Wikipedia tells us about the importance of railroads to the development of industry in the United States. From the days of the Industrial Revolution, through the construction of the Baltimore Ohio line and beyond, the major railroad companies were a catalyst for economic, financial, national, and social growth in the United States. The production needs of the big businesses necessitated the expansion of the railway tracks, more companies and new lines grew, and these necessitated the construction of solid bridges. The modern road system has completed the networking process in favor of a modern economy.
Bringing the crypto economy into the heart of the mainstream is a complex process. It included (and will include) bubble components, more and less successful companies, uses that will be assimilated into the economy and become part of it, and others that will disappear. And as in the American economy, where private transportation companies have led an economic growth process, both the networking of the new technology and its distribution are the responsibility of private businesses. These are unique businesses that are concerned with connecting and embroidering crypto to the economy. Such businesses and business operations are significant for the continued momentum.
Networking crypto into the economy involves complex problems; Connecting new systems into old systems, dealing with money laundering risks, KYC issues, and connecting to tax authorities. All of these require in-depth regulatory work, in order to define the new financial concepts and embed them within the existing legal system.
Infrastructure companies, such as PayPal, Visa and other giants have given the signal for the tremendous shift that has left many ripples behind in the world. In Israel, Pepper (of Leumi) announces the opening of Invest, to trade cryptocurrencies. The mediation provided by Pepper is the simple enabling of crypto trading within a legal context and out of connection with the tax authorities.
But the options developed in Israel and around the world by banks such as Pepper are based on deeper infrastructure; Companies similar to 19th-century railroad companies.
The Israeli HBH demonstrates such in-depth infrastructure. HBH’s stated goal is to connect the world of crypto to the world of Fiat. The place where the company makes the connection is the “natural” place where the Fiat is stored; the bank.
The company manufactures infrastructure that connects fiat money that is in customers’ bank accounts (hence, has already passed the KYC stages) to cryptocurrencies that are in US financial institutions, supervised by the local regulator (hence, “cryptocurrencies” are also “clean”). The meeting points between the Fiat money of the banks’ customers and the crypto money they have purchased is a digital safe platform integrated in a secure trading system in which each bank holds the crypto keys for its customers. This safe is available for business activities 24/7.
An example of a systematic approach to regulatory requirements is provided by the INX Digital Asset Trading Company. The world of crypto and digital assets, INX believes, will in the future replace the standard trading worlds of stock exchanges and the world of financial assets. This requires careful oversight of the crypto worlds, similar to the oversight that applies to today’s world of finance. Since the company aspires to be one of the major players in the field, it set out to prepare the ground. In a lengthy workflow initiated by the company vis-à-vis the U.S. regulator, the company faced complex questions; These include defining tokens, registering digital assets in the financial statements, dealing with money laundering and protecting the legal rights of property owners. In doing so, INX created, in effect, the practice guide of the field, and received special approval for trading.
It is not known whether the crypto technologies will last as well as the railways and trains. Such a question requires in-depth research and discussion. It is worth remembering, however, that the survival of technological innovation and its future is not the result of stock market crashes and leaps, but of necessity and programming.
The global crisis of 1873 ended a period of excessive growth (probably) of the railway companies, leading to the bankruptcy of many railway lines. And here, with no direct connection to economic highs, or to catastrophes and recessions, the train, as a means of transportation, survived. The world of crypto is also far from exhausted.