Matthew Green

I understand that people don’t like cryptocurrency. I understand why people want financial services to be safe and regulated. I really, really do.

What I don’t understand is why people think the existing financial services industry is perfect and should be sheltered from all technical innovation.

Feb 14, 2023 at 10:50pmWeb
Show threadMatthew GreenFeb 15, 2023
In related news: the US ACH settlement system can’t process “same day payments” on weekends. It’s 2023. Why is everybody totally ok with this?
Show threadMarkFeb 15, 2023
@matthew_d_green
Because someone escrows the cash over the weekend and collects the interest.
A scam so old they taught me about it in 1970s Comp Sci classes.
Show threadLisPiFeb 15, 2023
@zl2tod @matthew_d_green That does sound at least plausible.
Show threadPhil GarlandFeb 15, 2023
@matthew_d_green NPR has a really good podcast on the “automated” clearing house. Worth the listen! https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/10/04/229224964/episode-489-the-invisible-plumbing-of-our-economy
Show threadThe Richie RichFeb 15, 2023
@matthew_d_green I am in no way an expert in this field, so I’ll ask: isn't the ACH system what's used for Zelle, which is owned by a conglomerate of Banks? It makes sense that if they can do immediate payments using this platform that ACH should work in the same way, no?
Show threadStephen GentleFeb 15, 2023
@matthew_d_green Crazy. Here in Australia we've had free, instant bank-to-bank transfers since 2018 with the New Payments Platform!
Show threadDan TurnerFeb 15, 2023
@matthew_d_green No one's in the office to nip down to the basement and shuttle the gold around. /jk
Show threadMark AtwoodFeb 15, 2023
@matthew_d_green Go ask the "Bits About Money" guy. He probably knows.
Show threadLisPiFeb 15, 2023
@matthew_d_green No one is. Banks are largely #oligopolies and we have no real choice.
Show threadAndo RootsFeb 15, 2023
@matthew_d_green people behind Wise are not OK with this 😎
Show threadNigel SmartFeb 15, 2023
@matthew_d_green If your at RWC I can spend about half an hour explaining the underlying reason. Like all things its a risk/reward trade off, combined with an interesting (but economically correct) definition of where the actual "money" "is"
Show threadSteven Op de beeckFeb 15, 2023
@matthew_d_green Nobody is ok with that. Blockchain has shown it’s more problematic in other ways.
Show threaddantose Feb 15, 2023
@matthew_d_green
It makes sense once you realize all legacy industries are basically steam punk implementations of technology
Show threadCassandrichFeb 15, 2023
@matthew_d_green Because ACH is only used in situations where the parties trust each other to pay/deliver, have recourse if something goes wrong, and where the actual time the txn "completes" doesn't matter. If it turns out my insurance payment bounces I just don't have coverage. Unless it was my bank's fault then they work it out for me. All very boring, not a pressing issue.
Show threadJernej Simončič �Feb 15, 2023
@matthew_d_green Same thing in EU – interbank transfers only run at specific times during (I think) German business hours. If it's a holiday there, well, your wires will be processed the next business day, even if locally there's no holiday.
Show threadRené Mayrhofer  🇺🇦Feb 16, 2023
@matthew_d_green Agreed. We just don't need to throw away all other working financial systems and currencies of the world by pushing Blockchains (burning the planet in the process, but that's just a sidenote here) into everything for "innovation and growth" simply because the US financial system is broken. Fix what's broken, but don't break what works already, please.
Show threadRené Mayrhofer  🇺🇦Feb 16, 2023
@matthew_d_green @rene_mobile For the record, I've lived, worked, and held local bank accounts in 4 different countries so far. The US system was _by far_ the worst of all, dependent on external, private, non-standard, niche, island services to get standard financial transactions done that are expected to just work in a better regulated banking system.
Show threadHans-Christoph SteinerFeb 16, 2023
@rene_mobile @matthew_d_green Totally. I have lots of experience with US and EU banking, in both directions, e.g. while living in the US and the EU. The US system is really messed up. Another symptom is all those funny payment startups in the US trying to make payment easier. In the EU, we just do all that stuff with a plain old, cheap bank account. No extra apps, middlemen, fees, etc.
Show threadMathiasFeb 16, 2023
@rene_mobile @matthew_d_green I remember a holiday in the USA in the mid 90s where we tried to exchange currency (Austrian money to USD) at a bank. In the small town of San Diego that was completely impossible, in New York we finally managed after half a day of searching.
The reasoning was "you can only exchange money if you have an account with us".
Show threadThe DoctorFeb 18, 2023
@matthew_d_green What other option do we have? It's the only game in town, unless cash is involved.
Show threadRaymond Neilson has moved to cosocial.caFeb 14, 2023
@matthew_d_green Legit, non-snark answer: quite a few of us believe there's literally nothing in cryptocurrency which counts as genuine financial innovation to be encouraged.
Show threadGeRyFeb 15, 2023
@delta_vee @matthew_d_green that belief usually originates from the privilege of the first world. You have probably never experienced censorship and oppression, nor have you tried transacting with less privileged people.
Show threaddorianlistensFeb 14, 2023
@matthew_d_green is this actually a perspective you’ve seen expressed?
Show threadMatthew GreenFeb 15, 2023
@dorianlistens Oh absolutely.
Show threadZack WeinbergFeb 14, 2023
@matthew_d_green I'll actually make these significantly stronger assertions: almost all *existing* financial products are net harmful and should not exist, and people who want to invent new things should be actively discouraged from going into financial services.
Show threadThat Anonymous CowardFeb 14, 2023

@matthew_d_green

To be fair most of the technical innovations they have pursued are of no benefit to us in the long run.

NINJA loans, robo signing, mortgage bundling, student loans, negative interest, giving loans based on credit agency reports, sticking us with the bill for their failures...

People have reason to be suspect of any new innovation and how exactly the industry will find a way to use it to screw us just a little bit more.

Show threadDavid CookFeb 14, 2023
@matthew_d_green I think it's one of these situations
Show threadjvlusoFeb 14, 2023
@matthew_d_green I don't think the existing financial services industry is perfect or that it should be sheltered from all technical innovation. I do think that any company hoping to maintain any legitimacy should be sheltering themselves from any association with cryptocurrency right now. There's so much fraud embedded so deeply in the cryptocurrency industry.
Show threadMarkFeb 15, 2023
@matthew_d_green My financial advisor said I'd have to buy crypto somewhere else if I wanted to invest in it, which I don't, but it was interesting how firm she was about it.
Show threadDustin J. SparksFeb 15, 2023
@matthew_d_green To be clear, technical innovation doesn't include things like Credit Default Swaps. When they innovate "financial products" (read: customer-screwing-schemes-and-such), markets crash when the wheels come off the bus 5-6 years later. And Wall Street and the General Public have attention spans about 10 years long, and we end up in the same quagmire, over... and over... and over again. "But this is different than [previous crisis], because [arbitrary rewording of the same schemes]!"
Show threadRichard "RichiH" HartmannFeb 15, 2023
@matthew_d_green the first two seem to be a consensus position. The third one not.
Show threadhellaconfusedFeb 15, 2023

@matthew_d_green

Here in Thailand I can transfer money between different banks in seconds. 24/7 I would guess a lot of Asia is this way.

Transfers between my accounts at different banks in the USA takes 3 days.

Show threadMark AtwoodFeb 15, 2023
@matthew_d_green FWIW, i 100% share the belief that the existing financial services infrastructure has taken the "regulated for safety" and abused it to mean "safe from improvement, safe from customers, safe from having to do anything different other than collect our cut". And the people running the existing fin infra are the literally worst people, making the drug cartels looks better in comparison.
Show threadPohl LongsineFeb 16, 2023
That doesn’t even sound like a thing anyone believes.
Show threadThe DoctorFeb 18, 2023
@matthew_d_green I have a little insight into this from a couple of jobs ago. Need a real console..