Banks occupy a rare spot in the economic ecosystem: All the infrastructure that money flows through belongs to them. As the trusted central repository, whenever anyone wants to move money around—lend it, transfer it, even give it away—banks can insert themselves into that process. Or, at least, until blockchain came along. With blockchain, since trust is built into the system, the system is no longer necessary. Take a stock trade. Right now, to execute that trade, there’s a buyer, a seller, a series of banks that hold their money, the stock exchange itself, clearinghouses, etc.—roughly, ten
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