So far, rewards to early adopters have been the way to bootstrap a currency that's initially useless because nobody else uses it. Bootstrapping without that in

So far, rewards to early adopters have been the way to bootstrap a currency that's initially useless because nobody else uses it. Bootstrapping without that incentive would probably require promotion by some major entity like a central bank or FAANG company, which is likely to involve centralized control by that entity. I'm not convinced that's an improvement. Maybe there's a better way. Any ideas?