Actually, I think this perhaps hints at an interesting dichotomy (except the wrong way round): I think cryptocurrencies and smart contracts are genuinely intere

Actually, I think this perhaps hints at an interesting dichotomy (except the wrong way round): I think cryptocurrencies and smart contracts are genuinely interesting from an academic point of view. Leaving money laundering and Proof of Work aside for a moment, it's incredible that you can have this kind of "serverless" synchronised execution with no trust between parties. There is of course the money laundering and incredible cost to environment. It feels like crypto's original sin is still not coming up with a valid use case (sending money and banking in unstable countries is I guess one, but fairly minimal compared to the size of the industry). In a way crypto feels to me like what Internet would be like if it went from the niche academic thing to its current shape, but cut out the "useful" stuff of Dot Com rise and beyond, like social media, Wikipedia, e-mail, communicators etc. The Internet is full of porn, useless cat memes, malware and other criminal stuff. We don't really mind, because it is also stupidly useful and indispensable. Crypto just hasn't found that (yet?). But then, how long did it take from ARPAnet to anything remotely useful?