CRYPTO - we are all only in because we think we can get something from nothing - and a quick buck

I have no crypto holdings today - I got out when BTC hit $10,000 - a long time ago. So this is not a "sour grapes" motivated story, and I have no losses to bellyache about.

I can't help but opine on the drama around the "failure" of FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried.

Why are we all pretending "Crypto investment" is anything but a pyramid scheme - creating "value" by wasting electricity to compute hashes is NOT, in any rational sense, creating anything meaningful - not even artistic or experiential.

The only reason why Crypto grew at all is that, for a while, it allowed some modicum of privacy protection and enabled TOR-fronted anonymous illegal international transactions up to the nation-state level. The demand for non-government-controlled currency and piles of dirty money (if there is such a thing) made it possible. (see, for example: sanctioned )

Then, every business opportunist who could hire a couple of programmers who knew how to access open-source blockchain code became a "crypto entrepreneur." IMHO 99% of the cryptocurrencies, tokens, and NFTs are pyramid schemes and pet rocks.

Look at the resumes of the loudest mouths in Crypto - few people are credible. One is J Allaire - at least he has shown his chops in technology, going back to the early internet days - I credit him (and his brother) as the conceptual fathers of the "application server." The concept of a guaranteed 100% liquid token, enabling fast dollar-equivalent money movement transactions, does make sense - and I know what I am getting if I were to buy in.

On the other hand, we have Mr. Fried.  Having had the privilege to work with some top physicists from around the country, I can tell you that getting through MIT with an undergraduate physics degree and NOT staying in the field is a huge "propensity towards mediocrity or lack of focus" flag. And spending a few years moving other people's money around (aka "trading"), a top business mind does not make...

In all honesty, though, it is the greed of the mythical smart money that is to blame for enabling these types of fast-talking (granted charismatic) charlatans - the same people that for years turned away startups with real medical diagnostics technology because they were "all-in" on Theranos.