Why not both?

In most cases it's both. Like the people who were early to the Internet, they believe in a better world and they hope their early participation will be rewarded.

I was early to the internet, and the only financial benefit I ever expected from it was that I'd be able to have a good career because of the skills I'd developed.

The folks who set up ARPANET and sent the first emails in the 1970s sure must be enjoying their billionaire lifestyle these days.

I think early adopters more excited about being able to communicate in a fundamentally new way. The internet is more like the invention of the radio or tv.

Crypto is more like the invention of electronic cryptographically secure beanie babies with a semi-fixed supply.

There's some interesting technology and philosophy angles there. ("What exactly is money and how does it work?") But the moment crypto became a speculative asset, it jumped the rails.

We get a lot of obviously not-ready-for-prime-time stuff hitting production because it's too lucrative (see any number of DAO and smart-contract schemes that imploded), and there's a systemic allergy to input from the outside world as to what normal consumers want (things like reversability and systemic backstops), because the current system appeals to speculators.

I'd see the case for "useful in the future" if there were more efforts to answer the no-breakthrough-tech-required "faster horses" problems people have with mainstream finance. FedNow is coming in months and will give me settlement in minutes for pennies, and likely very solid legal backing. This is faster horses. Crypto might offer similar settlement speeds, but I understand it depends on the particular chain I choose, and to an extent, how much I'm willing to pay to push the transaction through. I'd also wonder how reliably the courts will accept a crypto paper trail if there's ever a dispute on a payment. (Not necessarily because the trail is bogus, but simply because it's not a well-established precedent of who and what can be trusted)

Quick rant: it was so much fun playing with and testing the ETH ecosystem, it felt like we were really trying to reinvent how finance worked and outsourcing trust to static contracts. It felt like decentralized systems were at least plausible.

Then Elon and the second Doge wave happened... Mutant Ape NFTs getting hyped by people like Paris Hilton and Jimmy Fallon... Sam Bankman's clear deception and FTX buying sports stadiums... the same centralized actors that we were working to get away from completely hijacked the platform, seized the narrative, and basically tarnished all the fun aspects. It felt like when Facebook no longer required .edu emails and a flood of parents and spammers took over the website.

Anyone that's bought in during the past few years isn't early.

Those that held pre-2017 are the ones that got in early.

The rest could probably make better returns speculating in the US markets.

5 years ago, somewhere on the internet:

>Anyone that's bought in during the past few years isn't early.

>Those that held pre-2012 are the ones that got in early.

>The rest could probably make better returns speculating in the US markets.

Just like everything it depends on what you buy and when you buy and sell it. Post 2017 the largest theoretical gain from bitcoin so far was about 20x, if you bought at the post 2017 low in December of 2018 and sold at the 2021 high almost three years later. Gamestop stock almost matched that 20x for 2020-21 gains alone. Apple has been up well over 500x in the last 20 years.

Ethereum was a better deal during this time, but you'd have to know to buy it. And some people really made bank on altcoins, but again, right time to buy, right time to sell.

There's a limit on how much the crypto market can be worth with people still able to use it as a currency to buy things. Logarithmically we're closer to the top than to the original bottom, though like all markets timing can still yield very good returns, especially if everyone else is hodling like Fort Knox.

That's the problem with many hyped assets: they're only profitable in the short term if you buy in before the pump, and sell before the dump.

I still believe Ethereum is poised for a fair amount of growth in the long-term, though likely nothing near the rise it's enjoyed in it's last run. I say that only because it's an on-ramp to so many other cryptocurrencies.

For those with enough Eth to stake, Ethereum has the bonus that so many stocks due: perpetual dividends. Unlike stocks Ethereum, as a whole, doesn't have a liquidation value. The dividends are it. And your particular share of the pie can be constantly diluted by further stakes. Is a vote required to allow further stakes? Or can anyone stake if they meet criteria?

This strikes me more like a buyer's club than a stock.

Wouldn't this be the same question for all venture capital?

“ or do they want them to be useful because they bought in early and want to get rich?”

You could say that about any investment surely? Or do we assume all VC funded companies are altruistic endeavours only?