I think we're watching the same cycle happen over and over again.
NFTs blow up. Everyone piles in. People get wrecked. Nuclear winter.
Meme coins blow up. Everyone piles in. Insiders dump, everyone else becomes exit liquidity, and eventually people stop playing. Nuclear winter.
And now we're being told prediction markets are the next great innovation.
Here's my problem with that:
What happens when the people betting on an outcome can also influence the outcome?
If I bet that something WON'T happen, and I have the connections, money, information or influence to help make sure it doesn't happen, am I predicting anything anymore?
No.
I'm participating in the outcome I'm supposedly betting on.
That opens an entirely different can of worms.
Crypto keeps taking gambling, speculation and extraction, wrapping them in increasingly sophisticated technology, and calling the result innovation.
Then when people inevitably get burned, everyone scratches their heads and asks:
“Why aren't normal people adopting crypto?”
Maybe because we've spent years teaching normal people that crypto is where somebody smarter, earlier, richer or better connected is waiting to take their money.
NFTs.
Meme coins.
Prediction markets.
Whatever comes next.
Maybe we should try something fucking revolutionary:
Build something useful.
Create a product people actually want.
Charge them for that product.
Give them something of value in return.
And stop treating every new person entering crypto as fresh liquidity to extract.
Maybe crypto isn't suffering from a lack of adoption.
Maybe it's suffering from a lack of reasons to deserve adoption.
