0 sats \ 3 replies \ @davidc OP 12 May 2022 freebie \ parent \ on: Why isn't RGB supported by the community? bitcoin
How do you think things like stocks and bonds are going to trade in the future? If bitcoin becomes the money of the future as it’s destined to then it will be half of every economic transaction. Wouldn’t it be best for UX, self custody, and decentralization if trading stocks and bonds, which have a massive TAM, settled on a L2/L3 directly tied to bitcoin’s blockchain with no controlling entity or federation?
How do you self custody something that is centrally issued? Sort of self-defeating don't you think? How does self custody improve UX the user still needs to acquire it from a centralised KYC on-ramp, there will NEVER be non-kyc securities like bonds and stocks. It will always be a walled garden
Sure you can have it issued on a chain, but you would only be able to sell it at whitelisted marketplaces to whitelisted investors, so really how does bitcoin layers help with that?
I think there will still be brokerages and service providers who sell stocks to white listed individuals and accredited investors and some will want to hold their certificates on an L2 but very few, since theres advantage to it, its just a gimmick, the custody risk remains
Money is different from financial assets
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Similar to how stock certificates or bond coupons originally could be held in self custody. An owner will always have to trust the issuer not to renege the agreement but that’s a distinctly different problem than self custody.
KYC is a relatively new rule that has been introduced into financial markets. Prior to the late 80s there was no KYC needed to buy and sell securities. Arguably this is still true today for all the securities created on other blockchains that do not require KYC. It remains to be seen as to whether these will receive an type of enforcement action, but that’s separate from financial assets have to be part of a KYC regime.
I agree money is different than financial assets, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t value in having a similar way to custody and transact. The biggest difference will always be trust. Bitcoin proves you don’t have to introduce trust for money, while there will fundamentally always be trust for financial assets. RGB isn’t trying to make contracts trustless so I see it as a totally valid project to attempt to bring useful functionality to bitcoin that will help fulfill its role as money in the future.