crypto Critique From Former Regulator Faces Backlash as Misguided and Protectionist
LONDON โข- November 15, 2025 – Recent criticisms of cryptocurrency fromโ former Financial Services Authority (FSA)โค Chairman Lord Adair Turner are drawing sharp rebuke from industry observers,โข who โฃargueโค hisโ skepticism is outdated and โขrooted in a defense of customary financialโ systems. Turner likened cryptocurrency investment to the โค17th-centuryโ Dutch “tulipโข mania,” a โขclaim published in City A.M. and widely circulated,โค sparking a debate over โฃthe merits and risks of โคdecentralized finance.
Critics contend Turner’s dismissal of cryptocurrency โฃas “socially useless” overlooks โขbasic parallels between โขits core principlesโ and innovativeโ lending models he previously championed. They point to Oaknorth, a bank utilizing โฃdata-driven creditโฃ analysis, and cryptocurrencyโค networks โขas both aiming to reduce information asymmetry andโ lower โคintermediation costs -โข albeit through different mechanisms. Oaknorth employs machine learning andโข on-site inspections, โขwhile โคBitcoin utilizes obvious ledgers and programmatic collateral.
Moreover,analystsโ highlight the โคirony of Turner’s critique given his past focus on overleveraged banks with โคopaque risk exposure. Cryptocurrency networks, they argue, operate with transparent โขleverage ratios,โฃ on-chain collateralization, and open-source code.Theโ collapse of centralized crypto entities like FTX in โ2022, โtheyโค note,โ stemmed fromโค practices – fractional reserve bankingโฃ and fiat-denominated borrowing – that Turner has historically opposed.Decentralized protocols, conversely, weathered the same period due to their auditableโ mechanics.
bepi pezzulli, a solicitor and member of Advance UK’s college, argues โขTurner misinterprets the underlyingโ systems engineering of cryptocurrency, equating it to mere speculation.He draws a โฃparallel to dismissing โขthe early internet as โฃsimply “information arbitrage” due to its initial use by day traders.
“The tulip skeptic, it turns out, just doesn’t like flowers he can’tโ regulate,” Pezzulli concludes.
Turner previously โsuggested property โคand equities offer sufficient inflation protection, a claim challenged by โคobservers who note property’s reliance on leverage and equities’ correlation with nominal GDP, citing Japan’s three-decade equity drawdown despite positive GDP growth as a cautionary tale. His assertion that equities will inevitably rise with GDP, unless a global catastrophe occurs,โฃ is โviewedโข as โคaโฃ risky reliance on mean reversion, neglecting the value โof insurance against tail risks.
