Turn on the news, and you’ll likely hear a familiar refrain: crypto is dead, a scam, or worse. Driven by viral social media campaigns like Elizabeth Warren’s “Anti-Crypto Army,” the term has become a dirty word, evoking the same disdain as “investment banking” after the 2008 financial crisis. But while the “crypto is a fraud” crowd may have seemed prescient when FTX imploded in 2022, the kindest way to describe these critics today is “lazy.”
The Real Crypto Revolution Flies Under the Radar
Behind the scandalous headlines, various corners of the crypto industry are quietly solving tangible problems at scale, from facilitating digital transactions to underpinning an internet-native financial system. Take stablecoins, which peg digital assets to fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar. They’re reaching new adoption highs, particularly in emerging markets where people grapple with unstable local currencies.
Then there’s decentralized finance (DeFi), which lets users lend, borrow, and trade assets directly, bypassing traditional financial intermediaries. In countries with limited access to banking, DeFi presents a significant opportunity for financial inclusion. But in a world radically rethinking trade and dollarization, these primitives also offer neutral ground for conducting transactions while promoting the dollar’s use and proliferation.
The Memecoin Distraction
Of course, not all crypto projects have clear value. Memecoins—digital tokens whose worth is driven by internet hype rather than tangible use—are divisive even within crypto circles. Dogecoin, an Elon Musk favorite, boasts a market cap higher than 94% of S&P 500 companies despite having no product or business model. Andreessen Horowitz’s Chris Dixon recently slammed memecoins for weakening understanding of the industry’s utility. If one sought a reason to call crypto a scam, some pockets of the memecoin world could provide it.
Decentralized Infrastructure: Crypto’s Boring Revolution
Since Sam Bankman-Fried’s ignominious fall in 2022, another new primitive is using crypto rails to rebuild the physical world: decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN). These networks let individuals contribute resources like data or connectivity in exchange for rewards. By crowdsourcing infrastructure, DePIN projects can compete with legacy incumbents to offer cheaper, more accessible services.
DePIN might sound boring, but these networks are already shifting market structure in traditional industries.
Industry analyst
Today, over 1,400 DePIN projects are under construction, having raised more than $1 billion in venture funding. But if you solely relied on mainstream media, you’d still think the sector was fraudulent.
A key example is Helium, a network that crowdsources mini-tower and hotspot deployment to create a decentralized mobile coverage network. With more than 120,000 active mobile plans, Helium delivers affordable connectivity by pushing operating costs to the network edge. Yet one might also find reports calling Helium a scam and declaring it a failure after its token price dropped 90% in 2022.
This overlooks how Helium’s business pivoted from an IoT network to a mobile service provider. The misunderstanding reflects how volatile token prices often eclipse real business developments. Crypto networks like Helium are often “antifragile,” adapting through volatility, even as extreme price swings fuel misleading narratives.
Crypto and Trump: Misunderstood and Taken Out of Context?
Perhaps this explains Trump’s affinity for crypto: both he and the crypto industry are frequently misrepresented or extrapolated out of context. As with MAGA, a few crypto actors end up conflated with the entire industry, and those seeking a scapegoat find an easy target. It also explains why crypto natives feel so misunderstood.
Yes, a cohort of crypto holders supports anarchy, and others have abused this unregulated market for personal gain. As last cycle’s failures have pushed mainstream media toward pessimism, it makes sense that many believe crypto’s worst is yet to come. But as real use cases in stablecoins, DeFi, and DePIN continue to abound, it’s clear that crypto’s best is also yet to come.
