Seems more likely bitcoin was created by a big bank:
- Immediate use for it to launder money (HSBC already does this but recently got flagged by the US gov)
- Long term (if it became successful) it would enable them to reduce dependency on governments / regulation. Big banks are already more powerful than most governments and are rumored to cause political turmoil in countries to increase dependency on the bank. Why just control transactions when you can control the money itself?
- Have the financial knowledge / data to design a currency + have the technical expertise to implement it (due to the masses of quants joining banks in the past 10 years)
Very very unlikely (if you ask me), generally a contender is unable to even see radically new technologies after they're up-and-coming. That they would design it, design it properly, and launch without fanfarre is extremely unlikely to me.
You're right, we see this a lot in tech, because start-ups are easy to start. But in other places / industries people who want to innovate have no choice but to work in R&D at a big company. For example, in India, it's really hard to start new companies, so big companies (like TATA) continue to out innovate everyone and disrupt themselves. It's really hard to start a new bank, so if you're smart and interested in innovating in finance, you don't really have much choice but to work for a bank. Plus governments are really the incumbents here, so it's less likely for them to start a currency to rival their own than it is for a bank
> - Immediate use for it to launder money (HSBC already does this but recently got flagged by the US gov)
Actually, considering the circumstances, I don't see the incentive there. Cash is much easier to move (if you have the power of a bank that size) than bitcoins are. The HSBC example proves this point.
- Immediate use for it to launder money (HSBC already does this but recently got flagged by the US gov)
- Long term (if it became successful) it would enable them to reduce dependency on governments / regulation. Big banks are already more powerful than most governments and are rumored to cause political turmoil in countries to increase dependency on the bank. Why just control transactions when you can control the money itself?
- Have the financial knowledge / data to design a currency + have the technical expertise to implement it (due to the masses of quants joining banks in the past 10 years)