Has the promise of cryptocurrency failed?

Pick your poison- Fiat currency controlled by central banks backed by private equity and rich people Vs Cryptocurrency controlled by tech bros backed by private equity and rich people

One thing that continues to bug me is when it'll go from being an 'investment' instrument to get rich fast, to actually being a currency that is used for at least a few transactions a month/year That hasn't happened at all. And I'm sure governments will continue to be a hindrance in that happening. Wonder if someone has any data around this?

It seems to not have found credible use cases. The technology is still pretty sound IMO

“Centralised control over financial transactions” - I think the question is why the governments would want to lose any of it It seems like crypto was mostly used as currency on the dark web, NFTs, etc. None of the mainstream use case. It’s a very ideal end case, but some ideals you don’t ever get to

* Balaji entered the chat *

Offcourse yes

No. Fundamental understanding of crypto as a currency is wrong , it is an entirely Digital asset class . Crypto asset class is at very nascent stages and in 10,15 years we will see crypto products and services use by everyone of us.

Crypto has made solutions to a problem that never existed. It has been here since decades and is only and purely used for gambling and scamming, it has created more problems. I’m seeing people making 40-50LPA who just sit and google topics in the name of “RESEARCHER” Why? Because it’s backed by scam money. If banks vanish today it’ll be the end. If crypto vanishes today, nothing will change.

Temporary blips, people getting swayed by investors getting overexcited about crypto, until they weren't. A turnaround in currencies won't happen in 10-15 years. It's likely a 40-50 year phenomenon, if it happens. It's lowest point was when Ranveer Singh was giving free 100 rupees to invest via Coinswitch, and when Elon asked everyone to buy Doge to the moon. Sanity is better.

No government in the world will be happy to give up their power to control the currency. Exception being El Salvador which is now facing a crisis because they adopted Bitcoin at a higher price and as it fell, well so did whatever amount the government and their people had purchased. As a currency, it is too volatile. The main reason that currencies of large economies aren't as volatile is because the "evil" central banks intervene. If there is too much inflation, they can raise interest rates, open market operations to reduce Liquidity etc. and vice versa. As a storage of value, it is well known that you shouldn't be keeping your money as cash or in a savings account because of inflation which btw is quite necessary for economic growth (controlled inflation). Rather wealth should be stored in real estate, fixed income instruments, equity etc. If crypto is unable to fulfill these two things, what is it then ? A failed idea maybe which people thought of as a get rich quick scheme. Moreover, people keep talking about whales, so however decentralisation there is, power would automatically flow towards the more influential and rich anyways.

How does one solve for anonymity in the crypto currency system? Money, considering it drives the world and the associated malpractices (such as terrorism etc), needs to be traced to ownership in an audit trail

Crypto space filled with two kinds of people 1. People from wall street 2. People from 'occupy wall street'.

The only advantage crypto has from a currency perspective (and which was heavily marketed) is that there is limited supply and noone can print an absurd amount of money. But this printing is actually a necessity depending on economic situation of a country. Using crypto as a currency can easily cause more harm than good. (Unless ure argentina ;) )

This post is bang on point! Here are my two cents on this. I like to look at crypto in the context of law and the legal system. Crypto utopians imagined a world where ‘decentralised’ crypto infrastructure would allow them to exist (and thrive) outside the control of any legal systems. No intermediaries = no corruption. This was a good ideal to strive for. Unfortunately, it turns out that a bunch of factors undermine and undercut this idea, rendering it entirely infeasible: 1) No intermediaries = no corruption assumes existing intermediary functions can be functionally replaced with bulletproof code - code that cannot be hacked/subverted. This is unrealistic. 2) The general masses care way more about acting with legal sanction and validity, than about acting to fulfil anarchist visions of liberty and self sovereignty. No one wants to find themselves on the wrong end of a State which can ‘legitimately’ choose to exercise force against anyone, for the sake of a dubious vision sold by anonymous techies peddling incomprehensible tech products. 3) The bogey of terrorist financing and anti-money laundering has given the State sufficient ground to impose pervasive KYC norms on crypto users and legal registration norms on crypto companies. This ensures that any version of mainstream crypto adoption will always remain under the State’s thumb. Big B will always have their eyes on crypto, and utopian visions of ‘decentralised web3’ that allows the masses to stand up to “fiat currency and evil central banks” simply cannot materialise in this scenario. 4) To have any real-world utility, crypto must necessarily interface with the law. Outside imaginations of self-sustaining bubbles of crypto-civilisations, crypto must necessarily interface with fiat systems. Crypto users need on-off ramps, and crypto companies need banks. There’s no way around it. There can be no general use cases for crypto, as long as crypto remains anti-establishment and outside the legal fold.

Obviously, most currencies were and are still in the hands of evil banks and corporations. This "disruptive" technology gave them the power to fluctuate the market. They had to strategise to make profit from the stock market but here they milked money like no one's business especially in the initial days after mining became difficult.

Invest in crypto, transact in fiat. And it's a bad investment

It felt more like finding a problem statement for a solution than the other way around.

the current crypto currency markets are already concentrated to few clusters, as long as human psyche remains human we can't have truly decentralised currency.

Decentralized currency is a myth. Never saw crypto as a modern means of transaction but was bullish about the decentralized opportunity of investing it provided for everyone to be able to VC-style invest in projects before they even hit scale. Truly believed that sectors solving actual problems through blockchain would emerge. Greed and speculation overtook innovation. I had my thesis and took a bet with an early-stage startup. We raised over a mil at Seed. With half the money raised still in the bank, shutting down seemed a better option than surviving in hope. Looking for PM roles right now, any leads would greatly help.

I think we are signs of things coming together. I think what people misunderstand is they try to replace fiat. Instead look at their real use cases say something like solana being used to settle interbank transactions. Wait for it. It took internet to come off age. People are building good stuff