It is definitely down, written off by thousands of individual and institutional investors. The most obvious issue: scams. In the world of crypto, big firms are scams. Little firms are scams. Stable coins are scams; exchanges are scams; NFT schemes are scams; initial coin offerings are scams; tokens are scams. Firms run by self-proclaimed altruists are scams. Firms run by the shadiest dudes you can possibly imagine are scams.
So, it’s a European casino.
While I love the Atlantic, and I’m certainly no booster of crypto, this whole article smells like a lazy hot take. It’s mixing and conflating a lot of things: the technology with the crypto-bro grifters, the transactional features with the “investment” opportunity.
Ultimately crypto – coins, tokens, whatever – it’s all just a shared ledger. That’s it. Does a shared ledger have its uses? Yes.