Silvergate, a niche crypto bank that makes its money by lending to people like Michael Saylor. Their stock is down about 50% over a few months.

> The volume on US treasuries is like half a trillion a day, so it shouldn't take very long to liquidate even large amounts of USDC's holdings..

US Treasuries are down like 10% this year.

Yes, a bank can liquidate, but at a loss, a 10% loss in this case. The bank would rather hold-onto maturity, which could be 30-days or 90-days for some of the shorter bonds.

Short term US treasuries specifically. They are pretty insensitive to interest rate changes since they are close to maturity.

6-month US Treasuries were 0.36% APY on January 19th, 2022.

1-month US Treasuries are 1.13% APY today, June 14th, 2022.

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So if you had bought a 6-month US Treasury on Jan 19th, you'd have a 1-month Treasury with .36% APY.

That's worth much much less than the current 1-month US Treasuries that are available, so you'd be forced to sell at a loss if customers requested their money back.

> That's worth much much less than the current 1-month US Treasuries that are available

It's not 10% less, or anywhere close to it. You are only missing out on roughly (1/12) * (0.0113 - 0.0036) * (treasury amount) vs a 1 month treasury bought today..I'm having trouble finding a price chart for 1 month treasuries.

6-month is obviously more sensitive to the rate drop than 1 month, but the 10% number you are referencing is almost certainly for long term treasuries, not short term..

BND is down 12%, BSV is down 6.5% YTD.

BND is not "just" long terms, its a mix of all kinds of bonds. BSV is a mix exclusively of short term (~5 years or less).

VBLAX, Vanguard's long-term bond ETF, is down 23% YTD.

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Given how BND is largely composed of a mix of US Treasuries (of many different maturities), I think the 10% quickie estimate I gave earlier is correct. I'm buying/selling these things in my portfolio, so I've got a good idea of how they're performing.

Short term for treasuries is generally considered <= 1 year, BSV is only 1 to 5 years.

I just looked it up, Circle says they only hold treasures that mature in <= 3 months, so yeah I think even 6.5% is a massive overestimate to how volatile their treasury portfolio is..probably more like <1% which is easy to cover if they just hold a tiny bit of the deposits in cash..

> Short term for treasuries is generally considered <= 1 year, BSV is only 1 to 5 years.

BSV is literally named "Vanguard Short-Term Bond ETF".

That being said, the only "standardized" terms I'm aware of are Bills (less than 1 year), bonds (greater than 10 years), and Notes (1 to 10 years).

In any case, it is clear that BSV is considered short-term by Vanguard and its investors. So I'm more than willing to believe in Vanguard's language over yours.

haha, ok, so now we're just quibbling over the definition of short term instead of discussing the concrete question of how volatile USDC's treasuries are? Just replace instances of "short term" with <= 3 months, now are we in agreement?

My point is that your 10% figure is not applicable to the treasuries Circle claims to hold. You can call them whatever you want.

The Fed is about to raise rates by 0.75% (estimated, maybe 0.5% to 1%) this week.

What do you think will happen to the value of all those treasuries? Even short term ones will decline in value. Not only because of the actual rate increase, but also over the expectation of future rate increases to clamp down on inflation.

10% drop? Probably not. But any drop in price followed by a bankrun would end up in insolvency.

For a 3 month treasury the drop will be tiny, like less than 1% tiny. It's would be easy to cover during a "bank run" given that (a) they hold some portion of deposits in cash anyway and (b) they've been earning interest on these deposits for years now. That’s my whole point..do you disagree?

Look man, I've lived through 2007 / 2008 when the money market funds broke the buck.

I know that even a portfolio consisting of nearly exclusively treasuries can still decline in value. That's all I'm saying. Banks, even with their high quality debt instruments, aren't immune to the effects of a bank run.

The value of those short term notes still climbs up and down daily on the market. With a big enough decline, issues can arise.

I'd assume short term is 3 years or less, so make it a 2y duration on average, and assume rates went up by 2%, then we are talking about a 4% loss, not 10%.

Still, previously I didn't want to hold USDT anymore; now I don't want to hold USDC anymore either.

Short term liquidity problems are handled by the repo market, where banks can take short term loans from other banks to cover withdrawals. In a crisis situation the lender of last resort (e.g. central bank. So federal reserve for USD) will step in and make the loans.

The FDIC is designed to cover solvency issues, not liquidity ones. It does not kick in until afterva bank has failed.

Treasuries are one of the most liquid assets in the world. The question is if they could crash in value while simultaneously maintaining the dollar value, that could break a peg.

Since they are short term the dollar amount wouldn't change much, even with big swings in interest rates. USDC is also tied to the dollar value (not inflation or interest rate adjusted) so I don't see how this could happen

FDIC covers individual investors up to a quarter million or so, if I'm not mistaken, not institutional investors that have deposited $bn 50.

FDIC is for when the money is gone, not frozen. FDIC protection means you get paid back when the dust settles, not immediately.

New thing in here (to me): USDC is largely banked by Signature Bank of NY and that "USDC largely banks with SBNY, and a large fraction of SBNY’s liabilities are specifically to USDC". Which is a form of systemic risk; can the bank make good on its obligations? This seems like something a banking regulator ought to be examining closely.

I think the entire point of mentioning SBNY is that they are acting like a traditional bank in lending out their deposits. The question is what kind of loans did they make, and how liquid are they? If they're not very liquid then USDC will eventually have a liquidity crisis.

I think the question being raised is "what if SBNY collapses"?

Or more specifically "what if a run on USDC causes Standard Bank of New York to collapse?" The bank is part of the legitimate, regulated economy. The regulators should be insulating the real economy from cryptocurrency scams and gambling.

If people wanted to get their money out and SBNY had somehow misplaced it, it would seem like the “scam” was the “legitimate, regulated” SBNY, not “cryptocurrency”

In the good old regulated economy, individual depositors of a bank are protected by the FDIC (up to a certain level), and have no reason to engage in a bank run.

Now, if all those individual depositors instead give their money to some unregulated entity (USDC), and that unregulated entity gives $50 bn to a bank, and then one day turns around and says to the bank "hey, I'd like my $50 bn back", then the bank might not have that much at hand right now. And since the unregulated entity is not covered by the FDIC, individual investors might have an incentive to engage in a bank run.

Isn't there some kind of regulation to prevent a bank to be that much exposed to a single customer?

Crypto can be cool, or crypto can be money, it cannot be both.

Approximately half a billion USD are traded for USDT every single week though... and have been for a number of years now: https://cryptowat.ch/charts/KRAKEN:USDT-USD?period=1w_Monday

If there was a discrepancy between the amount of USDT and USD controlled by Tether, surely that peg would be far away from $1 USD/$1 USDT right now no?

It has slipped during periods of mass hysteria in the crypto markets a few times in the last few years but has always reverted to $1 within a few days tops.

> If there was a discrepancy between the amount of USDT and USD controlled by Tether, surely that peg would be far away from $1 USD/$1 USDT right now no?

Why would you think that? As long as Teather has >0 USD they can honor redemptions at face value. When Teather has 0 USD, their ability to redeem also drops to 0, and the peg collapses.

I’d replace mass hysteria with moments of clarity. Interest rates rising will motivate investors to purchase more bonds and limit the speculative tendencies that propped up the crypto marketplace.

sigh What is Tether for again, and why is its market cap ridiculously high? What's wrong with actual USD?

I would make a bet on Metaculus if I just understood why people use this thing. Is it only for DeFi / Ethereum-type smart contracts now? Those interest-earning things that earn 20% a year? For porn stars who keep USDT and have to periodically redeem them for USD because banks refuse to do business with them?

USD is not on the blockchain. You can't use it for peer to peer trading.

USD is regulated. You can't use it for instant free market reading at a broker.

USDT, despite its potential unsoundness, is one of the rare cryptocurrencies that is actually a currency

> USD is not on the blockchain. You can't use it for peer to peer trading.

You can do a bank transfer.

> USD is regulated. You can't use it for instant free market reading at a broker.

I don't know what this means, or what this implies.

If you feel confidant that Tether will collapse this year then prove it & start building an impressive brier score:

https://www.metaculus.com/questions/9121/tether-collapses-in...

How is crypto still a thing?

Cheap money means there is no reality. This doesn't just impact crypto, but all of startup land and most of tech.

How many startups have you interviewed with that were planning for "doubling head count this year!"? Nearly everyone I've talked to since 2018 has been planning for exponential growth with no idea what to even do with all these new hires.

People are building and shipping products that fundamentally don't make economic sense.

There have been plenty of IPOs for companies it's not entirely clear can ever turn a profit.

There was a post on Hacker News a few weeks back claiming that "natural resources" don't exist and there are absolutely no limits to economic growth.

I'm not fan of crypto but it's the natural consequence of the reality fading from memory.

As the price of money goes up, reality will return with a vengeance.

> There was a post on Hacker News a few weeks back claiming that "natural resources" don't exist and there are absolutely no limits to economic growth.

I don't disagree per se, but a resource is really a material that human ingenuity has been applied to so that it can serve a useful purpose. There are lots of lots of materials that used to be turned into resources that we no longer bother with like whale oil, or current resources that used to just be gunk like crude oil. There are also resources which don't come from nature directly like computation, money, and so on. There is a lot of potential to find new uses for materials and resources in the future that could lead to further economic growth.

Growth can be defined as as the increase or improvement in the inflation-adjusted market value of goods and services produced over a period of time. Services don't necessarily require pulling things out of the ground. Improvements in computing that increase productivity lead to growth. Making a person to person service more efficient or inventing a new service could allow for a lot of future growth. Is this likely to be infinitely sustainable? I have no idea.

It's gambling with charts, and greed is an inherent vice in humans.

Because "it's the best performing asset this decade and the future of finance" and FOMO.

A prolonged environment of virtually zero to even negative interest rates inflating speculative bubbles all over the place.

When I randomly checked my Steam account and realized I had about $70 worth of ingame items that I had gotten through drops while playing, and which had suddenly 'appreciated in value' noticeably... That's when I knew we are in an everything-bubble.

I like „everythingbubble“ that explains so much so easy :)

I think it’s easier than that. Two things that go hand in hand.

There is still money coming in, and people want to believe.

When one of those stops… look out.

Companies like Fidelity are letting people gamble their 401ks in crypto.

A16Z just set aside billions for the Web3.

It's going to take a while to disappear.

Crypto trading in a 401k would at least solve the maze of taxes and valuations. Assuming it doesn’t go to zero (yes, yes, big if…), what you get out when you cash out and withdraw would be ordinary income.

Not to mention widespread adoption would increase the likelihood of a government bailout when it inevitably crashes, which is the real motivating factor for those pushing for it

That doesn't necessarily follow to me. When an average company goes bankrupt, people just lose their money. I believe federal intervention is when there is systemic risk (or major criminal actions). I've been learning from this thread but it doesn't seem to be systemic. It's not going to take down a bunch of real world banks, crypto market cap was less than $1T. If I own bank stock or whatever in my 401k, it's on me if it dies, crypto would be the same.

What? Fidelity won't even let me buy stocks in my 401k, let alone options or crypto -- they only offer a couple of curated high-fee ETFs.

> What? Fidelity won't even let me buy stocks in my 401k, let alone options or crypto -- they only offer a couple of curated high-fee ETFs.

I think it's something employers can optionally choose to offer in their plans

You need a brokeragelink account in your 401k. Then transfer from index funds to that account and then you can trade stocks. After filling out an application you can enable derivative trading too in your 401k BrokerageLink account.

You can roll over your 401K into a Rollover IRA and even do options.

You take the stairs up, but the elevator down.

Some maybe the roof …

I meant that ironic. If one tries to answer the question the reality of crypto will begin to emerge :)

Crypto used to mean cryptography. It is very much a thing.

https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2021/nov/18/crypto-cr...

On the other hand, Bitcoin and Web3 sucks mainly because it is based on Blockchain. That solves the double-spend problem but in the most brute force way:

gather all transactions in one place (miner) and look for a double-spend, then have everyone store the state of every coin/smart contract.

That is as dumb as having BitTorrent require every seeder to host every file. As more people join, the throughput always remains the same.

Can you name any other Internet protocols where “max transactions per second” is a thing? How many websites per second can HTTP support? How many emails per second can SMTP support?

Blockchain is one of the only technologies in history that promises to become slower and more expensive over time. And hence people jump in early, to buy the “utility token” issued in block rewards, because it’ll become more scarce later as transaction costs skyrocket. All it does is attract speculation, not utility.

And hence, rather than using crypto with smart contracts to power community applications such as https://intercoin.org/applications — instead it is relegated to peer-to-peer applications that do transactions once in a while.

This is what must happen to make crypto mainstream: https://intercoin.org/proposal.pdf … but most projects are stuck in just doing more of the same … blockchain, blockchain, speculation, speculation, yields, rewards out of thin air, etc.

If no one successfully does this then we’ll live in a world where Big Tech controls our interactions and the Federal Governments (CBDC) controls our transactions. Very centrally planned world with no viable crypto alternatives. China already has WeChat central database and the social credit system. Canada already froze accounts of truckers. It’s early days.

> Crypto used to mean cryptography.

"Gay" used to mean happy.

"Piracy" used to involve cannons.

Hell, we're on "hacker" news, a term largely lost to what we used to call crackers, in the general populace.

Language evolves.

> Language evolves.

Yeah, but that doesn't mean people can't resist stupid changes.

Crypto meaning "cryptography" is far better IMHO than crypto meaning "that weird speculative fad from the early 21st century that made old scams great again." Cryptography is a pretty important, proven useful technology.

> "Piracy" used to involve cannons.

To nitpick, that's because muzzle-loading cannons are obsolete weapons. Classic piracy still happens, and the pirates still use guns.

Just use “cryptography” in full, always, way cooler than “crypto”.

> Just use “cryptography” in full, always, way cooler than “crypto”.

I typically use both in full now, except where I can unambiguously use "crypto" to refer to cryptography (especially in cryptocurrency contexts where that's incongruous).

“Crypto” used to mean “cryptozoology”. Now there’s all these blockchain startups out there who don’t even have a single yeti on staff

Amazingly yeticoin is a thing and doesn't seem to be a joke.

This is one reason why we’re most likely going to end up in a centrally planned dystopia … when so many of the talented people who can build alternatives prefer to do bikeshedding and bickering.

"Freezing accounts of truckers" is not what happened.

Maybe focus on the main point? Or else try quibbling about China’s social credit system too.

Your main point was sullied by the implication of sympathy for authoritarian far rightists, even if that was not your intent.

Oh, well I vuess no sense discussing it then

It literally is though

What bullshit. Implies that "truckers" as a category had their accounts frozen.

How about: "Some people organizing a riot had their accounts frozen, some few of which might have been truckers, but probably not"

Since, y'know, truckers actually have to earn a living trucking, not parking in downtown Ottawa for weeks leaning on their horns and blathering about overthrowing the government.

> What bullshit. Implies that "truckers" as a category had their accounts frozen.

> How about: "Some people organizing a riot had their accounts frozen, some few of which might have been truckers, but probably not"

That's something like what "truckers" means in this context. The context means you don't need to spell it out in excruciating detail like you're demanding. Language works like that. I got what was meant immediately.

Also, as far as I know, those protests were nothing like a "riot." Wasn't it mainly people parking illegally and honking horns obnoxiously? I get most of my news from the New York Times, and I mainly recall stories about how peaceful and well organized they were (compared to what you'd expect in America). If they were actually rioting, I don't think they would have given so much attention to stuff like that.

"Parking illegally" is a bit of a mild description for what was effectively blockading the entire downtown business area for several weeks, harassing local businesses about their masking laws, driving through residential neighbourhoods with big trucks and horns blaring, and openly talking (in signs and speeches) about overthrowing an elected government. That and closing international border crossings? And at one of the crossings being armed?

As controversial as they were, vaccine mandates were popular with the majority of Canadians and were part of the previous year's election campaign. The same government got in trouble earlier with the public (and official opposition) for not being strict enough at the border about COVID.

At that point many I know were personally ready to see said vaccine mandates dropped. But most were also completely unwilling to let it be because a bunch of authoritarian right wing dickheads demanded it

And the border things and vaccine mandates the truckers were complaining about were not even under the direct control of the Canadian govenrment but required by agreement with the US gov't.

Note that the same "truckers" did not attempt such an occupation in the US, where the same mandate was put in place and required? Why? Because your Homeland Security would have swept them out and arrested them and tossed them in jail far quicker than ours did. They occupied the Canadian side of the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, not the US. Because same reason.

None of those things are rioting, nor is it rioting to express an unpopular opinion loudly.

Honestly, it sounds like you just really dislike the "truckers" and are mainly getting irate when you see mention of them that doesn't express a similar opinion by being obviously negative and condemnatory. It's indisputable the Canada froze the accounts of many of the truckers, which is frankly the only bit that's relevant to a cryptocurrency discussion. The OP of this sub-thread expressed that clearly and concisely, and going into too much detail about the protests themselves is a derail.

Preventing people from sleeping for weeks is torture. It's violence. Doing that in a mob is a riot.

> Preventing people from sleeping for weeks is torture. It's violence.

OK, then. So when do I get to haul my noisy neighbor in front of The Hague for his crimes against humanity?

I'm sure you have a lengthy citation of truckers being sent to the Hague for crimes against humanity...

> I'm sure you have a lengthy citation of truckers being sent to the Hague for crimes against humanity...

No, I'm just mocking the hyperbole.

> None of those things are rioting, nor is it rioting to express an unpopular opinion loudly.

Who gets to decide that?

I was fine with OP's post until they made the statement that "truckers had accounts frozen" because that clearly is not what happened. Some people had accounts frozen, but not a whole class of people, most not even truckers. On the whole people breaking the law and using those accounts to accomplish it and taking the label 'truckers' even though they had nothing to do with the trucking industry.

Soft measures to defuse and de-escalate the protests were ineffective. The police refused to do their job. So the government acted.

Whether you call it a riot or not, I don't care the point is illegal behaviour including blocking an international border crossing -- with firearms -- has legal consequences. The people doing it were not "truckers". They were far right protesters.

The bulk of the organizers were the literally the same "yellow vest" protesters who freaked out about the carbon tax, and also Syrian refugees a few years earlier. We should not give them the benefit of letting them take the "trucker" label.

The vast majority of truckers in this country a) got the vaccine like the rest of Canadians b) worked for a living through this whole thing.

EDIT: Like, let's look at just two of the most prominent the leadership of this protest, people who had bank accounts frozen and who have had charges pressed.

Tamara Lich; not a trucker. Works in energy industry. "Yellow Vest" protest organizer. "United We Roll" anti-carbon tax anti-environmental protest organizer. "Western separatist" organizer. Then "trucker" protest. Again, not a trucker.

Pat King; not a trucker. Again, western secessionist. United We Roll organizer. Far right physical attacks on Antifa. Various anti-Muslim, white nationalist statements. Then "trucker" protest. Not a trucker.

> I was fine with OP's post until they made the statement that "truckers had accounts frozen" because that clearly is not what happened. Some people had accounts frozen, but not a whole class of people, most not even truckers.

The point is that there's a new definition attached to "truckers," which is people associated with that protest. It was clear from context that was what they meant.

> We should not give them the benefit of letting them take the "trucker" label.

Sorry, you're too late. That ship has already sailed (e.g. https://web.archive.org/web/20220614181936/https://www.googl..., https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/11/world/canada/trucker-conv...). If it's any consolation, it's probably ephemeral, and in a few decades all this will most likely be forgotten. But in 2022 "truckers" is the most widely-understood name for this group (and the only name I'd recognize).

I find it a bit ironic that some people defended the new use of “crypto”, while others attacked the new use of “truckers”. All bikeshedding and nitpicking in word games.

None of the direct commenters have really bothered to address the substance of what I was talking about… decentralized alternatives to massive centrally planned platforms for all of us to transact and communicate.

I think it's all somewhat related, if a bit tangential.

I have a problem with the State. But I don't have a problem with community governance.I feel like much of 'crypto' is an attack on the latter. A tool for moving money outside of the purvey of the state, but also used to get around taxation, sanctions, and capital controls.

What 'crypto' and those 'truckers' have in common is a defiance of governance and assertion of selfish behaviour over and against community. The former to avoid taxes, finance laws, and money laundering laws.

It's pretty revealing that there's a contingent of libertarians that are arguing vigorously for the decentralization/degovernance/deregulation of financial instruments and currency and capital; but the same people are extremely quiet about the mobility of labour.

If capital can flow freely across borders -- why can't labour?

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