There were like a billion ways this all could have been really simple, anonymous digital cash. But y'all had to make it overly complex and y'all had to get greedy and all y'all libertarian fedora vape ass dudes had to inject your absurd capitalist ideologies about currency speculation into it.<p>Saying cryptocurrency isn't a grift is like saying Amway isn't a pyramid scheme because their cleaning products really can clean things. Maybe, but the wrong people got in the door and now the regular people, the non-cypherpunks and non-Galties wanting some way to buy ketamine on their little floating pirate utopia or whatever, have realized that you can't actually use a currency as a currency when even the "stable" ones are about as stable as Ezra Miller with an eight-ball at a karaoke joint.<p>And all of this bullshit has managed to completely derail the tech industry as everybody tries to figure out a way to shoehorn crypto into every other useless idea, the same way they did with "social" for the last decade. Here's an NFT of my balls, go find some actor to pimp it for you at Super Bowl halftime.<p>Between crypto and the various dippy con artists getting miniseries of the week made about them, people are starting to realize that the higher tiers of tech - not the people who, y'know, actually make things people use, but the hustlers and rain-makers who get all the column inches, so to speak - are just absolutely full of people you wouldn't leave in a room without double checking your wallet is still in your pocket and your napkin is still on top of your drink.<p>You can drone on about economic and number theory all day - and a lot of you do - but it doesn't change the fact that everybody thinks this shit is one big Dutch flower market where you can trade black tulips for heroin or piss away your savings on ScroteCoins that some geek in Belarus will inevitably gank outta your virtual deposit box at the exchange, leaving you just as confused as when you started but twice as poor.<p>So,y'know, good job, guys. :-D