Has Crypto Lost Its Way?

[nelson4lov]

Crypto used to be about decentralization and financial freedom until web3 Founders launch dozens of projects abd VCs who invested in such projects dumped and left. Rinse and repeat. This continued for a long time till everyone got tired and choose to settle for NFTs or better still memecoins because over there, there are no promises whatsoever. It's just vibes and whatever can pump the hardest with no strings attached.

With all you have said, are you suggesting that cryptocurrency nowadays is advanced gambling? Because that is the scenario you just described above. This is captured when you said people choose NFT and memecoins because over there there's no promise of anything. Will this continue this way or it will changed that people will later realise the unmatched advantage of decentralization over sudden and unreliable gains.

Tbh, that has been the general concensus in recent times. You can even confirm this on Crypto Twitter. There are talks about FDV no longer being a memecoin because recent projects have all but suffered6feom the plague of launching with a very lean circulating supply but with a very high FDV only to have consistent unlocks that diluted everyone's bags and pushed price lower. With Memecoins, there are no further unlocks that dilutes the value. So yes, majority of the folks we have now are pure gamblers only that they have managed to operate under a different name called "degen".

[DeathAngel]

We’re just witnessing a period of stagnation, which seems to happen in every post halving year. It has been going on for 6 months now which should have shaken out a lot of the weak hands. No doubt we will soon resume up season, just don’t get shaken out & you will make a lot of money next year when the real fireworks begin.

[Nheer]

I don’t think bitcoin has lost it’s way, maybe you people are getting it all wrong and since you are driven by the profit and based on your calculations you think things are not falling in place as they should. Just know that everything is based on speculations which are not so far from the real fact.

We’re just witnessing a period of stagnation, which seems to happen in every post halving year. It has been going on for 6 months now which should have shaken out a lot of the weak hands. No doubt we will soon resume up season, just don’t get shaken out & you will make a lot of money next year when the real fireworks begin.

Brilliant advice you just gave, people need to keep their heads up and not give up just yet, those who have witnessed this in the past will not be bothered about the current instability, this has always been how it is but everyone is just eagerly waiting for the bull run.

As the saying goes, nothing good comes easy so we all need to keep our head up and keep waiting patiently and you will see that it was worth waiting. We are almost there so giving up now will be meaningless.

[Abiky]

Hey everyone! Just wanted to hear your thoughts on this glaring question.

Remember when crypto wasn't just about chasing new all-time highs, the latest NFT craze, or meme coins? Back then, it was about decentralization, financial freedom, and putting power back in the hands of the people. The vision was bold—a system immune to censorship, government control, and the failures of fiat currency. But now, it feels like that original vision is getting lost in the noise of speculation and hype. Have we strayed too far from what crypto was meant to be?

...

I understand your concern. Gone are the days were developers actually cared about quality instead of quantity. Back then, it was all about coming up with innovative developments that would make crypto useful for daily life. Now it's all about speculation and hype. We can blame the inception of NFTs, and "meme" coins for that. The vast majority of developers are only focused on making a quick buck. They make "copycat" projects that serve no purpose in real life. As long as they're able to lure investors in, nothing else matters. Retail investors also changed their perception of crypto. They buy whatever is trending on the market without doing prior research. It's all about getting rich quick these days. Who cares about centralization if you can stil make money "riding the hype"?

I sure hope that the legalization of crypto will put an end to this nonsense once and for all. With the number of "garbage coins" and scams reduced to a minimum, crypto can be taken seriously again. Will the industry get back to the good-old days? Only time will tell...

[taufik123]

I understand your concern. Gone are the days were developers actually cared about quality instead of quantity. Back then, it was all about coming up with innovative developments that would make crypto useful for daily life. Now it's all about speculation and hype. We can blame the inception of NFTs, and "meme" coins for that. The vast majority of developers are only focused on making a quick buck. They make "copycat" projects that serve no purpose in real life. As long as they're able to lure investors in, nothing else matters. Retail investors also changed their perception of crypto. They buy whatever is trending on the market without doing prior research. It's all about getting rich quick these days. Who cares about centralization if you can stil make money "riding the hype"?

I sure hope that the legalization of crypto will put an end to this nonsense once and for all. With the number of "garbage coins" and scams reduced to a minimum, crypto can be taken seriously again. Will the industry get back to the good-old days? Only time will tell...

I like your explanation, Crypto today no longer has good quality as a future crypto project, it's all about how to earn more money to get rich quick and just take advantage of the hype that is only temporary.

The birth of NFTs and meme coins is getting out of control so that anyone can create their own meme coins under any name, but it has become a trend that has so far happened on all crypto networks.

Crypto is filled with junk coins, abandoned projects and many scams occur.
I also come from a past era where crypto projects were very serious and enthusiastic about building a crypto ecosystem with better innovation,
not just junk coins or copycat projects, It is really well-developed.

But whether or not the good old days for crypto will return, it's about widespread crypto adoption but not being matched by good quality.
People need to know what crypto really is, and this crypto ecosystem is no joke.

[o48o]

I like your explanation, Crypto today no longer has good quality as a future crypto project, it's all about how to earn more money to get rich quick and just take advantage of the hype that is only temporary.

The birth of NFTs and meme coins is getting out of control so that anyone can create their own meme coins under any name, but it has become a trend that has so far happened on all crypto networks.

Crypto is filled with junk coins, abandoned projects and many scams occur.
I also come from a past era where crypto projects were very serious and enthusiastic about building a crypto ecosystem with better innovation,
not just junk coins or copycat projects, It is really well-developed.

But whether or not the good old days for crypto will return, it's about widespread crypto adoption but not being matched by good quality.
People need to know what crypto really is, and this crypto ecosystem is no joke.

What year you mean by "good old days"? I was in here from the start of 2014, and things have matured so much from that. There were joke coins and scam coins all over. And even the "serious" coins weren't in any way ready for adoption. Everyone was unprofessional at least from my point of view. And if they owned a real company, or were even planning one, they would be considered legit. There weren't no regulations at all, so stealing cryptos and getting away with it was common.

Even before ICOs or tokens they were just PoW coins with hidden premine, pump&dumps or coins that promised devolopment with white papers and pseudonymous devs just waited for market support to dump their coins or just dumped immediately and disappeared. There were just fewer people in crypto, so amount of scams and nonsense was relatively low compared to current scene. And literally every CEX was most likely to be exit scam.

So when some cex owners who stole huge amounts finally get in front of judges, atmosphere started to get more mature. But law had to catch up and that took time.

[wheelz1200]

Crypto has never been stable and the entire "I'm in it for the tech" probably got drowned out in the 2011 time frame.  Crypto provides a financial instrument that is useful and beneficial in many ways that fiat is not.  As long as ypu personally.use it for those things than that's all that matters.  Anything with a fluctuating price will always be driven by greed and create a scammers paradise.  We won't get away from that anytime soon if ever at all.

[justdimin]

Crypto has never been stable and the entire "I'm in it for the tech" probably got drowned out in the 2011 time frame.  Crypto provides a financial instrument that is useful and beneficial in many ways that fiat is not.  As long as ypu personally.use it for those things than that's all that matters.  Anything with a fluctuating price will always be driven by greed and create a scammers paradise.  We won't get away from that anytime soon if ever at all.

Agreed. You will barely find a lot of people who are interested in the technologies behind these cryptocurrencies because most people are in them for the profits and I don't blame them. The trend started when Bitcoin started to gain value initially and people saw that there is potential earnings hidden in it. As soon as people started buying Bitcoin and storing it so that they could sell it for more so that they could earn money, the profit-making phase of this industry started from there.

Bitcoin and this industry have conquered the world today, and it wouldn't be wrong if I say that the fact that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies provide profits on investments has a lot to do with global adoption and it would take way longer for the recognition to achieve if it wasn't for this.

[taufik123]

What year you mean by "good old days"? I was in here from the start of 2014, and things have matured so much from that. There were joke coins and scam coins all over. And even the "serious" coins weren't in any way ready for adoption. Everyone was unprofessional at least from my point of view. And if they owned a real company, or were even planning one, they would be considered legit. There weren't no regulations at all, so stealing cryptos and getting away with it was common.
-snip-

2016 to 2017 was a good year for me, many crypto projects provide a lot of profits quite easily, even with just bounties and airdrops and some projects that run ICOs that provide profits that are up to thousands of percent when listing.

Also, more waste projects, but some are still generating at the beginning and that's also just a trap, But the profits from other projects are also big for me.
Getting 1BTC and 10 ETH in the past was very easy, but not now because the price is also getting higher and harder.

[Ojima-ojo]

Take the investment aspect away from cryptocurrency a d it will lose it attraction to most of the current holders and users of cryptocurrency, because when you talk about use ability or financial decentralized mechanism it won't stillake any Sense since there are still high rate of scalability issues with most coin such as Bitcoin and Ethereum in form of high sending fees.

This are the core objective used to determine which aspect of the crypto industry, but their popular and

[TastyChillySauce00]

Take the investment aspect away from cryptocurrency a d it will lose it attraction to most of the current holders and users of cryptocurrency

it's the same thing with other investments though? the investment aspect exists for any that got value in it, currently cryptocurrencies are valued of course it will have investing aspect.
but even without the investment aspect, the technology behind cryptocurrency, for example, smart contract, is good enough to be utilized for various things such as contract settlement and so on.

defi can exist and depend solely on its revenue without releasing token because the technology is that good so there will be great deal of people interested in the blockchain technology even without investment aspect.
because that's just how good the technology is.

[ethereumhunter]

I believe crypto still accumulate for the power for the rise back after it was slept for over years. So crypto is not lost its way and it is waiting for the right time to be more popular than before. Crypto still about decentralization, financial freedom, and putting power back in the hands of the people. And vision is not getting lost in the noise of speculation and hype but still need time to reach more popular so more people will see how crypto can be useful for them. When the time is comes, we will see crypto will be back to the right path and that will amaze people who doesn't believe crypto and they will put on their eye into crypto and then join with other people to start to use crypto. Until that time, we can only patience and wait while prepare ourselves for the coming.

[Yatsan]

Hey everyone! Just wanted to hear your thoughts on this glaring question.

Remember when crypto wasn't just about chasing new all-time highs, the latest NFT craze, or meme coins? Back then, it was about decentralization, financial freedom, and putting power back in the hands of the people. The vision was bold—a system immune to censorship, government control, and the failures of fiat currency. But now, it feels like that original vision is getting lost in the noise of speculation and hype. Have we strayed too far from what crypto was meant to be?

In the rush for quick profits, many are forgetting the true potential of blockchain technology.

I believe to get a good sense of where we are headed, transaction volume offers a real measure of utility, market fit, and adoption. When you look at the top five cryptocurrencies by transaction volume, three out of five are centralized stablecoins. Their utility far outstrips that of Bitcoin, but at what cost? These stablecoins are centralized, making them highly prone to surveillance and seizure. But there’s an even bigger issue: these companies hold treasury securities as reserves, making them significant contributors to the fiat system. They’re the 18th largest holder of U.S. debt—on par with entire nations. This goes against everything crypto originally stood for; these stablecoins are essentially FIAT in crypto form, the very thing Bitcoin was meant to disrupt.

And don’t even get me started on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

So, here’s the big question: If people are so eager to adopt centralized stablecoins, what’s the point of crypto? Why not just stick with fiat and the traditional financial system? Has crypto really lost its way?

Bitcoin and blockchain started with a mission to upend the traditional financial system, offering a form of money free from manipulation and censorship. Maybe it’s time to revisit the core principles that made crypto revolutionary. Rather than chasing the latest speculative trend, we should be looking at models that realign with the original vision of crypto—individual liberty, decentralization, financial sovereignty, and resistance to censorship.

To date, The Classical Gold Standard remains the closest thing we as a civilization had in terms of a sound monetary framework. It was a system that brought stability, predictability, and a tangible anchor for currencies. However, due to the same pressures that continue to undermine Bitcoin and the broader crypto space, the gold standard was eventually abandoned. We cannot let history repeat itself.

This is where frameworks like ShiftCTRL come in, which, by modeling after the classical gold standard and using Bitcoin as a reserve, provide a stable and decentralized alternative to the flawed fiat system. Could this be the way to realign crypto with its original purpose?

What do you think? Are we ready to steer the crypto ship back on course and focus on long-term stability and freedom? Would love to hear your thoughts about this!

Interesting points highlighted here, relevant to the evolution of cryptocurrencies and the various differences it has picked up from its original concept. Indeed, the original vision for cryptocurrency lay in decentralization, financial freedom, and reliance on the traditional financial system. Now, considering mainstream stablecoins to be highly centralized, and ongoing discussions regarding central bank currencies, all these Digital Currencies, CBDCs surely bring relaxation to those basic principles.

While offering higher returns and higher trading volumes, it is a centralized stablecoin. Centrally issued and centrally managed, it does, in practice, seem to epitomize a form of cryptocurrency closer to fiat currency, even though it is built on blockchain technology. Centralization and integration into the traditional financial system may come at the cost of abandoning the very promise of decentralization and resistance to accountability.

The idea is that it returns to the very roots of crypto, such as individuality, decentralization, and financial independence-all pretty interesting. We reflect on how we can balance those principles and research models which would complement a vision for a dynamic financial system. Model examples include ShiftCTRL, where classic principles of sustainability and governance meet in the integration with Bitcoin as a reserve, but not limited to having great promise for the future.

What that ultimately means is that in order to get back to the transformation goals of crypto space, it does take a joint effort whereby long-term stability and freedom are truly more important than short-term speculation. In so doing beyond just short-term speculation, that will enable you to support innovation that is in line with the original crypto vision while bearing in mind the lessons of history.

I believe crypto still accumulate for the power for the rise back after it was slept for over years. So crypto is not lost its way and it is waiting for the right time to be more popular than before. Crypto still about decentralization, financial freedom, and putting power back in the hands of the people. And vision is not getting lost in the noise of speculation and hype but still need time to reach more popular so more people will see how crypto can be useful for them. When the time is comes, we will see crypto will be back to the right path and that will amaze people who doesn't believe crypto and they will put on their eye into crypto and then join with other people to start to use crypto. Until that time, we can only patience and wait while prepare ourselves for the coming.

Thank you for being so optimistic with the future of crypto, and that gives hope the vision for decentralization and financial freedom is still reachable. Even with the present speculation and protests, that fact remains true. Probably, cryptocurrency is in some accumulation phase, and a spike upwards will prove its worth to all at the right timing.

Patience, as you said, is important because the true potentials of cryptocurrencies can then be better understood. This is due to an increased understanding and embracing of its benefits by more people. The core principles still relate to governance and financial independence. As technology starts to further develop and get widespread adoption, it becomes clear there can be recovery based on the same key concepts.

In the meantime, it is best to be informed and prepared for any opportunities that may arise. Support for projects and innovations that showcase the original vision of crypto paves the way for its wide acceptance of benefits and leveraging in the future.

What specific areas of development or what do you feel will be the trend to hasten this process and get back crypto on its mission?

[The Sceptical Chymist]

<snip>but most altcoins have always been about quick profits, that's why people buy and sell them as fast as they can make profits. AFAIK, bitcoin hasn't lost its way and altcoins have always been this way, right from the days of ICO's up until now.

Yep, and how about all of these coins that have some sort of governance built into them?  Seems like having a DAO is viewed as something positive instead of what it really is, which is the age-old mechanism by which the rich get to control everything and the poor just get stuck with a lottery ticket.  It is unbelievable to me that people involved with coins like DOT, ATOM, TRON and the like don't see this clearly.  Then again, crypto has been full of suckers and idiots right from the get-go.

[Raflesia]

Hey everyone! Just wanted to hear your thoughts on this glaring question.

Remember when crypto wasn't just about chasing new all-time highs, the latest NFT craze, or meme coins? Back then, it was about decentralization, financial freedom, and putting power back in the hands of the people. The vision was bold—a system immune to censorship, government control, and the failures of fiat currency. But now, it feels like that original vision is getting lost in the noise of speculation and hype. Have we strayed too far from what crypto was meant to be?

In the rush for quick profits, many are forgetting the true potential of blockchain technology.

I don't feel that the conditions are different because the vision of crypto is still the same as before, it's just that when we are on a development track where adoption is still continuing then indirectly we also cannot rule out the fact that there will be a lot of shallow thinking from those new people who only want to be here for a short profit which in the end this makes conditions more difficult and that is normal because their mindset from the start only knows that crypto is one of the assets to get wealth instantly, even though this concept is wrong but in the end this concept is what some beginners embrace.

In addition, when talking about the issue of speculation I don't think this is wrong either because in the end not everyone in the crypto space is just an investor but there are also those who become traders which makes us know that in the end speculation will still continue to occur considering this is something that will definitely continue to exist and be discussed so this speculation is not a mistake even though in the end many speculators sometimes only make the situation worse especially for those influencers who always overreact in speculation just because of their desire to benefit personally.

[o48o]

What year you mean by "good old days"? I was in here from the start of 2014, and things have matured so much from that. There were joke coins and scam coins all over. And even the "serious" coins weren't in any way ready for adoption. Everyone was unprofessional at least from my point of view. And if they owned a real company, or were even planning one, they would be considered legit. There weren't no regulations at all, so stealing cryptos and getting away with it was common.
-snip-

2016 to 2017 was a good year for me, many crypto projects provide a lot of profits quite easily, even with just bounties and airdrops and some projects that run ICOs that provide profits that are up to thousands of percent when listing.

Also, more waste projects, but some are still generating at the beginning and that's also just a trap, But the profits from other projects are also big for me.
Getting 1BTC and 10 ETH in the past was very easy, but not now because the price is also getting higher and harder.

But 99% of projects in 2016-17 ended up being scams or just dropping in value without any change for recovery after that. And those ico projects were just ridiculous. People were pouring money in if they saw a white paper that wasn't a direct copy. It didn't matter if the product made sense, and none of them did. We don't need decentralization for toy factory or dental industry. We don't need it even seem to know what we need it for. Huge portion of all the icos seemed to be either pure money laundering or a scam.

And even though i was very active at the time looking at those icos, i only scratched the surface, so i missed a lot of them.

For me, this was the peak level of maturity of the crypto scene back then.

[ethereumhunter]

Thank you for being so optimistic with the future of crypto, and that gives hope the vision for decentralization and financial freedom is still reachable. Even with the present speculation and protests, that fact remains true. Probably, cryptocurrency is in some accumulation phase, and a spike upwards will prove its worth to all at the right timing.

Patience, as you said, is important because the true potentials of cryptocurrencies can then be better understood. This is due to an increased understanding and embracing of its benefits by more people. The core principles still relate to governance and financial independence. As technology starts to further develop and get widespread adoption, it becomes clear there can be recovery based on the same key concepts.

In the meantime, it is best to be informed and prepared for any opportunities that may arise. Support for projects and innovations that showcase the original vision of crypto paves the way for its wide acceptance of benefits and leveraging in the future.

What specific areas of development or what do you feel will be the trend to hasten this process and get back crypto on its mission?

More adoption no doubt will fasten the process and bring crypto back on its mission and create a facilitate like a place to gather to learn crypto that teach how to use crypto with right with all of the benefit from crypto. There still not many people who want to shares an information about crypto without having a purposes to take benefit from people and crypto needs that to help the adoption process can run more than before. So when the adoption process can reach more people while those people can learn more detail about crypto from the right sources, those people will understand what benefit they can get from crypto while they still survive for their life in the hard situation.

Crypto can help them to earn money besides of their income from their work. When they can learning crypto from the right sources, they will see that crypto offers so many opportunities from them to be the investors or traders so that can gives them a way to have additional income. The technology that still developed can reach the right people who understand crypto well and if the number of people who can use crypto with right, that will help the adoption process better.

So crypto still on the way to rise and it is wait for the right time. People will see what will happen to crypto so maybe there will be an explosion from crypto in the next year.

[taufik123]

-snip-
Huge portion of all the icos seemed to be either pure money laundering or a scam.

And even though i was very active at the time looking at those icos, i only scratched the surface, so i missed a lot of them.

It will always happen anywhere, and it depends on how the project is done, but some ICOs give me hundreds or even thousands of percent profits when coinciding with the Bitcoin bulls at the time.

It is also not easy to find an ICO that has a clear vision and mission and is not just abandoned and becomes a field of fraud and money laundering.
There are more projects that have good innovations and are successful at first, but when there is a lack of developer interest and no more funding it will probably be held back and resumed when it gets more investors.

If you miss a lot of ICOs, it is your choice, but just follow enough ICOs to make the transition to other models such as IDOs etc.
The days when it was easy to make money from a new project.

-snip-
So crypto still on the way to rise and it is wait for the right time. People will see what will happen to crypto so maybe there will be an explosion from crypto in the next year.

That's what everyone expected, The crypto boom that will make history for crypto like Bitcoin reaches a new ATH and more and more mass adoption is happening.
Just have to wait for the explosion to happen, now you just have to get ready and fill your bags with BTC and your favorite top altcoins.

[mich]

Well no I do not think it is like this crypto lost its way. I do think there is alot of hype for projects that investors do not know about. But they want to make some quick gains so they will say a project is a good project. And now there is more government getting involved and want to know how much crypto be hodl. I do not like it like that but if it does mean to make it legal to invest in it then it is ok for me.

[fikrett]

Well no I do not think it is like this crypto lost its way. I do think there is alot of hype for projects that investors do not know about. But they want to make some quick gains so they will say a project is a good project. And now there is more government getting involved and want to know how much crypto be hodl. I do not like it like that but if it does mean to make it legal to invest in it then it is ok for me.

It has become harder to find gems nowadays.
And investors feel that too, I believe
It became even more essential to dig deeper to have a better perspective of any project, really. Nobody will except you.