When we were handling The S & Ls crisis in the Reagan administration, it struck me that all 4,500 S&Ls could not have been failing because of executive fraud and neglect. It was a systemic collapse, which had to have systemic causes. If government decisions could cause the collapse of the S&L industry and send a $200 billion bill to the taxpayers, I wondered how many other times that had happened in our history.

It was shocking to discover that the United States has had the most financial panics in the last two centuries of any country but Argentina, even though the US has the most comprehensive system of federal and state oversight. Regulation is not always the answer. It can distort markets no matter how well-intentioned it is meant to be, so unless the government constantly recalibrates its oversight and intervention in the economy, there is bound to be a collision that eventually causes a financial explosion.

Andrew Jackson undercut the U.S. National Bank and reallocated wealth from the east to the west—acts that deflated the economic boom and led to a collapse in 1837. In the 1920s, the Federal Reserve kept interest rates low, effectively financing further stock market speculation that led to the Great Depression. Deposit and interest rate caps enacted by federal and state governments in the 1960s and 1970s trapped S&Ls in a financial vise when rates hit 21% in the 1980s. Policies enacted by the Clinton and Bush administrations to increase homeownership in America unwittingly fed a financial frenzy that socialized risk into subprime mortgage-backed securities that nearly brought the economy down in 2008.

As well-intentioned as Congress may be in creating financial regulation, it has become inefficient, redundant, and ineffective. A bank that offers mortgages nationally turns the lights on each morning knowing that it has to satisfy more than 160 different state and federal regulators all competing for jurisdiction and press-release priority. Congress has turned financial regulation on its head, forcing agencies to spend more time micromanaging than preparing for the next financial crisis.

When both financial products and their delivery systems change at the same time as they are now, it suggests a seismic market shift is coming. Artificial intelligence is modernizing how services are offered, underwritten, and evaluated and will eventually allow regulators to employ better supervisory tools. Blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and other technologies are rapidly decentralizing spoke-and-wheel systems that have relied on financial institutions, replacing them with more efficient peer-to-peer validation systems. Consumers will have access to quicker, cheaper, and more efficient financial services. The question is whether financial systems will be stable and safe when governments and banks are removed from the equation.

Financial technology is a two-edged sword. The technology that cures cancer may also be the technology that can destroy the world. From a financial perspective, there is no doubt that technology can make our lives more stable, productive, and profitable. As we launch bots and AI apps to make investment choices for us, we will see greater efficiencies and profits. The issue is whether we can keep that power in the hands of benevolent masters of technology rather than rogue nations and even machines themselves.

At this moment, there is no master plan, early warning defense, or cyberspace coast guard protecting the country’s national economic security. That leaves banks, payments systems, the Federal Reserve System, Treasury, and automated clearinghouses on their own to deter and defend against cyberattacks. Mutually assured financial destruction will only continue to protect our economy against nation states that willingly participate in the global community. Rogue nations, fanatics, and terrorists will not be deterred from using relatively inexpensive forms of technology to destroy economies and nations.

Given two hundred years of history, we know that the next financial crisis is coming, and then it will be caused by a collision of poorly crafted government policies, aggressive business behavior, and unanticipated market movements. The X factor at this moment is the extent to which technology naturally disrupts financial markets or is intentionally used to destroy them. In my view, there is at least a better than 50% chance that technology will be a cause of the next US financial panic.