> Cryptocurrency is rightfully many things: a cutting edge payment network, an enormous boon to financial privacy, a way to enable entirely new types of organizations and funding models in the business world, a source of rapid developments to and applications of fascinating and obscure cryptographic concepts (e.g. zero-knowledge proofs), a hedge against systemic FIAT and some geopolitical risks, a driver of needed improvements in FIAT financial infrastructure (just like Google Fi was a driver of needed improvements in consumer internet infrastructure), I could go on and on...

Legitimate question for you because this has been a remarkably civil dialog considering this is such a flash point on HN (I appreciate that):

If it really is all of these things, where is the user adoption? Every six months or so I undertake the following exercise:

1) Get the 10 most active chains (variety of sources for this). Always includes bitcoin, eth, a bunch of l2s/sidechains/etc.

2) Visit their respective block explorers.

3) To the extent the data is available, capture daily and monthly metrics for the following: number of total transactions, used unique addresses, and (ideally) unique TX/RX transaction pairs.

4) Add them all up (rounded up).

5) Assume each address is a distinct user (they aren't).

6) Assume each address on each chain is a distinct user (they aren't).

Every time I undergo this exercise I come to the same conclusion: based on actual network stats the number of blockchain users is incredibly low - even when strongly favoring crypto with the methodology above the DAU/MAU metrics are at best in the low 10s of millions. Even when you take the all time high metrics with the methodology above it's still well under 100 million.

Considering there are an estimated > 5 billion internet users (crypto TAM) ATH numbers represent approximately 2% adoption, and I'd argue if you used a methodology that could resemble legitimate DAU/MAU stats you see from Meta, etc real adoption is probably 10-50% of that.

I talked about my crypto journey - I looked at the technology over the past five-ten years and agreed with you. I was convinced it was the latest emerging technology that would provide a platform for the things you speak of and more. Then I started realizing no one I knew outside of the crypto-sphere actually used it for anything other than trading on CEXs. That's when I started performing this crude study and realized crypto/blockchain is completely irrelevant. The entire space could disappear tomorrow and barely anyone would notice.

You seem to be much more capable of looking at things more holistically than I do/can. Historically, prior platforms/technologies from everything to the PC, the web, social media, smartphones, etc, etc easily hit 1 billion users inside of ten years. Generally speaking I feel like people are able to embrace things that are actually useful and benefit their lives. Crypto has been around for 14 years, has the benefit of leveraging all of these platforms, and still has abysmal user adoption.

Why?