Crypto today has a lot in common with both the internet in 1993 and the internet in 1999. Huge potential with few of the use cases invented yet, combined with froth, scams and delusion. This makes it easier to dismiss (“useless AND a scam!”).
But dismissing crypto as a useless scam is much like looking at Usenet, Cuecat and Boo .com and dismissing the internet. It mistakes applications for the enabling layer.
Looking at crypto and only seeing the scams is like looking at the internet in 1999 and only seeing the bubble.
Looking at crypto and seeing no use cases is like looking at the internet in 1993, when the web was 3% of traffic
Another parallel: 1993 - people complaining the term should be internets, not internet 2018 - people complaining 'that's not what crypto means'
You could argue I was wrong and blockchain's potential never turned into anything much. It actually has become a huge deal as plumbing in the finance industry, but not much else. But so what? This was an interesting tech that hasn't really worked out. Welcome to the tech industry.
I have always been (and remain!) bearish on crypto but it absolutely was something that couldn't be ignored a few years ago. Even if you came to the conclusion that it was bunk, there was significant enough fervor that any technologist needed to reckon with their position on it.
For example, lots of engineers proclaimed very loudly that document databases would replace the RDBMs, or that GraphQL was the future of APIs. They were wrong, as it turned out, but only with the wisdom of hindsight.
I made it very clear that I thought NFTs were a speculative bubble. I never suggested anyone should buy any crypto-related instrument. The idea that I was ‘shilling for crypto’ is something you would only say if you’re an idiot, as the OP and a few others on this thread clearly are.