With the global crypto industry in a state of total disarray, the collapse of crypto giant, FTX, points to the grim future of an industry premised on decentralisation, albeit with no underlying asset to safeguard its value.
The implosion on November 10 of one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world, FTX, valued at $32 billion, has roiled the already troubled global crypto industry. For a transnational industry that was once going to rid the world of governmental and central bank evil, the meltdown was swift. It has taken just seven months — a time during which the United States (US) Federal Reserve raised borrowing rates by 3.75 percentage points to reach 4% — for the big talk around crypto to unravel. While this is bad news for private cryptocurrencies and their investors, the ground has been prepared by the blood on the street for a central bank digital currency (CBDC) that comes with the checks and balances of a regulated marketplace.
