Hi, I read this with interest as I have been looking for a truly common sense rebuttal to all of the crypto maximalists.

Here's my challenge: institutions are planting trees in crypto. Ukraine has been a big boost to crypto adoption. El Salvador, Canada, and it is increasingly popular in South America. So governments are crawling on board.

Big financials are planting trees in crypto. Fidelity, Citadel, and even Berkshire Hathaway. And for all of the harsh language Charlie Munger can think of, every big financial has to have a crypto strategy today.

Last, billionaires are planting trees in crypto. Ray Dalio, Mark Cuban, and many others who keep a lower profile. Even Bill Gross is coming around.

Now, is it intrinsically a pyramid scheme? Doge, yes. Shiba Inu, yes. Squid, yes. But what about Ethereum, Solana, and Terra Luna? applications are being built on them. Aave is building a bridge connecting crypto exchanges, to fiat exchanges. Imagine buying publicly traded stocks with Bitcoin instead of Dollars.

Now, USEFUL applications besides DeFi are still in waiting. Where is the supply chain, legal, real estate, and gaming disrupters? Crypto games are worse than Nintendo Entertainment System. When a law firm comes out with Crypto Contracts, that solve several problems with current legal status quo, that require crypto and not just blockchain, then we will be in business. But until then, I share your concerns here. There needs to be a killer app. And DeFi isn't it.

One thing I think you're missing is that Governance DOES exist for Crypto. It is not mature yet. But Governance, without Government, is one of Crypto's top aims. It's a GOOD thing - like the Internet. And yes some people are getting hyper rich. At least it's a different set of hyper rich than exists now. There is always going to be power struggles. Especially during any disruption - look at how many billionaires and lifetime elites were created when the USSR fell. Same with Crypto, same with China, and same with any downfall of the United States.

Then there are government-backed stablecoins, or CBDC's. Nobody wants these. This is as much Big Brother of government authoritarian control over the people as anything to come out in the last 100 years. I hope these never gain traction. USDC and other stablecoins not named Tether should be sufficient, to track fiat transactions.

There are many other responses I could give... again I appreciate your concerns, have been looking for this perspective, and agree with some of them.