I bought a new video game in 2011 with BTC and whenever I tell the story the crypto bro in the room laughs at me for not holding on to what amounts to something like half a million dollars now. Sort of like people keep bringing up the guy who bought pizza 2 years prior.
How dare I use a self-proclaimed currency as a currency. I lost all interest once I realized very few people actually want it to be a currency and the main excitement stems from the potential to make money, not the tech or a very idealistic view of banking independent from banks.
You are right, the stupidest part of this is ignoring the fact that real-world use would cause the currency to appreciate. I would say there is value in whatever path led you to investigate a "revolutionary" technology during its infancy.
Crypto-- the original view of it-- is anarchy. The crypto ecosystem we see today is a mode of failure of anarchy as a governance model.
You ultimately need a financial authority to promote "stable" prices, and even that statement is highly political. You also need some serious gravitas to protect the currency, and this is where the crypto episode is most curious. Governments that for years prohibited "competition" of this nature for years in the most draconian of ways, suddenly have been missing in action. That created an environment where crypto metastisized into something socially corrupt, and also it fosters doubt in the competency and motivation of governments to protect what has forever been their turf.
Anarcho-capitslism has always been laughably self-destructive if you are half-serious about modeling the incentives. Most anarchists don't seem to believe that capitalism as-is and anarchism can co-exist. Market socialists are probably the closest you get to having them co-exist.
How dare I use a self-proclaimed currency as a currency. I lost all interest once I realized very few people actually want it to be a currency and the main excitement stems from the potential to make money, not the tech or a very idealistic view of banking independent from banks.