The overwhelming majority of it were pyramid schemes that lured people in during covid when folks were desperate and interests rates were low. It was never sustainable and interest naturally waned after a few years. The final nail in the coffin was when AI took all the investment dollars and compute.
There are people I know who genuinely rely on crypto for their survival. For them, it’s the only way to send money abroad to support family in certain countries, or to access their own funds when they move.
As the world becomes more fragmented, with financial and cyber spaces becoming increasingly isolated, crypto is often the only tool left to maintain personal financial freedom.
So, in the long run, I believe crypto will be just fine. The trend isn't likely to reverse anytime soon.
Crypto arguably has a better UX than traditional banks' SWIFT when in comes to sending money abroad.
I often need to wait for many days for a SWIFT to get through. There are fees — sometimes way larger than crypto fees. Transactions are frequently blocked, and I end up spending a lot of time convincing my bank that the transfer is legitimate.
Plus, they tell you that if there's an error, like sending money to the wrong account, it can't be reversed — just like with crypto. So really, what's the point of all that extra hassle?
Crypto people now are waiting for the next bull cycle/halving/bull run/pump and dump so they can sell all their coins and retire in a nice house in the Caribbeans.
I still see a lot of startups and small companies doing crypto stuff, as well as job openings in LinkedIn and similar so I don't think it went anywhere is just that the hype died a bit and it's been replaced by AI.
Monero is still very useful for making private transactions if you’re buying or selling anything that isn’t legal in your jurisdiction.
Lots of other coins are useful for exchanging money outside of the traditional financial system but the majority of people don’t need them and if you use them you need to handle the inherent volatility of something you don’t want to be volatile, and the on- and off-ramping cost and inconvenience.
Web3, defi and NFTs seem like a bit of dud so far and most projects are somewhere on the scale from “useless” to “outright scam”.
And of course many people won and lost lots money by speculating on crypto prices.
I liked the idea of bounties being paid in crypto but now bounties have problems too, someone needs to figure out a decent bounty site/scheme to avoid hundreds of people trying to claim then then wasting time producing nothing
A "one hit wonder" band often produces music, plays tours, and has a fan base long after we heard their one hit; hype can make something seem gone once the hype is gone.
Since early 2024, several ETFs are available that have exposure to Bitcoin, meaning one can finally buy/sell BTC via their traditional stonks accounts and it has attracted a lot of big name investors.
I have/had high hopes for Web3 as a decentralized internet (Silicon Valley show?) is one of the best tools to thwart oppressive governments and have much more autonomy over your data, privacy, and money. However, 5+ years in and not much has caught. Internet took about a decade+ to become ubiquitous, so who knows.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 66.1 ms ] threadhttps://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/crypto-is-a-scam.html
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As the world becomes more fragmented, with financial and cyber spaces becoming increasingly isolated, crypto is often the only tool left to maintain personal financial freedom.
So, in the long run, I believe crypto will be just fine. The trend isn't likely to reverse anytime soon.
Most currencies are dogshit remittance tools but have the benefit of being harder to regulate and monitor than PayPal, western union, swift etc.
You're probably right, but they will be centralised cryptos and thus kind of defeat the whole point.
I often need to wait for many days for a SWIFT to get through. There are fees — sometimes way larger than crypto fees. Transactions are frequently blocked, and I end up spending a lot of time convincing my bank that the transfer is legitimate.
Plus, they tell you that if there's an error, like sending money to the wrong account, it can't be reversed — just like with crypto. So really, what's the point of all that extra hassle?
Lots of other coins are useful for exchanging money outside of the traditional financial system but the majority of people don’t need them and if you use them you need to handle the inherent volatility of something you don’t want to be volatile, and the on- and off-ramping cost and inconvenience.
Web3, defi and NFTs seem like a bit of dud so far and most projects are somewhere on the scale from “useless” to “outright scam”.
And of course many people won and lost lots money by speculating on crypto prices.
I liked the idea of bounties being paid in crypto but now bounties have problems too, someone needs to figure out a decent bounty site/scheme to avoid hundreds of people trying to claim then then wasting time producing nothing
Since early 2024, several ETFs are available that have exposure to Bitcoin, meaning one can finally buy/sell BTC via their traditional stonks accounts and it has attracted a lot of big name investors.
I have/had high hopes for Web3 as a decentralized internet (Silicon Valley show?) is one of the best tools to thwart oppressive governments and have much more autonomy over your data, privacy, and money. However, 5+ years in and not much has caught. Internet took about a decade+ to become ubiquitous, so who knows.