The promise of crypto has not lived up to its initial excitement
Waaay back, I thought Bitcoin was a cool technology, and convinced some friends of mine with businesses to accept it. We had a lot of fun with it - it was really cool to pay for your beer by scanning a QR code and seeing the transaction come through this public, distributed, tamper proof ledger, like magic, with no need for money, banks or any of the other financial infrastructure we&#x27;re used to.<p>Sadly, the &quot;crypto space&quot; was quickly invaded by hordes of people who never really cared about the technology itself, how it works and what it&#x27;s actually useful for. (and what it&#x27;s not useful for)<p>These people, who know nothing about it, and for years had dismissed it as a joke, suddenly began to talk about it very seriously as a very serious &quot;investment&quot; in self-proclaimed &quot;expert&quot; capacity.<p>You know the type of person I&#x27;m talking about! We&#x27;ve all seen them, and most of us can probably count one or two amongst our friends.<p>The potential for cool applications of blockchains is still there, but so far it seems to me cryptocurrency has mostly just been abused as a vehicle for crazy, baseless manias, and little to no meaningful application.