Crypto was supposed to be a solution to your government devaluing the rewards of your residual labor in the form of their currency. It's a solution with a noble goal: giving the individual complete control of their financial resources. Current form, however, has devolved into casino gambling and criminal laundering.

I'm hoping someone invents a new iteration that's better.

That is a category error, though. You can't entirely separate money from state power because ultimately all money represents a claim on resources within some political structure. And the place where you exchange money for those resources is always going to be within reach of the state, kind of by definition.

A monetary system also shouldn’t disproportionately reward the first users of that currency just for them accidentally being first in the pyramid (scheme).

> giving the individual complete control of their financial resources

This seems like a definitionally unachievable goal. How can you have finance without others that you ultimately need to trust, if only to be stable enough in their wants and needs to want to trade with you?

> It's a solution with a noble goal: giving the individual complete control of their financial resources.

Indeed, but also complete responsibility for safeguarding these. It's hard to imagine a good situation where an individual has complete control but not complete responsibility, that way lies moral hazard.

> Crypto was supposed to be a solution to your government devaluing the rewards of your residual labor in the form of their currency.

> ...

> I'm hoping someone invents a new iteration that's better.

It "solved" inflation by being deflationary (and then you have the massive volatility layered on top of that).

I think it's probably impossible to have a stable currency without some kind of dynamic governance, like a central bank.