For me, there is no need for me to encourage anyone else to get involved in crypto right now. Other people can do what they want with their own finances, it is none of my interest or concern. Crypto is unsecure and not protected by financial regulations. Thus, it is risky and one that I choose to participate in at my own peril. Personally, I find the attraction is to be an early adopter of a potentially revolutionary new technology. I don't really subscribe to the "Bitcoin/Shitcoin" dichotomy either. I guess I see the role of bitcoin being as a reserve currency for the crypto space and a measure of value that is separate from the US Dollar. I like a lot of other projects (Fantom, Cosmos, Avalanche, Polygon and Cardano primarily). World Media Token, built on the Cardano blockchain, is an example of a crypto project that could be very beneficial if the project is successful and perhaps show that there is a positive element to the space.
The FTX situation is a shambles and I lost a small sum in tokenized stocks on there. I liked the product. This particular product was attractive to me because it allowed me to invest in stocks (or so I thought at the time) using my Indonesian salary. As an overseas citizen of the UK, I can't invest at home without being a tax resident there, I don't believe. So this was a grey area that I was hoping to exploit and ended up being a way of exploiting me. However, I have learned my lesson now and only participate in the crypto space using software and hardware wallets that I hold the private keys to.
The attraction to some people of crypto is that you can earn interest using decentralized application protocols or DApps (e.g. Compound, Yearn, AAVE etc.). The usual line of justification goes along the lines that banks will give you unfavorable interest rates in relation to these protocols. Defi (decentralized finance) is a massive rabbit hole though and one that is too large to discuss here. But a potential attraction of trading US dollars for stablecoins (e.g. USDC, PaxUSD and BUSD), which are regulated in the state of New York and are owned by Circle and Paxos, might be that they are backed by real world accountable entities and allow the user to participate in Defi. Users can then earn a higher rate of interest than they would in a typical savings account by lending these stablecoins out in the form of overcollateralized loans or to liquidity pools. Each stablecoin is matched 1:1 with the US Dollar and the most reputable of these are mentioned above. Tether make similar claims but these are still less transparent I believe.
Certik are a company that audit decentralized finance protocols and DefiLlama is a useful tool to investigate further, so for me these innovations in the space show me that some trust may be warranted as they have so far been transparent and reliable. Really, beyond this, I would encourage anyone to do their own research before getting involved in the space. I would highly discourage someone from uploading all of their crypto assets onto a custodial platform like FTX before it went down. My mistake was to trust them as a regulated institution like a bank and clearly they were not. That prompted me to pull all of my assets off of any website that I needed a username and password to log into.
My final thought is this. Crypto is already a trillion dollar space and looks set to keep growing. Eventually, over time, bad actors will be weeded out of the space. Regardless of which large cap coins succeed or fail, mainstream media will only draw attention to the bad actors in the space and the "I told you so" attitude that is quite prevalent will continue to prevail until such time as blockchain technology is regulated properly and integrated into the existing financial infrastructure. Black Rock have signed a huge deal with Coinbase and I'm sure that this is a space that other investment firms will move into in the near future. Of course, "I'm sure" only relates to me and my decisions with my money. People can think what they want but it would be nice if people were well-read on a topic before they ridiculed it. I would also stress that I have already suggested that crypto should only form part of a healthy portfolio if someone is willing to take a gamble on it. But before writing it off, I'd look into it further and see what it has to offer before making the decision not to participate. Finally, there is a lot that needs to be learned in order to participate in decentralized finance and this layer of complexity also makes it inaccessible for mainstream users. The need for a browser wallet and offramps and onramps adds layers of complexity that make people fearful. Thus, I have no interest in persuading anyone to participate. But, suggest that there may be some benefits to doing so over the long term if you are willing to research and risk losing digital assets for potential reward.
