Do you trust your bank?

DO I TRUST MY BANK?

I will supply a salt shaker along with that question and my answer. Though I studied business in college and pretend-study it now via my favorite investment websites, I am by no means an expert in finance and banking. However, I'm sure we all have a sincere interest in our money.

I can't speak for countries other than the United States, but I would enjoy hearing from you on the subject.

It takes governments so long to get anything done, at times, one forgets what they are actually working on, although ours has been incredibly fast at ruining our economy. And from what I read, it seems the global economy isn't faring much better. Since the stock market began its decline last August, with the crypto market copycatting, this kind of bad news, every day, begins to wear on one-- and one begins to wonder if there are any institutions one can trust.

There's that word: TRUST

(A side-note: I generated the picture in an AI program in Shutterstock, using keywords: modern bank, blockchain, a few others, and I think, watercolor. How fun was that!?)

I am working toward the larger meaning of trust in this article, but first I need us to understand the definitions of DeFi, Trust, and Trustless as it relates to our current, though quickly evolving, banking system.

Getting used to a whole new category of vocabulary since the entrance of blockchain, Bitcoin, and crypto (short for cryptocurrency), for some of us is an arduous task, perhaps, not even worth pursuing.

The problem is, unless our kids are handling these kinds of things for us, we need to pursue the task, and arduously. We need a basic grasp of the situation sooner than later because. . ..

We need a plan before our governments and our bankers give us one, which they want to, and which, in the U.S. they already have a plan for some sort of roll-out of digital currency in July, '23.

I apologize for how boring this is to read. How does one make banking theory not boring? Money is fun. Banking is not. That's why I prefer watercolor AI images to accounting.

Enough, Donna! Stop packing the word count with more boring words than is necessary.

From Webster: Trustless means not deserving of trust. 

The concept of trustlessness is a core element of blockchain, crypto payments, and smart contracts. “Trustless” means that you don't have to trust a third party: a bank, a person, or any intermediary that could operate between you and your cryptocurrency transactions or holdings." (Gemini)

Recent Examples on the Web

Even the Eeyores at The Economist made a point to praise blockchain’s transparency and efficiency, and its capacity for trustless smart contracts and novel governance arrangements through token distribution.—Byjeff John Roberts, Fortune, 22 Nov. 2022

Replacing them will instead be stakers, who will assume their job maintaining the security of its trustless payment network.—Christian Hetzner, Fortune, 29 July 2022

This network will be immutable and trustless, verifying transactions without human intervention. Michel Kilzi, Forbes, 20 May 2022

So you see, in the matter of a blockchain, trustless is good, because the blockchain is a very, very large, the larger, the better, network, a system of humans who put up a very large collateral of fiat money, or in the case of Bitcoin, power, equipment and time so that is they cheat they don't get it back.

And because of that we trust the system. How many times have you heard Jay say: Just trust the system. LOL.

We're Almost Finished Here

DeFi equals Decentralized Finance: We had that discussion in my previous post. For a more in depth, however simplistic, explanation of decentralized versus centralized, see my previous post.

And as always, our good friend, Frank the Guitar Man, helped me out with a clear definition of blockchain and extra links in the comments section of that post. I encourage you to read what he says for clarification and new information.

More Happy Thoughts

I have also read when there is a recession in the local economy, but not globally at the same time, it will likely recover, but when there is a recession locally and globally at the same time, that is far more serious, and is very infrequent.

I read a long time ago that the government wants a cashless society and was looking into forming its own digital currency, which at the time, I didn't know what it was, what it was for, and why they wanted it.

Last year it seemed like the government and banks were in solid cahoots, at least sounded, with carefully curated rhetoric, like they had a clue. But this year, I wonder if any of them seriously know what they are doing.

Banks have been known to freeze accounts. It happened in Canada when the truckers went on strike. (I think this was in '22) They could not get money from their accounts and neither could the families and friends who tried to support them while they were off work. They turned to Bitcoin because it could not be controlled.

If you're a trucker, you have to keep moving. They gave up a lot to raise awareness for their cause. As an X trucker, I wanted so much to get in their convoy.

Whatever it might be, gold, silver, crypto, a plan B is a good plan-- maybe a plan C and D too.

Thank you for reading my article.