Large investors’ thirst for crypto resumes in 2024. However, this renaissance does not bode well for the freedom and decentralization promoted by this emerging ecosystem. Indeed, big banks like Goldman Sachs are preparing to pounce on this new prey, ready to crush the founding ideals of virtual currencies.
The Wolf of Wall Street at the gates of the crypto sheepfold
The statement from Max Minton, head of crypto for Asia-Pacific at Goldman Sachs, has premonitory overtones. According to him, many major customers are returning, fueled by the recent approval of bitcoin ETFs. However, this reappearance of large predators is in no way a sign of an adoption of the values of freedom and decentralization promoted by crypto.
On the contrary, Goldman is only expanding its offering of crypto derivatives products to attract ever more prey into its nets. Cash options on bitcoin, Ethereum futures contracts, the panoply of shadow finance is deployed to link cryptos to the old moons of obsolete financial systems.
In reality, this strong return of institutional capital is part of a clear desire to place this formerly decentralized space under supervision. By attracting speculative funds, hedge funds and asset managers, banks arrogate to themselves exorbitant market power.
The centerpiece of a recolonization plan
Beyond derivatives, Goldman Sachs’ influence is part of a much broader strategy to reduce the progress of financial decentralization and reestablish their hegemony.
Massive investments in crypto infrastructure are just a Trojan horse. Once this tech is mastered, architecture will come under their control.
But the spearhead is embodied in initiatives like the GS DAP platform. Behind this cryptic pharmacy hides the plan of a total overhaul, where assets would be tokenized on private blockchain. A recolonization of this space by old finance.
The recent pilot operation proves this, connecting stock exchanges, banks and managers on a private network. The crypto-pioneers’ dream of independence stifled by a new cathedral with a decentralized appearance but with very real foundations.
Thus, by opening the door to institutional investors, crypto-enthusiasts will have only welcomed the gravediggers of their libertarian utopia. Because the insatiable appetite of these whales will be to reduce the crypto sphere into a vast soulless body, subject to the dictates of monetary centralization. A large-scale recolonization, carried out by builders of decentralized cathedrals in name only. A transformation perhaps inevitable, to which only the most irreducible rebels will still seem to resist, before being crushed by this steamroller.
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