Coinbase and Base: Is crypto just becoming traditional finance 2.0?

The future of crypto looks more like Facebook’s abandoned Diem project than the cypherpunk ethos that Bitcoin started with 16 years ago.

Opinion by Kyle Torpey, a Bitcoin journalist since 2014.

Crypto began as an idealistic movement to decentralize digital finance, but the long-term trend since Bitcoin originally launched in January 2009 has been toward ever more centralized and permissioned activity.

These issues have been obvious for some time, particularly in relation to the reliance upon centralized stablecoins throughout the industry. But the devolution of crypto into traditional fintech is now becoming more blatant with the blockchains upon which these stablecoins operate becoming more centralized as well.

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