I don’t want to jerk you around, this is a bullish article.
I know all of you are sick of reading Ripple and SEC lawsuit news but bear with me here. This article is going to be a litter different, it’s going to be what I call a perspective piece. It has nothing to do with crypto and everything to do with crypto all at once – I know, it’s confusing.
Sometimes when you are reading crypto news it’s easy to become overwhelmed, especially when there is a lot of bad news circulating. What’s difficult is knowing how big an issue is or how worried you should be. How do you quantify that? I see people online asking questions like, “on a scale of 1 to 10, how bad is this SEC lawsuit thing with Ripple?” People have asked this question in a thousand creative ways and I don’t blame them. It’s all too consuming.
I think we all need to accept there is no answer to this. It’s an unprecedented event in the cryptocurrency space. When there is no definitive answer, I simply look for perspective to understand likely outcomes. For me, I am comfortable when I at least have an idea of what might happen. For that, you need to compare what’s happening to what’s already happened to a similar candidate. Let’s go through a quick exercise regarding Ripple and the SEC lawsuit to help bring some perspective to those of you who might need it.
Ripple is in the financial industry and needs to follow (more or less) the same rules they do. Let’s take a closer look at banks and financial institutions. These are the people Ripple is targeting to use XRP as a product for cross-border payments. We have all assumed that dealing with such entities will bring legitimacy, professionalism, and unquestionable trust to the entire industry. Not so fast.
We all assume that banks are filled with amazing people who want to help you make money, get a home, finance your business, and generate a bedrock for your future. Your wrong, banks have been involved with some of the most disgusting acts of Ponzi schemes, wash trading, money laundering, and blatant stealing of custom funds. Here is a list of some of the banks/institutions that have been the most criminal over the last 20 years:
- Bank of America
- Citigroup
- Glodman Sachs
- JPMorgan CHase
- Morgan Stanley
- Wells Fargo
All these banks have had 395 major federal charges brought upon them resulting in fines and penalties totaling roughly 200 billion dollars. 200 billion dollars!…let that sink in for a second.
Here is a chart showing each bank, the number of major legal actions against them, and the fines they’ve had to pay:
This is absolutely shocking and revolting. Honestly, if I had looked at any of these banks a few years ago my uneducated option would have been “they seem great, I’ve heard their names many times and they’ve been around a long time.” After practicing DYOR (do your own research), my perspective has totally changed on banks and their political powers.
For crying out loud, JPMorgan Chase was charged with and fined 920 million dollars due to manipulation of the metals and treasury markets. Those markets are considered “strongholds” and JPMorgan got caught poisoning them.
Bank of America got slammed with 91 billion dollars in fines and fees for their mortgage fraud issues.
And these are the people we are begging to join and legitimize our dear crypto market? wow.
So the point of this was for perspective. Look at what these banks and institutions can blatantly do and get away with. I am not saying Ripple is “getting away” with anything, but compare what Ripple is doing and dealing with at the SEC with the data above. Ripples problems are microscopic in the big picture. Yes, right now SEC vs Ripple seems major, but in the long run, it will seem less significant as Ripple history unfolds before us.
Ripples 1.3 billion dollar lawsuit is chump change and closer to jay-walking then the murderous tone people are trying to imply.
