I just wanted to add perspective that for these cabbies and normal people it was gambling.

It was not “get free from the government” it was not about convenience of digital payments or whatever crypto promise was there.

For normal people it was get rich quick scheme and that is why advertising was so annoying.

I agree with parent comment - in the end it never really mattered for normal people.

Though for many normal people it was also about buying drugs online which could be seen as "get free from the government" kind of thing

There are orders of magnitude more crypto gamblers than people buying drugs online.

If you buy drugs for which you need to hide from your democratic government, then you are not normal people: you are a criminal.

Good riddance!

It was gambling for everyone. Investors just had more to lose, more options to help hedge, and, in theory, more financial knowledge.

It's not a commodity, and it's utility as a currency was debatable.

Back in the late 1990's I had a laptop and was working in a cafe and the barista asked me if I worked in tech - I said I did - and then proceeded to excitedly go on about how Transmeta was going to dominate the x86 market. Yes, a barista (not knocking baristas but they are not known for their deep vertical knowledge in subjects outside of coffee, except maybe english lit). This was the level of enthusiasm at the time for one of the first techno disrupters. It very much reminds me of crypto a few years ago spinning off a cloud of so many a non techie person with a deep-seated, poorly-informed opinion backed up by a Robin Hood account full of DOGE.

>Crypto was the sort of thing you might hear about from a cabbie or at the barber shop.

Usually what you'd hear was "I don't get it."