Crypto’s Quiet Revolution: Unmasking FX Greed and DeFi Ironies

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In the dim glow of screens and the stubborn hum of servers, ShapeShift’s chief Erik Voorhees sent a message to the world-one that asks if cryptocurrency and DeFi can finish the ancient sport of FX greed. The spark came from an airport in Europe, described by Hayden Adams as if the runway itself had morals 😅✈️.

Greed Exists Both in TradFi and DeFi

The thread began when Uniswap founder Hayden Adams spoke of an airport visit in Europe, a scene where the old order and the new ledger share the same air.

He noted that “spreads on euro/usd were 20%.” In his view, EUR/USD is the most liquid forex pair known to men, yet the fees for transacting gnaw at dignity.

“Greed in tradfi is little different than greed in crypto,” he wrote, a sentence that rings like a bell in a hall of mirrors. “Greed is ever present… it’s a derogatory term for profit-maximizing, which all people engage in.” When a forex quote at the airport looks like a customs form that never ends, he hints that the fault lies not in devils or angels but in the mechanism itself, a machine that never tires of charging for breathing room. – Erik Voorhees (@ErikVoorhees) October 4, 2025

Voorhees argued that the greed seen in TradFi and that in crypto are not identical but share a skeleton: a craving for profit, and a willingness to bend rules till they creak. The moral dust is thin here; greed is the word the crowd uses to scold, while the price of bread is the ledger. 😏

Profit Maximizing Greed Comes With Pursuit of Control

To him, the airport’s fever was a symptom of inefficiencies-the market’s mood, the grip of regulations, the stubborn plumbing of a system that cannot decide whether it serves the people or the machine that counts them.

“It’s illegal for an app developer to offer frictionless forex trading on a mobile device, in which funds can be instantly paid, also from the phone to any vendor. It’s not in your hands because of regulations. Greed of the businessman takes the blame, but the culprit is the unseen folly of regulatory machinations,” the ShapeShift CEO explained.

The chase for control drives the whole farce; Yet in crypto’s decentralized call, the old command becomes fragile, a rumor of a lock that never fits the key. 🔒

The blockchain-this labyrinth of code and consensus-takes power from one palm and spreads it across a field of nodes. BTC, ETH, SOL, and others march forward, not because they are perfect, but because they pretend to be any one of us holding the keys. Institutions eye them, sure, but the ledger wants only to keep its own memory. 🪙😅

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2025-10-04 21:47