Former Goldman Sachs executive Raoul Pal says the crypto industry exhibited remarkable structural resiliency amid the most recent price crash.
Pal, the current chief executive of Real Vision, says the crypto industry largely absorbed the downtick in price without punishing anyone but speculators.
“Headline: A major asset class crashed 42% in 14 days, wiping out $1.02 trillion in value in an orgy of liquidation of people up to 100x levered, with very low regulation. Many tokens fell up to 70%, including unregulated lending and borrowing biz.
Beneath the headline: Crypto had a major, major VAR-shock test and NOTHING happened. Leverage liquidation was offset by overcollateralisation. No one was left holding the baby. No firm went under. The Fed didn’t need to step in. Defi didn’t break and carried on near normal.
There were no daisy chains of collateral losses. There was no collateral pressure. Stablecoins remained stable. A few exchanges went down for an hour or two. No exchange big losses occurred, no need to mutualise losses either. No protocol failed. No firms needed rapid funding.
No one had open ended losses. The system didn’t break. It offered zero systemic risk to the broader financial world. Speculators lost money and that is it.”
Pal, who still believes the current bull run hasn’t reached its top yet, says the price crash illustrates crypto’s role in the future financial system.
“This is what I first saw in crypto back in 2012. A new, anti-fragile financial system that doesn’t break in times of stress, where ownership of assets is clear and losses are not mutualised to tax payers.
This was a big two weeks for crypto and for the future financial system.”
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