[danpattn]

A few months ago I was at a car dealership filing out paperwork on a new car. The sales guy asked me what I did for work. I told him I was in finance. He immediately perked up and asked "Are you into crypto? We all trade it here."

Turns out the whole dealership, or at least most of the employees, traded crypto as a hobby. I asked a few questions, mainly about Proof of Work, and the salesman had no idea what that was. He was completely ignorant of how crypto worked.

The most common feature of assets bubbles is that they draw in people who would normally never engage in risky financial speculation. People early to the party get rich and that draws in everyone else. Its hard to stay out of the market when your neighbor has short-term gains larger than your salary.

In the tulip bubble, everyone was a botanist. In the tech bubble, everyone was an equity trader. In the housing bubble, everyone was flipping houses or getting their real estate license. Now everyone is a crypto trader. Regardless of how useful crypto will be in the future, there is only one way this party ends. Pumping trillions of dollars into the economy can delay the pain, but the pain seems inevitable at this point.