10-15 years ago Gillian Tett was a fine journalist, offering fresh and insightful commentary on the tubing of financial markets. For example her book, “Fool’s Gold” – on the origins of the CDO debacle – was great.
That is quite some time ago. Since then Tett has been effectively co-opted by the liberal Manhattan establishment, and rarely (if ever) has anything interesting to offer anymore.
To be fair, Tett is more crypto-curious than the FT’s otherwise categorically negative stance towards the space. But her latest piece is somewhat confused.
The entire cryptocurrency complex, Bitcoin included, has no doubt taken a heavy beating this year. And SBF has offered credit lines to crumbling competitors like a latter-day J.P. Morgan. But. No government bailouts have been required. And whilst the Bitcoin price has plummeted, the network is stronger than ever.
So, why the implosion of the “terra and luna stable coins”, as Tett imprecisely describes, would be “distinctly embarrassing for crypto evangelists”, is far from clear, when in fact the loudest warnings against Do Kwon’s un-stable/Ponzi coin scheme came from within the crypto community.
I.e. Tett is guilty of equalling crypto with Bitcoin.
It is understandable that the recent turmoil has put many people off cryptocurrencies in general, at least in the short term.
But in the longer term the collapse of UST, Luna, 3AC, Celsius, etc, and articles like this one from Tett will serve to underline that:
Crypto ≠ Bitcoin
Gillian Tett needs to dig deeper down the rabbit hole next time.
MarkusReitan 