Is The Decentralized Crypto Case In Trouble?

There is a new tug of war between centralized finance – government issued money (fiat) – versus decentralized finance – private issued cryptocurrencies that can be exchanged for fiat. Bitcoin is in the crosshairs. It is taking massive fire.

This battle is not new. But it is heating up and defi is losing, don’t let anybody kid you. Sentiment matters. Centralized finance can shut this down. Don’t think it cannot.

Please, convince me I am wrong.

Cryptocurrency was not being created to be some underground secret society. It was created to go mainstream. Blockchain projects with their own coins want investors in those coins, they want use cases for those coins. Having a centralized power shut it down for some reason – because the Dear Leader doesn’t like your metaverse – is destruction of that use case.

The government, and their friends in the tech world, are coming for your Bitcoin, I’m sorry to tell you.

Coinbase COIN -3% just blocked more than 25,000 cryptocurrency wallets owned by Russians on Monday, a move that came as the company aimed to tackle concerns that cryptocurrencies could be used to evade sanctions imposed over the Ukraine invasion, the New York Post described.

Coinbase described it differently. They said they took action against accounts “we believe to be engaging in illicit activity, many of which we have identified through our own proactive investigations,” chief legal officer Paul Grewal said in a blog post. This suggests it has nothing to do with sanctions and government requests, even if not direct requests. Grewal adds in his blog post that Coinbase “fully supports” the international economic sanctions imposed on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.

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