TLDR: meme coin rug pulls, among other issues around centralization
Crypto-believers often blame greedy financiers as the cause of the Great Recession in 2008. But we argue that crypto is not immune to these same risks.
Public blockchains operate on a distributed peer-to-peer network. This network provides each user a complete record of transactions that is updated in real time. Users can send digital cash between themselves without relying on a centralized authority.
Since each user has a full record of transactions, the system promises full transparency. But our research demonstrates that public blockchains, and the cryptocurrencies that run on them, do not actually replace trust with transparency.
Speculation, manipulation and market crashes remain very real dangers, regardless of whether the financial system is centralized or decentralized.
Centralization of power in the hands of insiders is still a major issue in the cryptocurrency space. This is particularly an issue for emerging cryptocurrencies like memecoins. Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency named after internet memes or similar jokes. They draw their value entirely from speculation.
I don’t know how that argument doesn’t track for you. Crypto fundamentally can’t give you financial autonomy because it’s a very risky investment. You’d have to be one of the lucky few for that plan to work out.
“Will make you rich” is not what I mean by financial autonomy, and it isn’t what the article seems to be referencing. What I mean is the ability to use and have money without getting permission or needing to trust your bank or government or credit card oligopoly. It does that. That might not yet be a pressing need for most people in well off countries, but places where those things are corrupt or unusable have seen a big growth in real world use (admittedly mostly with USD stablecoins, rather than cryptocurrencies directly). I don’t think there’s much guarantee these things will remain relatively neutral and trustworthy here either, the way things have been going.