The dismal tech
When I conjure up crypto, bitcoin, and the like, my mind gets parked in a negative head-space. There’s something intrinsically paranoid, rebellious and uncharismatic about this space, and it’s difficult to imagine the general public engaging with something that is seeped in negativity.
(This assumes that 1. Internet fraud; and 2. distrust in USA backed money — two areas the Bitcoin emergence set out to tackle — are indeed uncharismatic.)
Down
Successful products do their best to be charming. Sometimes the product and the charm are mismatched, but when the balance is right, the experience feels great.
With crypto, the message out of the gate is one of: ‘hide from the government’; ‘don’t trust anyone’; ‘the sky is falling.’
While there are people that operate on this level, I can’t say the general population wants to be there with them. To prove the point, during this year’s rushes at the grocery stores, there’s wasn’t a lot of smiles going around. To engage with crypto, as of right now, is to be operating in fear, and I can’t see how people want to include this type of feeling into their daily lives.
Charisma
Crypto has been toted as being a solution that is searching for a problem. But that’s underplaying it. If crypto will last in the mainstream, it will have to marry with some aspect of our lives that operates on a positive frequency. Yes, there’s a market for guns, insurance, etc. But if crypto remains on a plateau that caters to the worry-warts, then it may never live up to its potential.