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Until fairly recently, if you lived anywhere other than San Francisco, it was possible to go days or even weeks without hearing about cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n
Now, suddenly, it\u2019s inescapable. Look one way, and there are Matt Damon and Larry David doing ads for crypto startups. Swivel your head \u2014 oh, hey, it\u2019s the mayors of Miami and New York City, arguing over who loves Bitcoin more. Two NBA arenas are now named after crypto companies, and it seems as if every corporate marketing team in America has jumped on the NFT<\/a> \u2014 or non-fungible token \u2014 bandwagon. (Can I interest you in one of Pepsi\u2019s \u201cMic Drop\u201d genesis NFTs? Or maybe something from Applebee\u2019s \u201cMetaverse<\/a> Meals\u201d NFT collection, inspired by the restaurant chain\u2019s \u201ciconic\u201d menu items?)<\/p>\n Crypto! For years, it seemed like the kind of fleeting tech trend most people could safely ignore, like hoverboards or Google<\/a> Glass. But its power, both economic and cultural, has become too big to overlook. Twenty percent of American adults, and 36% of millennials, own cryptocurrency, according to a recent Morning Consult survey. Coinbase, the crypto trading app, has landed on top of the App Store\u2019s charts at least twice in the past year. Today, the crypto market is valued at around $1.75 trillion \u2014 roughly the size of Google. And in Silicon Valley, engineers and executives are bolting from cushy jobs in droves to join the crypto gold rush.<\/p>\n As it has gone mainstream, crypto has inspired an unusually polarized discourse. Its biggest fans are wild-eyed fanatics who think it\u2019s saving the world, while its biggest skeptics are convinced it\u2019s all a scam \u2014 an environment-killing speculative bubble orchestrated by grifters and sold to greedy dupes, which will probably crash the economy when it bursts.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been writing about crypto for nearly a decade, a period in which my own views have whipsawed between extreme skepticism and cautious optimism. These days, I usually describe myself as a crypto moderate, although I admit that may be a cop-out.<\/p>\n I agree with the skeptics that much of the crypto market consists of overvalued, overhyped and possibly fraudulent assets, and I am unmoved by the most utopian pro-crypto sentiments (such as the claim by Jack Dorsey, the crypto-obsessed former Twitter chief, that Bitcoin will usher in world peace).<\/p>\n But as I\u2019ve experimented more with crypto \u2014 including accidentally selling an NFT for more than $500,000 in a charity auction last year \u2014 I\u2019ve come to accept that it isn\u2019t all a cynical money grab and that there are things of actual substance being built. I\u2019ve also learned, in my career as a tech journalist, that when so much money, energy and talent flows toward a new thing, it\u2019s generally a good idea to pay attention, regardless of your views on the thing itself.<\/p>\n My strongest-held belief about crypto, though, is that it is terribly explained.<\/p>\n Recently, I spent several months reading everything I could about crypto. I found that most beginner\u2019s guides took the form of boring podcasts, thinly researched YouTube videos and blog posts written by hopelessly biased investors. Many anti-crypto takes, on the other hand, were undercut by inaccuracies and outdated arguments, such as the assertion that crypto is good for criminals, notwithstanding the growing evidence that crypto\u2019s traceable ledgers make it a poor fit for illicit activity.<\/p>\n What I couldn\u2019t find was a sober, dispassionate explanation of what crypto actually is \u2014 how it works, who it\u2019s for, what\u2019s at stake, where the battle lines are drawn \u2014 along with answers to some of the most common questions it raises.<\/p>\n This guide \u2014 a mega-FAQ, really \u2014 is an attempt to fix that. In it, I\u2019ll explain the basic concepts of crypto as clearly as I can, doing my best to answer the questions a curious but open-minded skeptic might pose.<\/p>\n Crypto boosters are likely to quibble with my answers, while dug-in opponents may find them too generous. That\u2019s OK. My goal is not to convince you that crypto is good or bad, that it should be outlawed or celebrated, or that investing in it will make you rich or bankrupt you. It is simply to demystify things a bit.<\/p>\n Understanding crypto now \u2014 especially for skeptics \u2014 is important for a few reasons.<\/p>\n The first is that crypto wealth and ideology is going to be a transformative force in our society in the coming years.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve heard about the overnight Dogecoin millionaires and Lamborghini-driving Bitcoin bros. But that\u2019s not the half of it. The crypto boom has generated vast new fortunes at a clip we\u2019ve never seen before \u2014 the closest comparison is probably the discovery of oil in the Middle East \u2014 and has turned its biggest winners into some of the richest people in the world, essentially overnight. Some crypto riches could vanish if the market crashes, but enough has already been cashed out to ensure that crypto\u2019s influence will linger for decades.<\/p>\n Crypto\u2019s madcap, meme-crazed online culture can make it seem frivolous and shallow. It\u2019s not. Cryptocurrencies, even the jokey ones, are part of a robust, well-funded ideological movement that has serious implications for our political and economic future. Bitcoin, which emerged out of the ashes of the 2008 financial crisis, first caught on among libertarians and anti-establishment activists who saw it as the cornerstone of a new, incorruptible monetary system. Since then, other crypto realms have fashioned similarly lofty goals, like building a decentralized, largely unregulated version of Wall Street on the blockchain.<\/p>\n We are already starting to see a swell of crypto money headed toward the U.S. political system. Crypto entrepreneurs are donating millions of dollars to candidates and causes, and lobbying firms have fanned out across the country to win support for pro-crypto legislation. In the coming years, crypto moguls will bankroll the campaigns of crypto-friendly candidates, or run for office themselves. Some will peddle influence in the familiar ways \u2014 forming super PACs, funding think tanks, etc. \u2014 while others will try to escape partisan gridlock altogether. (Crypto millionaires are already buying up land in the South Pacific to build their own blockchain utopias.)<\/p>\n Crypto is poised to soon become one of a handful of true wedge issues, with politicians all over the world forced to pick a side. Some countries, like El Salvador \u2014 whose crypto-loving president recently announced the development of a \u201cBitcoin City\u201d at the base of a volcano \u2014 will go full crypto. Other governments may decide that crypto is a threat to their sovereignty and crack down, as China did when it outlawed cryptocurrency trading last year. The divide between the world\u2019s pro-crypto and no-crypto zones could end up being at least as big as the divide between the Chinese internet and the American one, and maybe even more consequential.<\/p>\n In America, we have already seen how crypto can scramble the usual partisan allegiances. Former President Donald Trump and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., are united in crypto skepticism, for example, while Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is in the same bullish camp as Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. We have also seen what can happen when the crypto community feels politically threatened, as happened last summer, when crypto groups rallied to oppose a crypto-related provision in President Joe Biden\u2019s infrastructure bill.<\/p>\n What I\u2019m saying, I guess, is that despite the goofy veneer, crypto is not just another weird internet phenomenon. It\u2019s an organized technological movement, armed with powerful tools and hordes of wealthy true believers, whose goal is nothing less than revolution.<\/p>\n The second reason to pay attention to crypto is that understanding it now is the best way to ensure it doesn\u2019t become a destructive force later.<\/p>\nCrypto will be transformative<\/h2>\n
Crypto could be destructive<\/h2>\n