The only reason it's popular is the low bar of entry, stealing large sums of money, and (to an extent) the promise of some utopia of truly free wealth transfer

The only reason it's popular is the low bar of entry, stealing large sums of money, and (to an extent) the promise of some utopia of truly free wealth transfer and algorithmic mechanisms around it. But IMO etherium is not that by a long shot. From the protocol, to all existing contracts, and the user experience resulting from those, etherium is fucking amateur hour.