I am excited about the technology. I had taken a light look at the space 4-5 years ago and did not form a strong impression. I didn't take a look at the technology again until last September.

One of the topics I enjoyed deep diving on the most was the lightning network. The two pain points I observed for lightning were: (1) It takes a non-trivial amount of energy to understand hashed time lock contracts well enough to be able to prove the concept to yourself. Not having as easy mastery of a topic off the bat leads to feeling less secure about one's ability to reason about security. (2) The specter of rising on-chain fees for commitment transactions to open payment channels.

With regard to Nano, I was happy to see a different approach to the same problem that was more intuitive. I run a small business and am waiting for the desktop and mobile wallets to come out of beta before I offer the ability to pay with Nano.

I'd be happy if something came along that was better than Nano. I have it on my todo list to look into Byteball Bytes. I am optimistic about larger scale benefits that society will enjoy from the cryptocurrency space if certain projects are successful (eg improved ease of financial auditing, information-sharing platforms with strongly reduced odds of astroturfing, disappearance of credit card fees, increased financial transparency, reduced exchange fees when traveling, banking for the unbanked, etc). Since I am optimistic about the societal benefits from the space as a whole, I want to see more developers interested in getting involved.