I don't feel I'm missing out, tho. I'm refusing to participate in anti-social hucksterism. Even if there's the chance of making money.
"Cryptocurrency" was interesting, briefly, before the scams took it over. Now the interesting bits are buried too deep in scummy scams to be worth delving for.
The whole point of being an early stage investor is that you have to dig for the opportunities.
Here is what likely happens: A few cryptocurrencies become used or adopted by the public in some form. All the critics stomp their feet and say, "But a centralized database could do it better, faster, and cheaper! And better for the environment! This is 2026, technology is supposed to move in a direction that helps society! [Coughs in Google, Facebook, and Amazon]"
A few years later...
Ted: Where are you taking the kids?
Janet: Ted, I'm done with this! All you talk about is your hatred of crypto! You're always tweeting about it! What happened to our future?!
You spent all that time playing fucking Call of Duty online? Maybe if you had invested in the technology our daughter is using now we wouldn't be living in a studio!
You got it backwards. Its currently inflation (BTC getting less-and-less valuable over the recent past).
Deflation was 2020, when BTC climbed in price dramatically.
Neither deflation, nor inflation, makes for a good currency. That "1000 ether" bet could be $1-million if executed today, but it was $3-million just a few months ago.
Because there's no stability in cryptocoins, they are neither stores of value (they decline too quickly), nor currencies (they go up and cause price changes).