Crypto is a casino (often fraudulent) and a scam factory.

It's also the source of at least one great new global public institution (Ethereum) and is likely to run much of the global economy in the coming decades.

If you hate or are skeptical about crypto, it is crucial to at least understand the difference between three things:

1. Casino/scams/hacks

2. Crypto/on-chain technology

3. Ethereum as a decentralized chain and global public institution

I've been a full-time Ethereum person for many years. I hate the casino. I hate the scams and hacks. But I see something very special going on here. So let me try to describe it

The casino is just terrible and it'll likely get much worse. The steady stream of scam shit tokens sold to unsuspecting investors shows no sign of slowing down. And wait until r/wallstreetbets discovers perps (perpetual futures). Perps for equities are already live and scaling up.

The scams will get much, much worse. Crypto (on-chain) lets you send bearer assets over the internet, it's scam fuel. The bad guys will have access to a sophisticated internet financial system, too.

Hacks in mature protocols should get much better over time due to improved bug-finding techniques, including AI/tool-assisted auditing and formal verification.

The technology of crypto offers the world a number of benefits, including inherently globalized payments and instant settlement.

Centralized deployments of crypto technology are a big segment of the future. For example, Stripe is actively working on a centralized chain named Tempo that's optimized for payments. It is basically fintech 2.0 on the blockchain, but entirely centralized.

The last and most important part of crypto is the rise of decentralized chains. There are only two chains that are remotely decentralized, Bitcoin and Ethereum. Bitcoin has no programmable app layer, so its utility is limited beyond the whatever value the world assigns to BTC.

Ethereum is a decentralized programmable chain, a new kind global public institution. Ethereum can make a highly credible commitment that the rules of the programming environment will be followed in all cases. This makes Ethereum a uniquely excellent neutral hub for global commerce.

Ethereum's decentralization (what we sometimes call "credible neutrality") is driving massive grassroots adoption among corporations and institutions. This is the #1 thing in crypto to keep an eye on because if Ethereum gets large enough it will become a de facto global economic backbone.

I understand you hate crypto. I've lived since 2018 full-time in the industry, and it's been often soul-sucking and harrowing. Many days I hate it. But Ethereum as a platform is benevolent, virtuous, productive, and probably a key part of humanity's future.