I thought this was the whole point of crypto, a completely public and traceable system to stop people doing shady shit, particularly aimed at shady people in the finance world. It’s kind of ironic that it’s ended up that the biggest crypto users are also the planet’s shadiest people. I’d be interested to know how much money would be in crypto markets if drugs were legalised globally when the original Bitcoin paper dropped. My guess would be less than a quarter of what we’ve got now and that crypto would be looked at with even more disinterest than Zuckerberg’s Metaverse.
People can shout and scream about it all they want but it’s just not going to be the tech utopia people dream of. As soon as it gains any kind of significant traction, central banks will release their own coins, allow people a grace period to transfer existing Bitcoin/Ethereum into central bank coin after which they’ll outlaw transactions in coins that aren’t backed by a central bank. The elites will not simply roll over and give up control of the money supply. They’ll stop it in its tracks long before it gets enough traction to take over as a legitimate alternative.
Realistically, I’d say somewhere in the ball park of 1/3 to 2/3 of global gdp would have to be in crypto for the people to have enough power to just ignore the central banks and governments. Even then, the big players would have to be able to convince the right lawyers and military personnel to bet on crypto because it would most likely be a long and bloody takeover.
Blockchain might have other legitimate uses, but I just do not see it taking over standard currencies unless there is some kind of central authority that maintains control over it. I hope I’m proved wrong, and that we can live in a less corrupt world as a result. But I can’t see a path to getting there. Every other successful piece of tech ends up with large controlling players e.g Facebook for social, Google for search. The general public does not have the time or patience to learn the ins and outs of decentralised tech. They do not care about tech nor should they. Firefighters, nurses and factory workers do not want to be finishing 12 hour shifts to read up for hours on how to set up a mastodon account. They have bigger things to worry about like doing their jobs, keeping a roof over their heads and feeding their families. They only care about what tech can do for them. They want convenience. Which means opinionated decisions on how something should be. Which inevitably leads to the quelling of decentralisation and individuality in favour of a few big power players. I don’t see why crypto would be any different.