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The general consensus (in my opinion), seems to be that its only real useful application had been in cryptocurrencies. From my view, cryptocurrencies are here to stay, but there is still a lot of dissent that crypto is a ponzi scheme or for fraudsters.
Which is to say... yes, I think cryptocurrency is a scam in 2025. I will say the same thing in 2030, and again in 2050, assuming nothing changes.
Gambling seems like the best comparison to me.
What makes it a scam is that there is nothing real behind it, but people think there is, so those who don't understand what is going on can get utterly and completely hosed while other people take their money.
There are a lot of other great use-cases you're missing: Money laundering, circumventing sanctions (North Korean missile program is not gonna fund itself), buying drugs online, ransomware, assassination markets, illegal political donations, hard to trace bribery, and I'm sure a ton more.
But it's not fair to paint with too broad a brush.
It's just the 99% that give the 1% a bad name.
As for having staying power, all kinds of scams have nonetheless enjoyed staying power (gambling, MLMs, scientology, major political parties).
1. A lot of scammers launch crypto scams, rug pull tokens, phish/scam people out of their money. 2. Bitcoin is a hard, censorship resistant, permission less money. 3. Outside of Bitcoin, Crypto / blockchain is still experimental and looking for its usecase. We have seen smart contracts, tokenization of assets, NFTs and meme coins all being tried out here.
POW is bad for the planet and turned out to have issues in 50%+1 capture. POS is dependent on real world value and constrains behaviour to loss of stake.
Quorum, usually overlooked. Your transaction is final!! Not if the quorum decides to repudiate.
Forensic accountants love cryptos. I row with one who said evidence chains are delightful even with mixers.
Went to meetings on the chain a decade or so back and the fin regulators said its a great mechanism if you distrust your peers, need to co-relate and don't want a regulator in the transactions. So as settlement logic between central banks, or for certainty in complex supply chains where people repudiate the 90 day settlement they can help. Or where middlemen take bites out of transactions as they flow but regarding that, the big vig on transaction processing suggests nothing is free.
Merkle was smart. The logical structure is interesting for all kinds of things. PQC in dnnsec includes models using them.
1. People want to use government controlled moneybdue to the stability benefits:
* Stable value in short term
* Legal system can clawback money
* Banks have anti fraud system and some level of accountability
* Security is taken care of
2. Shops don't generally take crypto, they take fiat money
Crypto therefore services the world where these disadvantages are outweighed by advantages, which is mostly going to be various illegal or quasi legal activities or simply price speculation.
Crypto in theory should be very useful suffers from realities: 1. People want to use government controlled moneybdue to the stability benefits: * Stable value in short term * Legal system can clawback money * Banks have anti fraud system and some level of accountability * Security is taken care of 2. Shops don't generally take crypto, they take fiat money Crypto therefore services the world where these disadvantages…
If I give wrong IBAN to someone good likelihood is that transactions fails and I keep money. Or I have at least some legal chance to claim it back.