In the tumultuous world of cryptocurrency, it seems the most outrageous stories garner the biggest headlines. From viral social media campaigns painting the entire industry as fraudulent, to the blow-by-blow accounts of high-profile collapses like FTX, it’s easy to get swept up in the media frenzy and believe crypto is nothing more than a digital wild west. But beneath this sensationalized surface, real progress and innovation are happening in areas that rarely make front page news.
Stablecoins: Quiet Revolutionaries
Stablecoins, which peg digital assets to fiat currencies like the US dollar, are achieving new heights in adoption, particularly in emerging markets grappling with volatile local currencies. These crypto-powered tools are enabling smoother digital transactions and fostering financial stability in regions that need it most. Yet, their potential often gets overshadowed by flashier, more controversial crypto stories.
DeFi: Democratizing Finance
Decentralized Finance, or DeFi, is another area where crypto is making meaningful strides. By allowing users to lend, borrow, and trade assets directly, without traditional financial intermediaries, DeFi is expanding financial access in underserved areas. It’s also creating a neutral space for transactions while promoting the use and spread of the dollar in a world radically rethinking trade and dollarization. But again, these developments often get drowned out by more attention-grabbing crypto dramas.
Meme Coins and Media Hype
On the flip side, meme coins—digital tokens whose value depends on internet attention rather than tangible use—are a contentious issue, even within the crypto community. Dogecoin, for instance, boasts a market cap exceeding 94% of S&P 500 companies despite lacking a product or business model. If one were looking for a reason to dismiss crypto as a scam, the world of meme coins provides ample fodder. And unsurprisingly, this is where much of the media focus lies.
Meme coins…undermine the sector’s perception of usefulness.
– Chris Dixon, Andreessen Horowitz
DePIN: The Boring Revolution
Another promising crypto application that’s gone mostly unnoticed by mainstream media is decentralized physical infrastructure networks, or DePIN. These networks incentivize individuals to provide resources like data or connectivity in exchange for rewards, allowing projects to crowdsource infrastructure and compete with large corporations. With over 1,400 DePIN projects attracting over $1 billion in venture funding, this space is quietly reshaping traditional industries. But good luck finding extensive coverage that doesn’t dismiss it as “boring.”
The Helium Case Study
Helium, a network that crowdsources connectivity by incentivizing users to deploy mini-towers and access points, exemplifies the transformative potential of DePIN. With over 120,000 active mobile plans, Helium is providing affordable connectivity by pushing operating costs to the network’s edge. However, most reports have focused on calling Helium a failed scam after its token price plunged 90% in 2022, overlooking its evolution into a cellular provider from an IoT network.
The reality is that crypto projects like Helium are often “anti-fragile,” adapting through volatility even as extreme price swings fuel misleading narratives. Just as political figures like Trump are frequently distorted or taken out of context, certain crypto projects become associated with the entire industry, providing an easy scapegoat for those looking to place blame. This helps explain why the crypto community often feels so misunderstood.
Yes, there are factions within crypto that embrace anarchy or exploit the unregulated market for personal gain. And as failures from the end of the last cycle pushed mainstream media toward pessimism, it’s understandable that many believe the worst of crypto is yet to come. But as real-world use cases for stablecoins, DeFi, and DePIN continue to emerge, it’s clear that the best of crypto is still ahead—even if it doesn’t always make the headlines.
