The Great Crypto Crash
“The countdown clock on the next catastrophic crash has already started,” Dennis Kelleher, the president of the nonprofit Better Markets, told me.
In the past few weeks, I have heard that sentiment or similar from economists, traders, Hill staffers, and government officials. The incoming Trump administration has promised to pass crypto-friendly regulations, and is likely to loosen strictures on Wall Street institutions as well.
This will bring an unheralded era of American prosperity, it argues, maintaining the country’s position as the head of the global capital markets and the heart of the global investment ecosystem. “My vision is for an America that dominates the future,” Donald Trump told a bitcoin conference in July. “I'm laying out my plan to ensure that the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world.”
Financial experts expect something different. First, a boom. A big boom, maybe, with the price of bitcoin, ether, and other cryptocurrencies climbing; financial firms raking in profits; and American investors awash in newfound wealth. Second, a bust. A big bust, maybe, with firms collapsing, the government being called in to steady the markets, and plenty of Americans suffering from foreclosures and bankruptcies.
