Cryptocurrency's biggest fans and its harshest critics don't have much in common, but one thing unites them: They both believe that 2023 will deliver a decisive verdict on the future of the technology.
But like patients who interpret an inkblot test in very different ways, their views on what this year means for cryptocurrencies vary despite looking at the same image.
On the one hand, 2023 was the year that fallout hit the crypto industry. The most high-profile event was the criminal trial of Sam Bankman-Fried and his cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which revealed how the former golden boy of crypto had been brazenly committing a lot of crime (and a lot of embarrassment, too). His rival, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, looked on the rise after this, before he too was convicted of a crime after plead guilty to money laundering charges and subsequently resigned from his position.
It's not just crime galore at the top of the industry, but also what many experience at the grassroots level. Anecdotally, there seems to be an endless stream of stories about Huge Crypto Scams Ripping Off Australians.
All this has hardened the stance of his critics. American antitrust advocate and research director of the American Economic Liberties Project, Matt Stoller, summed it up when he closed a question on scam and terrorist financing facilitated by cryptocurrencies of the last two years. If you are in the industry today, you are a bastard.โ
And yet, cryptocurrency bulls are quietly (at least compared to their brazenness at the peak of cryptocurrency hype a few years ago) happy with how the industry is maturing. Normal people are not aware of cryptographic developments like those cited in cryptocurrency publication CoinDeskPaul Brody's piece., such as legislation allowing regulated trading in the EU and the creation of ETFs in the US, but these things have pushed cryptocurrencies towards responsibility. These are the green shoots of a less cowboy and more careful industry that people can trust and use, they say.
Or, if you want to ignore all the boring stuff, go up the line. Cryptocurrency prices have met, such as Bitcoin surpassing $40,000 for the first time in two years. And exchanges are seeing more volume. Although the level of hype is not the same as when we were at the same point on the price curve last time, the truth is that more people care about cryptocurrencies when things are going well.
But the fact that people are starting to care more about cryptocurrencies again as prices rise could be the biggest criticism for the industry, despite the attention and, presumably, the riches it brings them. This is because it shows that the crypto industry does not have a lethal use case other than speculation (despite its use to buy drugs illegally online and other crimes) that attracts people even when prices do not rise. .
The only thing the vast majority of people know about cryptocurrency is that it has a volatile value and that maybe, just maybe, it could make them rich if they use it right. The industry's great hope is that everyone who buys it can then use it for something; after all, you can't use it if you don't have it.
Perhaps there is something nascent that has not yet gone mainstream that will soon make a compelling case for using cryptocurrencies. If that is the case, future audience, I apologize for my naivety. But until that is the case, 2023 marked another year in which the crypto industry failed to prove that most people should care.
