I agree with the first part of your statement, but disagree strongly with the second. I think that cryptocurrency is in general a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, outside of black market use.
That's a social problem which would be solved by cryptocurrencies.
I can also recommend this podcast on the topic of current real world applications of Bitcoin: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/02/jim_epstein_on.html
It's hard to get a hold of, it's hard to store securely, it's hard to transport, and it's hard to get people to accept it.
If you're really considering gold or Bitcoin, you very likely care about many of those things, and you'll see that Bitcoin has distinct advantages for several of those problems, with a lot of potential to improve.
Do you have any links or can you explain how people lost fortunes due to inflation? I've read a lot of economics and this is news to me.
The problems are central banking and related problems: demonetization, devaluation, hyperinflation, bank bail outs from taxpayers, etc.
For example (in certain parts of Europe, and probably elsewhere too) merchants have to pay a fairly high fixed cost to have credit card terminals in their place of business, and also pay a cut of each transactions to Visa or Mastercard. This is a considerable cost to small business, which have to pass this along to consumers. Now of course most consumers don't use bitcoin or other altcoins to pay for stuff today, however the fact that there's even the possibility of eliminating these types of middlemen is very exciting, and unthinkable even a few short years ago.
Not to mention the very exciting possiblities offered by blockchains and smart contracts, even if the original projects that spawned them fail completely (bitcoin and ethereum).
BTC simply shifts all the cost of dealing with fraud to the customer.
What alleged problem do you think Bitcoin is trying to solve?
Bitcoin is making value transfers cheap, fast and accessible.
As for the third, you've clearly not dealt with wire transfers very much. Dealing with SWIFT for example is infinitely more difficult than using bitcoin.
Cryptocurrency came about as a direct result of a broken political / financial system which effectively rewarded failure and financially punished those who could least afford to be punished.