Ah, OK, so I think your point is more along the lines of “it’s relatively irrelevant” which I really didn’t even take into consideration given the already significant effects of crypto (for example in terms of CO2 emissions which are already about 0.1% of total emissions) and the extreme growth the market has seen and is seeing.
I would say the percentage of transactions is not really the main factor here, more the wealth held in it, and crypto already is well on it’s way of holding 1% of the world’s wealth.
Maybe you don’t believe it solves any genuine problem for you in particular or for society as whole, but creating money out of nothing clearly is a very powerful tool if you happen to wield it, so I don’t see it going anywhere.
Even if it does end up just being used in the black market economy, that is estimated to be >10% of global GDP.
Thanks a lot for you take.
One thing I would note is that cryptocurrency as a cause area is independent of cryptocurrency having have a net benefit or a net harmful effect; potentially cryptocurrency could destabilize global financial systems, so if one has a less positive view on cryptocurrency, regulating cryptocurrency (whether by governments, or by self-regulation within the ecosystem) and making sure at least some cryptocurrencies have a positive impact (thus reducing the overall net harm) could still be a potential cause area.
To address a few other points:
Indeed, bitcoin is outrageously bad in many aspects of its technology.
This isn’t a universal problem for cryptocurrency though, the whole Nano network for example could approximately be powered by a wind turbine while having much higher throughput and speed compared to bitcoin.
It goes to show how the crypto market right now is not guided by the right values, the bar for positive change here is quite low.
I am pretty sure that’s a real problem, the complexity of blockchain technology is quite high, and there are powerful monetary incentives while the social benefit is far from being automatic.
I agree, it might not be suitable as a widely presentable cause area in the same way poverty is.
I don’t think it’s old fashioned but still highly relevant.
For example, cryptocurrency being banned instead of being regulated in a sensible way could potentially to lead to criminal organizations benefitting from cryptocurrency while devaluing legal currencies, so I see a real risk here.
I am not sure the concept of an efficient market is a very useful concept with regard to cryptocurrencies as it’s now.
As a former poker player I see more similarity to poker in that there are rational ways to get an advantage, but the market as a whole is rather irrational, driven more by circumstantial information (eg Elon Musk making a tweet) rather than well-informed investors.
The big difference to poker is that cryptocurrency is not a zero-sum game for the players, and at least in the past it was a positive-sum game in a rather dramatic way, as it was such a relatively small market which had incredible unrealized growth potential.
This is decreasingly the case as the market becomes saturated, but it seems realistic the market cap of cryptocurrencies could still grow to a multiple of its size over the coming years, making the average crypto investment potentially quite profitable.