CMV: Unless crypto lets you pay for porn anonymously, it's just a passing fad

For all its hype, crypto actually adds little value beyond existing electronic payments systems. Maybe you eliminate some middlemen whose prices are already actually kind of low these days, what with automation and costs spread over large volumes. Faster settlement? OK, I grant you that, but most people don't engage in the kind of rarefied transactions for which crypto would provide faster settlement. For most people, services like Zelle and Venmo get the job done for their daily needs.

Protection against government interference? Crypto doesn't offer much. Governments have demonstrated the ability to trace and recover bitcoin. They could shut off a country's Internet connection to the rest of the world, preventing the handshakes underlying the distributed ledger. And even as protection against inflationary monetary policy, would people really be flocking to crypto or to assets with intrinsic value like real estate or equities?

If digital currency could provide the anonymity on the Internet that cash provides IRL, that would have been a real advantage for crypto. But alas, the underlying blockchains are public ledgers and are the very opposite of anonymous.