I first learned about blockchain years ago talking to some middle eastern clients who had implemented something with it. After looking at the technology from a data & software engineering pov, I thought it was basically useless and incredibly niche. I said as much, but they didnt believe me; they also thought ML was where you "fed data to a machine and it did everything" because that's what some lecturer had told them.<p>For years I was mostly just confused that "crypto" was anything at all, and latterly it seemed pretty clearly insane. The pitch to replace governement-back currencies with deflationary tokens <i>clearly</i> a fever dream of some political moron. Then it became very clear that it was just a scam: the dream was the hook. And "tokens" fit the collectables mould, in which assets with only ephemeral value to collectors boom in speculative bubbles.<p>Two years ago a friend wanted to get into the industry, and I said that soon it'll be a black mark on a CV and everyone will be hiding it.<p>What is interesting is that amongst professional finance much of this has been apparent the whole time. I've spoken to senior people in UK banking and they've confirmed as much. And as much is clear by reading the FT.<p>What is interesting is how much "elite tech" has captured the elite and silenced professional finance. The Economist article cited above, for example (and on HN the other day), was absurdly pro-crypto giving the scam-sales-pitch verbatim.<p>Some documentary is no doubt in the works on this, and I can see an Adam-Curtis style one on "how silicon valley beat the financial elites and captured the political imagination of a generation"
I really don't understand what place your bank has telling you where you're allowed to send money. If I want to throw a small percentage of my net worth into a hugely speculative investment then fine, why are they stopping me? Are they stopping me from using my bank card down at the dog tracks or at a casino? Can I withdraw cash for Poker but not blackjack?<p>Having said that, it's weird because I definitely have sent money from one of the banks that aren't crypto-friendly to Binance in the past, so who knows how strong these bans really are.
> 47% of UK banks don’t allow customers to interact with crypto exchanges<p>And yet the state asks you to pay your taxes when you make added-value on crypto.<p>There are literally people who have taxes on added-value made on crypto due but are unable to pay them because their banks are refusing their money.<p>Take 10 K EUR out: easy. Take 1 million+ EUR out: it's extremely difficult.<p>The hypocrisy here is phenomenal: <i>"cryptos are scams"</i> / <i>"cryptos are only for money laundering and drug dealing"</i> / etc.<p>But then: <i>"don't forget to pay your taxes to the nanny state on your crypto winnings"</i>.<p>And it's really vicious for the state says: <i>"Oh, crypto went up 10000%, you hence have lots of taxes due to the state!"</i> but the bank goes <i>"Oh, you have a 7 digits sum in crypto, you must be a fraudster"</i>.<p>Sneaky bastards.
A lot of mainstream banks felt uncomfortable about getting involved with crypto. But at the tail end of a monetary bubble when everyone is chasing yield, the pressure from your board, your major investors, and your trend-following employees can be impossible to resist. It's just easier to go with the flow. But after FTX, the hype is dead and they can quietly shelve their projects and move on.<p><i>Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.</i> — John Maynard Keynes<p><i>Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.</i> ― Charles MacKay
Will be interesting to see how former finance minister now PM reconciles the banks' hesitancy with his own grandiose plans of making the UK a crypto capital<p><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/01/what-rishi-sunak-as-pm-means-for-the-uk-crypto-industry.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/01/what-rishi-sunak-as-pm-means...</a>
Found this enlightening ...<p>"White is also sceptical about solutions purporting to show which crypto companies represent a risk for banks and their customers. “It’s hard to individually predict which companies might later become a problem because, if banks knew a project was fraudulent, then people wouldn’t really be putting money into it,” she says."<p>and this quite validating:<p>"As financial institutions and the crypto industry continue to grapple over the right amount of regulation, others in the private sector have begun questioning the longevity and relevance of the industry itself after back-to-back scandals. Earlier this month in The Economist, the FTX collapse was described as a ‘catastrophic blow to crypto’s reputation and aspirations’ while a Reuters podcast similarly declared that the incident ‘consigns crypto to fringes of finance’. "
> This crypto ban by Starling comes off the heels of Santander’s decision to limit customer deposits to crypto exchanges to £1,000 per transaction and a monthly limit of £3,000<p>This, ironically, validates the argument for crypto that banks cannot be trusted to let you do what you want with your own money.
I don't really understand this. I'm very, very bearish to all things crypto, but how is banks stopping their customers transferring money to crypto businesses meant to prevent risk to the banks itself?
UK financial industry brings $100 billion dirty money a year into the country. If the banks support the crypto they can double that amount in short span of time.<p>I think UK could do it.
If this policy expanded to all UK banks, it could plausibly make the UK a less interesting target for ransomware and similar cryptocurrency-backed extortion schemes.
How transacting through a bank to move money on/off crypto exchanges could be "risky" for the bank? Unless banks don't want account holders to spend (or lose) their money, to keep better balance sheets.. but banks shouldn't dictate what customers do with their cash. Exactly the reason customers want to be less dependent on high-street banks and keep their money/investments in a self-custody.<p>Self-custody is the largest appeal of crypto currencies.
Looking at the actual report, only Monzo and Revolut (yes, I haven't heard of them either) are "crypto friendly". The others could best be described as wary and watchful.
This is a dangerous precedent of "legal, but harmful" creeping in, where you cannot spend _your own money_ on something authority thinks is not in your best interest.
UK Banks have always been very wary of crypto. It was always a worry that your account might get suddenly closed if you interacted too much with the crypto ecosystem
A friendly reminder that all the recent drama has zero to do with crypto, rather 100% to do with corruption at a human scale by 3rd party services which are not in any way crypto, they are traditional financial services peddling cryto wares.<p>Get your keys off banks and 3rd parties, thats the whole point of why this started ... Exactly because of crooks like ftx and those peotecting them.