Oleg Tinkov buries the crypt and blockchain. It is impossible to agree with him

Two years ago, the founder of Tinkoff Bank, Oleg Tinkov, was either joking or seriously promised to launch Tincoin cryptocurrency. But he quickly changed his mind : “After the last meeting in Sochi [under the chairmanship of Vladimir Putin], we understand that it probably will not be so easy to have cryptocurrency in Russia.” Last week, the banker published two posts on social networks ( 1 , 2 ), in which he “put a fat point in the era of cryptocurrencies” in general and in the Pavel Durov (Ton) project in particular. There are so many stretches in his reasoning that we could not pass by.

The main idea of ​​the founder of Tinkoff Bank: Telegram (Ton) and Facebook (Libra) cryptocurrency projects failed. The banker hastened to announce about the failure of the Ton after the decision on the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which has achieved a temporary ban on the release and circulation of GRAM cryptocurrency two weeks before the official launch of the project (we wrote about this in detail here ). The Facebook project called Libra at about the same time lost key partners.

Quote. “The failure of Libra and Ton put a fat point in the era of cryptocurrencies. Obviously, all smart people, or at least realists understood that no crypt would win any currency, ”Tinkov wrote.

The Bell dismantled the conclusion of Tinkov.

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Bank cards do not need an alternative

Tinkov: “I don’t even understand why people use PayPal. I received the first VISA card back in 1991: since that time I have not experienced any difficulties with paying for goods. As we see, wallets are mainly used for dubious operations on the Internet, and the worst thing is in the darknet. And drug trafficking is not the worst of evils. What pain does the wallet treat? The answer is no! "

"If you are a law -abiding and honest citizen, then you have nothing to hide and be anonymous and make financial transactions without state control"

Perhaps electronic wallets, as well as cryptocurrencies, do not solve all problems, but they definitely help both companies and individuals perform quite legal operations. The same PayPal that Tinkov writes about, and other payment systems are often used for ordinary needs. For example, for cross -border translations.

Cross -border translations as a whole remain a big problem. It is virtually impossible to send money from Russia, for example, to the UK to a Card of an individual - many banks simply do not have such a service. Sberbank only this year promised to launch instantaneous cross -border transfers, but so far only to the CIS countries, and they can only be obtained in cash in Western Union branches. Tinkoff Bank has transfers from a card abroad, but the service is available only to some banks. The technical support of the bank explained that he does not have partners abroad, so it all depends on whether the bank itself is accepting the transfers from the card to the card and whether this is prohibited by local legislation.

For example, in the USA, such transfers are in principle impossible to VISA cards, explained at the bank and offered to use the transfers from the account to the account. Such transfers are available in almost any bank, but this requires full details of the bank and accounts, as well as the sender's passport data. Money can go to the recipient up to five business days, and if you send more than $ 5 thousand, the purpose of the transfer will have to be explained by documents. Banks often do not believe them, preferring to block operations at the slightest suspicion of violation of anti -missile legislation. Conscientious entrepreneurs also suffer from this.

Cross -border payments from legal entities to individuals are another pain. This applies, for example, freelancers who work for foreign companies or make money using their services. The same Google a few years ago he paid fees for work in his advertising services with checks, which in Russia are not so easy to cash. Now the company makes it possible to receive payments using bank transfers, but even for small amounts you have to interact with the bank and conduct document management.

The problem with cross-border payments gave rise to a whole wave of fintech startups who are trying to solve it.

• One of the most famous is Revolut. But he does not work in Russia yet.
• The new Kazan bank 131 IT entrepreneur Dmitry Yeremeyev, about whom the Bell wrote about the same problem is going to solve the same problem. His bank plans to create a tool for large IT companies to give them the opportunity to pay fees to a large number of foreign freelancers.
• Another example is the startup of the Russian investment batonier Vladislav Solodky, who is going to create a bank in the United States for customers with whom ordinary banks do not work. As the Bell wrote , Arival (as called the Solodky Bank) is going to work with cryptostarts, philanthropists, freelancers, and in the future - with marijuana producers, the sale of which is legal in many US states, but many ordinary banks still refuse to work with them.

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Banks - reliable, cryptocurrencies - no

Tinkov: “Twice in 28 years, my card was compromised ... in Europe, the European bank, but the bank was always on my side and helped me return the funds”

“The participation of the protection of cryptocurrencies is much inferior to banking, and often they are completely absent. And since cryptocurrencies outside the legal field, to complain to the holders who became victims of attacks, nowhere "

Cryptoists are successfully hacking - this is a fact. In 2017 and nine months of 2018, $ 882 million was withdrawn from the crypto -streak, Group IB calculated . One Japanese exchange of Coincheck as a result of hacking lost $ 534 million or take at least the Canadian cryptocurrency exchange of Quadrigacx. Its owner allegedly died , after which 115 thousand owners of wallets lost access to $ 137 million.

It is usually almost impossible to track where the attackers withdrew the money. It will be possible to return the money only if the hacked exchange pays from its own money - this happened, for example, after breaking the Bitfinex exchange. She paid off customers so as not to drop a reputation.

But safety problems exist not only in the world of crypts. It is difficult to judge who is more susceptible to attacks by scammers and hackers: banks or cryptocurrencies. Cybercriminals successfully hack both of them, and use the same methods: social engineering, phishing and viruses.

Only one week of October was accommodated at once two allegedly multimillion -dollar leaks of the sensitive data of Russians who occurred according to completely different scenarios. One of them is in Sberbank, the country's largest bank. You cannot be sure that your data does not flow from government agencies, banks or mobile applications that you use every day. Worse: most likely, your data has already been stolen. In the case of banks, attackers seek and find new ways to use this (what is worthwhile to do in this regard, we wrote here ).

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Pyramid for scammers

Tinkov: “Krista wants to <...> to serve fraudsters and criminals (anonymity), but added an element of the pyramid”

This opinion is widespread among bankers. In the fall of 2017, it was expressed , for example, the head of JPMorgan Jamie Diamon. True, already three months later he had to apologize, admitting that each token needs to be approached individually.

Obviously, cryptocurrencies, like any other financial instrument, can be successfully used to create pyramids (this is the story of one of the largest and most fresh), but they do not give any fundamentally new opportunities to the creators of the pyramids of cryptocurrency.

In Russia, most of all money is still carried to offline pyramids (150 out of 240 detected centers for the first nine months of 2019). While people are ready to believe in tools with a guaranteed profitability of 300%, it is not so important whether it will be cryptocurrency, forex, “securities” or something else.

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Nobody needs cryptocurrencies

Tinkov: “The guy left with a honed figure on a horse and told everyone: drag me money, I will free you! I will make my transactions will be many times faster than bitcoin and ether, not to mention Visa and MasterCard. I only have a question: you are not satisfied with the speed of processing your transaction in a restaurant or store around the world? I am very pleased - it definitely does not hurt me here "

Here Tinkov is frankly cunning. Payment systems are slower than Ton, promising millions of transactions per second. For comparison, VISA on average processes up to 1700 transactions per second, at the peak - 4000. It is another matter that there are only impressive Ton numbers on paper.

The fact that bank payments are inhibited can be seen in real life. The delay in payment is noticeable even in microtransactions, when, say, you apply the card to the turnstile in the subway - and is almost instantaneous when the standard travel is used.

In general, both cryptocurrencies and the wallets of payment systems on average are simply more technologically perfect. Oleg Tinkov’s statement that banks can do everything that is needed against the background of the promised State Duma of Banking Roaming - commissions for the transfer of money from the region to the region. In the world of cryptocurrencies and the same PayPal, the question cannot be posed at all - they are not as regulated as banks.

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Tool for speculators

Tinkov: “About the fact that the purchasing activity in the asset, the price of which can change sharply, loses all meaning, no one also thought: as in the same case Bitcoin, which became an instrument of speculation, not calculations”

“Not so long ago, by the way, it turned out that often the growth of bitcoin is a consequence of manipulating it at the expense of the emission of another Tether crypt. Tether is Stablecoin (the rate is tied to the dollar), therefore it is the main estimated currency in the trade of cryptocar. Tether's daily turnover is one and a half times higher than that of bitcoin "

Any financial instrument can and will be used for financial speculation or in the hope of rapid enrichment - even if, it would seem, it is not adapted for this. Oleg Tinkov is right that Tether could influence the market.

In early October, Bloomberg published a study from which it follows that in 70% of cases the Tether emission coincided with the growth of Bitcoin. At the same time, only over the past year the company has released tokens by $ 2 billion than could not but affect the market, the authors of the study say. However, the Bitfinex exchange associated with the company claims that the article is “incorrect” and is needed to become the basis for filing claims. In general, this happened: against Tether and Bitfinex put forward a collective lawsuit of $ 1.4 trillion.

Another claim to USDT is that 80% of all tokens are on 318 wallets, Bloomberg wrote. At the same time, 70% - on 104 wallets, calculated the analytical company Intotheblock. That is, among a rather narrow circle of people, almost $ 2.8 billion is distributed.

You can solve the problem of excessive concentration of one or another cryptocurrency in one hand by expanding the base of the participants in operations: Telegram with almost 300 million users (and even more so Facebook) could solve this problem.

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The regulator will kill everything

Tinkov: “Politics and regulators of all countries will never give the center of emissions into private hands, it is simply naive to believe in it. Only if they themselves lead this process, but then no one will need a crypt "

It is difficult to argue with Oleg Tinkov here. But it is likely that the cryptocurrency revolution will begin not with international politics, but with international trade and large banks. They have problems with the design of intra -banking cross -border payments that blockchain could solve. In early 2019, the cryptocurrency, for example, released JP Morgan, thereby satisfying the request of large customers who transfer tens of millions of dollars. If such tools will be in demand and banks will understand that they are the future, they themselves will start an attack on regulators.

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Arena paradox

Tinkov: “Peter Aven said that he would believe in cryptocurrency only if she can pay taxes, I agree. But I would add that it will fly only when it will be completely under the US emission control, that is, it will not threaten the dollar. Then this controlled Libra will still need to be adapted in the world, but we know how Americans can apply their laws extra -thoroughly and how they can impose ”

This argument sounds convincing. But he lost his strength. Bermuda became the first territory that allowed the payment of taxes with cryptocurrency. True, not anyone, but by the USDC stabilcoin, which is tied to the dollar.

The argument about the US issuing control cannot yet be refuted, but the same Bermuda is the overseas territory of Great Britain, and their experience can affect the regulation of cryptocurrencies in the United Kingdom.

Libra, which is promoted by Mark Zuckerberg and also criticizes Oleg Tinkov, is a cryptocurrency with low volatility. This is a compromise option, on the one hand, not tied to hard to currency, and on the other, depending on the reliable world central banks (the provision is formed from the basket of world currencies).

It is the experiments similar to Libra that is an excellent answer to many questions that arise among the regulators to cryptocurrencies. Unfortunately, her future is also in question - Facebook key partners refused to support this currency.