> the fringe, edgy, anti-corporate nature of cryptocurrencies that attracted so many in the first place.
That was the first wave. This much bigger wave is people like your uncle who's not tech savvy but bought $100 in Bitcoin because they heard you could get rich from it. The ideological component is just window dressing (eventually a lot of ideology becomes window dressing so that's not too unusual).
> That was the first wave. This much bigger wave is people like your uncle who's not tech savvy but bought $100 in Bitcoin because they heard you could get rich from it
Random uncles putting $100 into BitCoin isn't driving the market.
Cryptocurrency is very corporate now, including a mix of shady corporations who love playing in this unregulated space.
The average joe is just along for the ride, but they're being pitched the idea that decentralization is democratization. Meanwhile, there's nothing stopping a decentralized cryptocurrency from being owned by very centralized players. It is, after all, tradable by anyone.
That was the first wave. This much bigger wave is people like your uncle who's not tech savvy but bought $100 in Bitcoin because they heard you could get rich from it. The ideological component is just window dressing (eventually a lot of ideology becomes window dressing so that's not too unusual).