Fraudsters killing the market. Crypto bank runs. Sure, the industry needs regulation. But what is the major problem with crypto that no one is talking about?
The last couple of weeks in crypto has been a complete disaster. Traditional media have gladly picked up on the news that a fraudster named SBF have fckd the space with his malignant practices that is causing billions of losses in the crypto space. It’s a complete and utter mess. But the mission with this week’s article is to zoom out and look at a bigger problem.
Yes, the current mess of the crypto industry teaches us that it needs clearer regulation. Fine. But my mom needs to understand the industry before it will be fully adopted by the public. How can the crypto industry expect to go mainstream when its underlining message is associated with secrecy, uncertainty and ambiguous words and practices?
What kind of name is crypto anyway?
Crypto basically means that something is not publicly admitted. It can also mean cryptocurrency, but the actual meaning of the word is secrecy. Imagine asking a public relations expert to market something to the public that inherently means being away from the public.
Then we have the word blockchain. Seriously, blockchain!? All definitions that try to describe the meaning of the word includes a brave attempt to explain the technology. But my mom is not interested in nodes and distributed networks. She doesn’t even see the meaning of it all.
The list of PR-unfriendly words is long in the crypto industry. Yields, mining, nft, hodl, distributed ledger, decentralization, byzantine fault tolerance, merkle tree, proof of work. Jesus! It took a year before I understood the crypto industry. My mom is now impressed by my knowledge…
The crypto space is a hypocrite.
One can argue that the crypto space is constructed to be a secret alternative, but the underlining wish of the community is to become fully legitimate. It’s badly needing approval from the traditional system to grow up. Here’s an idea. Let’s rebrand the industry! Let’s make it accessible and understandable. Brilliant!
The crypto industry has itself to blame for lack of adoption and criticism from traditional media. It cannot expect to be fully implemented by businesses and stiff government organizations until it takes a long hard look at itself.
Who would like to date someone who you do not understand and is hesitant in being seen in public?