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It amazes me that this Ponzi scheme is still ongoing. There's ample evidence of wash trading at all the major exchanges.

One of my favorite quotes on this is from the NYU economics professor who was famous for identifying the housing bubble, who also called out the crypto currency bubble in 2017, is asked again what he thinks of the crypto movement:

"I also have attended many of these crypto or blockchain conferences. I met some of these individuals, and I must say I’ve never seen in my life people who on one side are so arrogant in their views, who are total zealots and fanatics about this new asset class, while at the same time completely and totally ignorant of basic economics, finance, money, banking, central banking, monetary policy.

They want to reinvent everything about money, but most of them are absolutely totally clueless. The ratio between arrogant and ignorant is astounding — I have never seen such a gap in my life. These are fanatics. Some of them, like criminals, zealots, scammers, carnival barkers, insiders who are just talking their book 24/7.

There is an element of excess in every bubble, but the typical bubble is an outgrowth of some technological evolution that maybe changes the world for the better. The internet was in a bubble in the late 1990s, but it was a real thing but valuations of many internet-related stocks were sky-high. Prices crashed and dot-coms went bust, but the internet kept on growing. Billions of people used it, and it has changed the world. Cryptocurrency as a technology has absolutely no basis for success, and the mother of all bubbles is now bust.

Twitter and in-person interactions with the fans of cryptocurrencies made me stronger and more secure in my belief."

Here's a much better article explaining why fundamental issues with blockchains make them either unsuitable for banking or not much different than the current system of trusted third parties in a centralized permission system. Read this and beware of fintech cheerleaders spouting buzzword nonsense:

Will Blockchain Change Wall Street? The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

Nihil sub sole novum

I'm not the OP, but I would find your alterations acceptable on the assumption that it's accurate, but this is actually a symptom of a wider problem. Anne-Marie Slaughter put it much better.

http://blogs.cfainstitute.org/... Just read the first two paragraphs.

http://blogs.cfainstitute.org/...

I work in areas of quantitive finance and have found the CFA charter to be very worthwhile. It briefly covers some of the subject matter of an MBA but is more oriented toward analysis which may be a good fit to a geek mind-set.

It's not an easy program - first, because it's largely self-study and second, because each of the three successive levels of the test has about a 50% pass rate. However, the self-study aspect also means it's far less expensive than most academic business degrees. Also, the rigorousness of the test makes it a highly-valued credential.

You can find out more at the site of the CFA Institute: https://www.cfainstitute.org/pages/index.aspx .

Don't sell yourself short.

Hey. That gives me an idea.

The guy's in the financial industry. He already knows tech. With a year's education (and his employer may well cover the cost), he could do a hell of a lot better job than most sell-side analysts do.

Half the barrier to entry to finance is jargon. (Kinda like how they see tech, LOL.)

Anyone with a 4-year degree in CompSci can handle any of the math required for a CFA Level 1 (even if, at age 40, you'll need to dust off some stuff you haven't used since college). It's basically a 4th-year-college/1st-year-of-postgrad course.

Whether he uses the acquired knowledge to be more useful to his employer (in that he'll be able to understand the needs of the people his code supports), or to switch careers at his current employer (downside: wearing a suit, upside: possibility of membership in the 1%), or to jump ship and work for another employer, or even if he just wants a skill that can pay the bills outside of work (you don't need a job to have a trading account, and if the markets ever shut down for more than a few weeks, everyone's out of a job except for the survivalists), is up to him.