[malsuwaidi]

Early(ish) adopter here(circa 2013): initially it was a way for nerds who didn’t have street connections to buy drugs. Then it morphed into the biggest, most decentralized multi-level marketing speculative asset class in the history of the world.

The narrative behind crypto reminds me a lot of gold bugs who rave on and on and on about how defective the existing fiat monetary system is , in hopes to push up the fiat prices of their asset.

Every speculative asset needs to have a narrative tied to it to help newcomers rationalize buying in their fomo. (Look at GME, louisiana bonds etc etc etc). That doesn’t mean that it’s not a good tool to make a quick buck if your timing is right.

[ur-whale]

> Early(ish) adopter here(circa 2013): initially it was a way for nerds who didn’t have street connections to buy drugs.

You are making assumptions.

It might have been your motivation back then.

It most certainly wasn't the motivation for many people I know in the space.

I was introduced to bitcoin by someone who was also promoting this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nBPN-MKefA

and the interest I developed for it was both because the tech. was interesting and new and it resonated with my political sensibilities.

Strictly nothing to do with drugs.

[malsuwaidi]

I’ve actually outlined both réal-life use cases: 1- initially anonymous online payment (we all know how that went), and 2- fringe -let’s - change - this - corrupt - system types who also would like to get rich doing it (by definition if you want to change a political economy system it’s for you to come out on top on the other end).

What other real world use case has there been for crypto so far that’s actually 1-useful and 2-adoptable ?

[Ekaros]

Not to forget the hard core Libertarians and Anarcho-Capitalist... I seemingly remember them being quite a big crowd involved. And ofc the get rich people, as early adopters being trillionaires when whole world adopts bitcoin. While bitcoin also being good for the poor in future...

[jokethrowaway]

As an AnCap, I don't think BTC itself will help the cause much (its profits might).

The government will just crack down on it eventually and the transparency of the blockchain will be used against you.

We need a political solution, not a technical one. In my ideal society I would still have private banks and I would have a currency 100% backed by real goods. There just wouldn't be a government bailing out banks when they screw up, vomiting up regulations and stealing your money every year.

That said, some of my friends went all in on BTC and got insanely rich, started buying islands in the Caribbean and places in Switzerland. Hopefully some of the crypto money will start a government-less society experiment somewhere, somehow, at some point.

[przeor]

crack on what? If they receive plenty of taxes for years from it, they are part of the problem not a solution as you would