Why Bitcoin is worse than a Madoff-style Ponzi scheme

Indeed my first assessment way back when it was 1) Read the Whitepaper

2) Read the Bitcoin Standard Book (and subsequently the Fiat Standard book)

3) Listened to The Saylor Series on YouTube, and

4) Did the MIT Blockchain and Money course.

I then re-considered criticism from:

1) Various Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger interviews

2) The Blackpaper by Nassim Taleb, and

3) Various interviews with Peter Schiff.

My conclusion is that most arguments raised by the above respectable figures in criticism of Bitcoin are ignorant of evidence contrary to their arguements and display a surprising lack of knowledge or understanding that careful study would have overcome. I say that as I was that ignorant person. There are some valid criticisms, however they are in the same category as any new emerging technology.

I then decided to venture into crypto with money I could completely lose and not worry about, and it really helped my understanding further.

I'm now convinced this is like the pre-dotcom bust whereupon Amazon, Google, Facebook etc emerged to generate enormous value. There is enormous Alpha here to be made but I'm not arrogant to believe I know what will emerge as the market winners, but I have a stake in it now, and I'm further educating myself. I encourage dedicated study and an open, but critical mind, before making any aspersions on crypto.

There was a period of time where bitcoin was almost exclusively used for illegal substances / activity - predominately for drugs (the only time I ever used bitcoin was to buy adderall on silkroad), but also for things like hiring hitmen, weapons, and child pornography.

To see cryptocurrency grow to what it is today, especially given the context of what it originally was used for is a bit demoralizing.

You have to distinguish between absolute benefits, and benefits in our current society. I also think absolute or real benefits are very slim, but there are certain motivations for it today:

In our current society, one "benefit" is that you can use it to buy drugs anonymously. I would argue for some soft drugs like cannabis, that is a good thing. But even better to just legalize it - then you can get the benefits of regulation (harder for people to slide into heavier drugs, you have a bit more control over consumption, you can tax it...).

Another benefit is that you could take your money that you earn in your day job and funnel it into activism. In many countries, there are a lot of scary political developments, combined with a growing surveillance state. Crypto can help that you are not cut off critical resources if you are a dissident.

Finally, I wouldn't dismiss the aspect that it promises you to "get rich quickly". We have a very stratified society, where most people are individual laborers, and only a few are successful entrepreneurs and employers. Yes, in silicon valley you can earn a lot even as an IC, and there are many stories of successful founders. But to be honest, the way to the financial elite, the "ruling class", is barred for 99% of people, even for the most talented. A lot of people in tech probably find this unjust, and I can really relate to this feeling. But most would never question the system as a whole. Instead of trying to completely change society, we look for a literal hack or cheat, and crypto is this hack. It is the nerds' revenge, and we phantasize it will allow us to get what is our due.

How do I opt out of the massive amounts of electronic waste and carbon emissions from Bitcoin?

I don't get why this is being downvoted. Living in an unstable third world country I know these points are true.

There's less and less jobs, the few there are offer miserable wages(less than 3000k/year), and crypto is pretty much the only way to get paid working remotely for other countries as freelancer or contractor.

If you go the official route(only around 5% of workers do it even locally anyways) then more than half of your money is confiscated by the state and forced to convert to a local currency that's worth nothing two months down the road due to high inflation rates.

It doesn't seem like people in stable countries understand what it's like to live in places like this so I guess it's no wonder all they see is a bunch of "crypto bros" making money.