10 years of whatever this has been
&gt; That’s because I forgot one essential reason bitcoin has survived:<p>&gt; Because people really, really, really want it to.<p>My impression is that Bitcoin (and crypto) is now a religion. It&#x27;s tied to a lot of people&#x27;s identities. That&#x27;s to say, a group of people think of themselves as crypto people and are proud of it, just as someone might be a Christian and proud of it or a Golden State Warriors fan and proud of it.<p>While I&#x27;ve personally used crypto and found it useful, it doesn&#x27;t really matter what the environmental impacts are or how useful it is to a large swath of those interested in crypto. As long as there&#x27;s a plausible argument for why crypto is good, it&#x27;s enough for the believers to continue believing.<p>Not only that, crypto is and will continue to be cool and rich. As long as people like Tom Brady and Fortune 500 companies are talking about buying and selling crypto, it&#x27;s a religion that will continue growing.<p>By acknowledging this, I realized that I should move past dismissing the religion, but rather think about how I should engage with it. Imagine I&#x27;ve never watched American football but a lot of people I know are really into it. I then need to think:<p>Is it a cool community that I should join? Is it something that&#x27;s not for me but that I should try to understand? Or is it something that&#x27;s so bad that I should try to stigmatize it? I think the right response for me is closest to the second option, but I&#x27;m not sure yet.<p>[edited to remove some earlier, more divisive comments that I didn&#x27;t intend to make]