In 2009^ I downloaded a BTC miner and had everything set up but then never started the machine because I was running folding@home and thought that was a better use of my distributed compute. Doh!
In my mind you can look at cryptocurrencies, and the idea of blockchain generally, in two ways. Either you evaluate it as how well it acts as Money or what it can do as a distributed ledgering system.
In the former case you need a comprehensive understanding of:
1. The history of money, which comes down to war and politics,
2. A deep understanding of what makes money work in it's three uses (store of value, medium of exchange, unit of accounting)
3. How it forms a scaffold in a modern economy.
The cryptocurrency-as-money perspective fundamentally has no legs, for numerous reasons, but primarily because it has no coercive power behind it enforcing it's use like all other currencies. A few people are trying it but it's no serious contender for legal tender anytime soon.
All of the "coin" that is created in these markets is effectively derivatives trading and should be avoided at all costs in my opinion.
From the digital ledger perspective there seems to be real value in that use case.
^Corrected year