People dislike crypto because for many it has become incredibly obvious that it’s nothing more than a vehicle to scam and commit fraud.

Yes, these things happen elsewhere but crypto is perfectly designed to facilitate these bad behaviours.

Bitcoin is neutral and almost uninfluentiable by any single party. It‘s neutral, all the rules are out there, nobody has an information advantage. With Ethereum it‘s a bit more difficult because it has a history of being very transparent but there is still Vitalik as the BDFL. Almost everything else in „crypto“ is a mostly centralized system with the same points of failure as traditional financial systems (IoUs => bank rund). It is dishonest to conflate Bitcoin with all these possible scams. I hope Ethereum can establish itself as a neutral, natural law kind of system as well (removing Vitalik from the equation). Because on top of Ethereum more people can built trust less systems that can have bugs but that can‘t really be scams because all the mechanics are public and nobody can have an information advantage.

The reality is that the technology being “neutral” or not is irrelevant. It’s how the technology is used that matters.

It’s also funny that in certain instances crypto is perfectly designed to easily catch these behaviours (since the ledgers are public)

I can't speak for others, but personally my great dislike for it is the very high rate of scam-like behaviour.

Every where you look, it turns out that someone is doing a 'rug pull', using customer funds in ways that don't line up with what they said publicly, or using misleading and deceptive behaviours to con others into giving them money.

You're already doing them a great favor by conceding a possibility the scam rate is not exactly 100.0%.

Because we're tired of a dumpster fire of scams and fraud being sold as the revolutionary future of all finance and money.

We do not want that future. We don't even want the bitcoin present. We think it's bad and will cheer as it implodes.

There was a time I thought something like bitcoin had a useful role to play in the world, never as a consumer/retail thing, but more a zero trust alternative to existing clearing houses used by businesses. The mania around getting rich quick on crypto coins has utterly destroyed that possibility.

You can call it hate if you like. I don't particularly care. I do think spreading this criticism to counter the hype and straight up fraud pitches is justified, including being rather emphatic about it.

I am saddened about the baggage that blockchain technologies hold in less technical circles now. They’re not just for cryptocurrencies.

My grandfather hears “blockchain” and he assumes he is looking at a crypto scam.

> My grandfather hears “blockchain” and he assumes he is looking at a crypto scam.

As a first approximation he sounds like a wise man.

> They’re not just for cryptocurrencies.

Please tell me about the other use cases.

Your grandfather is not that dumb.

Merkle trees and consensus algorithms predate "blockchain." So far blockchain has very little to offer other than solutions to Sybil attacks that so far are net negative in externalities.

You are absolutely right! It’s accurate to say blockchains are a synthesis of other technologies, and solve for particular, narrow use cases.

That is useful, but not as generally useful as cryptocurrency advocates want you to believe.

yes, but the same we can tell about equity invention...

people were misusing it, does it mean that it is bad?

LLC are a main factorfor growth in last 100 years because of incentives aligment. same with crypto.

any tool can be exploited by bad actors

does it mean it should not exsist or be hated?

1. Because everyone touts "avoiding government regulations" - what most of us call "crime" - as one of crypto's primary reasons.

2. Because there are so many scams in the field.

3. Because crypto people have this unattractive combination of acting superior to others while literally never having read about or even thought deeply about economics.

4. Because after 13 years, not one Web3 project has emerged that has any value outside cryptocurrencies.

5. Because blockchains are wildly consumptive of the world's resources, right when we see the devastation of our biosphere roaring down on us.

any progress requires mistakes, crypto over internet only speed ups this process

people wont fall twice into same scam

people can learn faster thanks to it

in other indystries there are also bad actors

only different, crypto is faster which is good thing in good use cases

I need a name for the cognitive distortion where someone says "X is bad" for valid reasons and then jumps immediately on a much worse solution. Applies not just to crypto but to bringing up the Iraq war; or complaints about "MSM" leading people to choose entirely fact-free nonsense channels or literal Russian state propaganda TV instead.