Hopefully the era of banks and their "too big to fail" attitude is going to come to an end at some point in the near future. They were useful for a while, in making sure that money and liquidity were able to be used... so, exploiting the time difference to extract revenue and interest and making sure that money could be most efficiently used.

However, those days are fast running out... with the advent of DeFi, banks are now an unnecessary speed bump in the efficiency of money allocation. Plus, they operate on a flawed trust system... which was fine, when there was nothing better!

So, this morning... I tried to log into my bank (one of Australia's big four banks...), only to find this. I'm sorry... your centralised database is having problems? For some customers? Oh well... I guess it is just bad luck that I happened to be one of them. However, as news reports and social media posts started popping up... it became clear that this was just a PR stunt... by "some" they meant "everyone"... and it was affecting people in more ways than one. People had house settlements to cover, bills to pay, and they were being stranded at shops after buying things that they suddenly couldn't pay for!

So, I guess that is what happens when you have CEOs and MBAs who are obsessed with short term profiteering (sorry, productivity? or is it cutting expenses? or what sort of stupid jargon name have they come up with?) cutting the IT/security budget because no-one needs nerdy gobbledy-gook anyway... and we should just get the cheapest vendor (sorry, most cost-effective) to build critical infrastructure and then not bother to maintain it... (PS: this will be no spoiler, but I think that this has been the downfall of most modern Western capitalist economies!).... and then pat ourselves on the back and give each other giant bonuses!

So... thankfully, the CEO's and MBAs are shielded from the angry rabble and mob... and of course, I don't condone getting cranky at the front-line workers... but maybe, just maybe... the upper echelons shouldn't be hiding being their human shields and slinking away into their unfathomable and undeserved wealth for performing jobs that are a glorified bluffing session that could be pretty much done with similar success with a game of "eenie-meenie... )... or a set of dice... or a Random Number Generator!

So... I can't wait for the day that banks are a shadow of their current selves.

On the plus side, their shield of "protection" was temporarily down when services finally resumed after a day of outage. And that meant I could quickly shunt through a couple of instant transfers to feed the crypto VISA debit cards! Sadly, that window was only open for an hour or two at most... and the "protection" is back up, which meant that my last transfer is now delayed by a day whilst I'm being protected.

Grrrrrr,,, tell you what. Instituting a BSB/Name check would a better way of preventing fraud/scam protection... but no, that might mean actually accepting responsibility for a shitty infrastructure.

I can also be found cross-posting at:
Hive
Steem
Publish0x

Handy Crypto Tools

Ledger Nano S/X: Keep your crypto safe and offline with the leading hardware wallet provider. Not your keys, not your crypto!
Binance: My first choice of centralised exchange, featuring a wide variety of crypto and savings products.
WooX: The centralised version of WooFi. Stake WOO for fee-free trades and free withdrawals!
GMX.io: Decentralised perpetual futures trading on Arbitrum!
Coinbase: If you need a regulated and safe environment to trade, this is the first exchange for most newcomers!
Crypto.com: Mixed feelings, but they have the BEST looking VISA debit card in existence! Seriously, it is beautiful!
CoinList: Access to early investor and crowdsale of vetted and reserached projects.
Cointracking: Automated or manual tracking of crypto for accounting and taxation reports.
KuCoin: I still use this exchange to take part in the Spotlight and Burning Drop launches.