Do they hope they'll be useful in the future because they think they're great technology that everyone should benefit from... or do they want them to be useful because they bought in early and want to get rich?
We get a lot of obviously not-ready-for-prime-time stuff hitting production because it's too lucrative (see any number of DAO and smart-contract schemes that imploded), and there's a systemic allergy to input from the outside world as to what normal consumers want (things like reversability and systemic backstops), because the current system appeals to speculators.
I'd see the case for "useful in the future" if there were more efforts to answer the no-breakthrough-tech-required "faster horses" problems people have with mainstream finance. FedNow is coming in months and will give me settlement in minutes for pennies, and likely very solid legal backing. This is faster horses. Crypto might offer similar settlement speeds, but I understand it depends on the particular chain I choose, and to an extent, how much I'm willing to pay to push the transaction through. I'd also wonder how reliably the courts will accept a crypto paper trail if there's ever a dispute on a payment. (Not necessarily because the trail is bogus, but simply because it's not a well-established precedent of who and what can be trusted)
Then Elon and the second Doge wave happened... Mutant Ape NFTs getting hyped by people like Paris Hilton and Jimmy Fallon... Sam Bankman's clear deception and FTX buying sports stadiums... the same centralized actors that we were working to get away from completely hijacked the platform, seized the narrative, and basically tarnished all the fun aspects. It felt like when Facebook no longer required .edu emails and a flood of parents and spammers took over the website.
Crypto is more like the invention of electronic cryptographically secure beanie babies with a semi-fixed supply.
You could say that about any investment surely? Or do we assume all VC funded companies are altruistic endeavours only?
Those that held pre-2017 are the ones that got in early.
The rest could probably make better returns speculating in the US markets.
>Anyone that's bought in during the past few years isn't early.
>Those that held pre-2012 are the ones that got in early.
>The rest could probably make better returns speculating in the US markets.
Ethereum was a better deal during this time, but you'd have to know to buy it. And some people really made bank on altcoins, but again, right time to buy, right time to sell.
There's a limit on how much the crypto market can be worth with people still able to use it as a currency to buy things. Logarithmically we're closer to the top than to the original bottom, though like all markets timing can still yield very good returns, especially if everyone else is hodling like Fort Knox.
I still believe Ethereum is poised for a fair amount of growth in the long-term, though likely nothing near the rise it's enjoyed in it's last run. I say that only because it's an on-ramp to so many other cryptocurrencies.
This strikes me more like a buyer's club than a stock.