My opinion has changed somewhat in recent years. I was a cryptocurrency skeptic, and I still am, but perhaps less so.<p>Bitcoin always seemed like a solution in search of a problem. The supposed need to replace fiat currencies never resonated with me, and the demand to get around government currency controls seemed real but overblown. I disliked the pump-and-dump rhetoric and the breathless hype from its early adopters that reminded me of the real estate and tech bubbles. As for the energy consumption, it's an unforgivable flaw.<p>I've also always deeply mistrusted the markets. Not just because of the scammers and theft, but because bitcoin trading platforms lacked the protections against wash sales that arise if you're not actively monitoring against it. What assurances did we have that most of the trading volume wasn't actually being done by a few key players/miners trading between their own accounts to make it look like there was actual volume, occasionally skimming off of unsuspecting people who were drawn by the price increases they manufactured?<p>I think we're past the point that bitcoin is merely a pump-and-dump scheme though. It is already a historic economic phenomenon. It's been over 4 years since bitcoin passed the $1,000 threshold. It's become a brand and a cultural idea, and due to its strictly limited inelastic supply, small increases in demand have resulted in large and sustained price increases. If I had to bet whether bitcoin will be higher or lower than it is now in ten years I still think it'll be substantially lower, but I am less certain now.<p>Another thing that's changed for me is that I think there really is a potential market for the creation and frictionless transfer of unique digital goods. The NFT market is even more scammy and absurd than cryptocurrencies, but there seems to be a kernel of truly useful innovation in the ethereum and cardano networks. I could see a world where I connect a metamask wallet to an online game, trade an item I make in it for digital currency that can be used to pay for a subscription or donate to a content creator, all from my browser. Or perhaps I can rent my processing power. I don't think bitcoin will be the platform for this, but it's helped drive demand and resources to it.<p>Bitcoin has other consequences that will resonate. It's made a lot of people wealthy, and it's a special, unusual group of people -- , irrational risk-takers, young, tech-adjacent, global and often from low-income countries, and often disillusioned with the traditional paths to wealth and power in our capitalist system. Their spending and investment of their newfound wealth will be impactful over the next few years. Much of it will be misspent I am sure, and we'll end up overfunding ethical AI non-profits and building ghost cities in Central America, but our boom-and-bust system misallocates capital all the time too. It's kind of like a global R&D account for wild ideas.