I think that the cryptocurrency/blockchain space is the next big thing in the world on-par with the internet. But it still has a long way to go. In the late 90s you could say "X on the internet" and get tons of investment. Now it's the same but with "X on the blockchain". We are going through growing pains now, and there definitely needs to be some regulation introduced to curb the many scams. My personal hope though is that the regulators work, not to try to stop this industry, but rather to shape it. I mean, why do I need to make $1M/year in order to prove to the US government that I'm worthy of investing into a startup. This is why ICOs are such a big thing right now for westerners, it circumvents that (and internationally, it allows people that would have otherwise not had any route to do such a thing). But there definitely needs to be some regulation behind that, because it's ridiculously easy to make a sleek marketing page that says "buy now and the price will go up later"... and people will buy into it.
Also, this quote:
> using cryptocurrency networks are cheaper to send money overseas than Western Union. No, it probably is not
Uhh, maybe not in some narrow cases (especially as pointed out in the source, for people that need to use cash agents or are unbankable), but for many people I know including myself, it is significantly cheaper to use bitcoin rather than Western Union (source: I receive my salary in bitcoin based on spot price tied to USD)
(disclaimer: co-founder of a blockchain project)