[thematrixturtle]

I can't claim to speak for "everyone", but I was a crypto fanboy in the early days, when it seemed destined to be an actual currency, which would be great for all the reasons you mention.

But at some point it all went off the rails: crypto became a deeply rigged casino targeting the most vulnerable people they could find, fueled by insane amounts of energy consumption and money laundering.

[JonathanBeuys]

The same happened during the early days of the internet. Insane amounts of companies were founded, hyped and IPOed. Many many naive people turned into investors, losing trillions of Dollars.

Should we have discarded the whole internet idea because of that?

[nicbou]

It's hardly comparable.

Scams happened over the internet, but didn't exploit critical problems with the technology itself.

Crypto scams exploit problems with crypto itself. Where else can a tiny mistake allow people to irreversibly drain your account in an instant and vanish?

[thematrixturtle]

This comparison was also made a lot in the early days of crypto, but at this point we're 15 years into crypto and real-life use cases remain awfully thin on the ground.

[JonathanBeuys]

15 years because the Bitcoin whitepaper was written in 2008?

The Internet Protocol whitepaper was written in 1974.

15 years later, in 1989, real-life use cases of the internet were at least as thin on the ground as crypto use cases today.

[ulrikrasmussen]

I am so tired of the comparison with the internet because it tries to conclude that crypto will be successful despite the scepticism because people were also sceptic of the internet. You could compare any new thing with the internet and come up with a similar prophecy, but it just isn't given that the success is ever going to come.

[tialaramex]

By 1989 the Internet's primary applications are email, Usenet news, and the file transfer protocol. Those may not seem like much today, but they're a big deal in 1989.

[JonathanBeuys]

In crypto, there are payments, store of value, decentralized exchanges, smart contracts, NFTs, DAOs...

I tend to think crypto is used more already than the internet was in 1989?

[shakna]

Minitel was almost universal in France by '89. It might not be the WorldWideWeb, but it was around.

It had instant messaging, 24hr news, business listings, public databases (similar to wikis), online shopping, prostitution, dating services, online games, public transport ticketing, forums, online payment system, and over 25mil individual people using it on a daily basis.

Apart from the customers, it had all of that from _day one_.

[noSyncCloud]

Comparing the internet to crypto is like comparing roads to clown cars.

They are entirely different classes of technology and the second would be completely useless without the first, so like to like comparisons are meaningless.

[LilBytes]

I'm not sure crypto and the internet are even remotely in the same ballpark for capability or potential.