I wasted years of my life in crypto

I worked at a crypto exchange and after I came to the conclusion that 99% of crypto was scams and rugpulls, I sold all my crypto and vowed to have nothing to do with it. It's more of a religion than a financial instrument and absolutely nothing has shown to me that crypto is anything more than a speculative gamble, basically tulips with the religious promise of a better world. The number of employees that lost money on rugpulls while I was there, but "still believed in crypto" was staggering.

I've never understood crypto, however I'm long term Bitcoin fan and user, and don't consider it "crypto". I think Bitcoin is pretty much opposite what the typical crypto project is.

It has proven neither to be a store of value nor medium of exchange though it is being used extensively for criminal activities.

How has it not been a store of value?

A store of value is an asset with as close to 0% volatility in price as possible.

Bitcoin is a speculative asset: it has very high price volatility. It is not a store of value in the proper term.

By that standard, over the past year, Bitcoin would be a better store of value than gold...

Over the past year,

Bitcoin lost 10.8%

Gold gained 60.0%