I wasted years of my life in crypto

The block chain is, and always was, an extremely inconvenient database. How anyone, especially many intelligent people, thought it was realistic to graft a currency on top of such a unwieldy piece of technology is beyond me. Maybe it goes to show how few people understand economics and anthropology and how dunning-krueger can happen to anyone.

Now the uninformed gambling on futuristic sounding hokum? THAT is easy to understand.

That being said, I'm sorry the author had to go through this experience, the road of life is often filled with unexpected twists and turns.

This may not help much, but it's really a (self-)governance thing. That's why they start their article like so:

> I donated to Gary Johnson as a starry-eyed libertarian. On top of being a staunch Randian, I was into computer programming, so crypto was a natural fit for me. The cypherpunk ethos attracted me. (...) Being able to walk across the border with a billion dollars in your head is and always will be a powerful idea to me.

It is also why you keep hearing about crypto transactions being primarily used for illegal stuff. Just like with the uber-free-speech p2p platforms, it primaily benefits those who'd be otherwise hampered. Who, contrary to the usual talking points, are usually not actually so innocent or respectable.

But then we do keep sliding back, so maybe it's only a matter of time the proportions shift, and the claims of these technologies' justness stop being so false and hollow. And maybe these events and processes are further not actually uncorrelated. Trust is at an all time low and dwindling, after all.