Eight years in crypto: revolutionary ideal or unbridled gambling machine?

Ken Chang recently wrote that he wasted eight years on cryptocurrencies. His reflection touches a nerve in the industry: the gap between what the movement promised and what it actually delivered. And he’s right. Not entirely, but fundamentally.

The original promise was clear: to decentralize finance, break the monetary privileges of states, and free the common citizen from the traditional banking system. What he found was different. Cryptocurrencies became something like a casino: endless speculation, tokenomics designed to extract value, and venture capital funds burning billions on unnecessary blockchains. Chang describes it bluntly: “I wasn’t building a new financial system, I was building a casino.”

This isn’t the first time someone has reached this conclusion. Mike Hearn, nearly a decade ago, wrote that Bitcoin had failed because the community failed. He expected a decentralized currency; instead, he found a system controlled by a few. The irony: both are right in their diagnoses, but both overlook something important.

What is the true purpose?

Here’s the critical point: cryptocurrencies do not have a single purpose. There are at least five major conflicting visions, each with its own merits and limitations.

Restore sound money. The libertarian dream of replacing fiat currencies with Bitcoin or another asset backed by pure mathematics. In fifteen years, Bitcoin has come far enough as an important asset, but mass adoption remains an unfulfilled promise. Those clinging to this goal live in tension between disillusionment and hope.

Encode business logic into machines. Vitalik Buterin and Ethereum envisioned that if we could program money, we could program everything: transactions, contracts, incentives. This vision has succeeded in specific niches, especially in derivatives and complex financial products.

Make digital ownership authentic. The Web3 philosophy suggests we should truly own our data, identity, and online content. NFTs and blockchain social networks failed at this, but the core idea remains valid: regain sovereignty over what we create and own on the internet.

Improve capital markets infrastructure. Without ideology or fireworks. Just updating outdated systems: securities settlement, SWIFT, legacy technology. This is a real, though less visible, engine behind much of the crypto sector.

Expand financial inclusion. In countries where access to banking services is limited, cryptocurrencies and especially stablecoins present real opportunities. This is not just rhetoric: thousands of people are accessing financial products for the first time because of this.

The casino reality

Now, how do we reconcile these legitimate objectives with the proliferation of meme coin launch platforms, speculative perpetual markets, and tokenomics designed to maximize value extraction?

The uncomfortable answer: speculation is an inevitable side effect. When you build permissionless markets on public infrastructure, you must accept that speculative capital will flow in. Venture funds finance what limited partners tolerate; developers build what creates incentives; users participate in what promises quick gains.

The cost is real. The normalization of senseless betting among youth, financial nihilism disguised as innovation, volatility that ruins naive retail investors. It’s not minor.

But neither is it a reason to give up.

Rooted optimism in reality

Maintaining hope in this context requires honesty about what has worked and what hasn’t. Bitcoin remains Bitcoin: a questionable but existing store of value. Stablecoins facilitated remittances and financial access. Some DEXs offer real alternatives to traditional intermediaries. Prediction markets gained traction.

But no, the global financial system is not migrating to blockchain. Assets are not being tokenized en masse. Dictatorships did not fall because people have crypto wallets.

The real challenge is to distinguish between legitimate long-term objectives and short-term speculative noise. Both exist, simultaneously. Both will continue to exist as long as blockchain remains a permissionless infrastructure.

If you expect a libertarian utopia, disappointment is inevitable. If you believe the casino is all that matters, rejecting the entire space is understandable.

But if you recognize that real objectives are being built amid wild speculation, then your attitude should be pragmatic: participate selectively, protect your capital, learn to discern. Cryptocurrencies did not fail. Nor did they triumph in the way they promised. They simply became what they were meant to be: a complex, speculative market with points of real utility scattered among the noise.

That is enough to keep going. Or to walk away. But both decisions must be made with open eyes.