This is about crypto and Binance. It's a little too long IMHO -- the last paragraph says it all, and plainly enough:
> I do not know if we’ll ever have a world with this scale of crypto businesses without the crime. The crime was the product. An opportunity to transform global financial infrastructure was greatly overstated and has not come to pass. I do not expect this to change.
Can any financial system exist without financial crimes? Just look at HSBC. Nearly all of Binance's failures also happened at HSBC which continues to operate within the law simply by paying fines as the cost of business every so often.
The transfer of value is pretty nice. International transfers via crypto are often cheaper than wire fees. Domestic transfers can be faster via cryptocurrency depending on where you are at. ACH is painfully slow. SEPA is a a bit better. That being said there is a tradeoff. You lose clawback mechanisms in favor of independence and control.
But the product was gambling and funvestment (buy funky pictures, silly named coins/tokens), the crime was doing it unregistered. (And it's not like the constant whack-a-mole evasion did not cost them anything.)
Right now these serious claims (that the main product was money laundering for ISIS et al.) are unsubstantiated.
> I do not know if we’ll ever have a world with this scale of crypto businesses without the crime. The crime was the product. An opportunity to transform global financial infrastructure was greatly overstated and has not come to pass. I do not expect this to change.