FTX is simultaneously the biggest fraud and the culmination of the largest banking crisis in the history of the crypto industry. But the FTX debacle has very little to do with crypto itself: It is merely another episode in global finance’s long history of such catastrophes. Despite extensive regulation and central bank activity, traditional finance is littered with shocks, panics, bank runs, and other disasters of which FTX is just the latest iteration. But unlike traditional finance, crypto offers a pathway to a sounder financial system. If crypto is going to deliver on this, the principles of decentralization, ... (full story)