Breaking the Negative Perception of Cryptocurrency: How to See Its True Value

It’s surprising how little crypto has impacted our lives outside of the crypto community.

Unless you actively engage with crypto, it’s easy to barely touch crypto in your daily life.

The problem, however, is that when this “minimized crypto exposure” is passed on to people, it almost always comes with a negative spin.

You watch Netflix’s Squidward, and a crypto influencer shows up to scam his followers. He can’t go a single moment without checking the price of crypto and asking for his phone back. I can relate to that. :(

When you scroll through the news, you’ll see the following (almost always negative) headlines:

North Korea steals $1.5 billion, pulling off biggest heist in history

“Irony”: Trump’s new memecoin sparks outrage in crypto community

Man charged, woman loses £154,000 in Bitcoin scam

Crypto trader commits suicide on livestream

Scams, frauds, pump and dumps, you name it. Crypto has a terrible public image. To be fair, even those of us who are crypto natives know that crypto is full of shit.

But we also know why we’re here: to make tons of money while revolutionizing an outdated financial system. Yes, the get-rich-quick part is why we’re often disliked, but it’s a truth I can’t deny. Everyone who invests in anything wants to make money.

However, crypto is one of the few industries where you can still build wealth from zero. In today’s economy, slowly building wealth on a median salary is extremely challenging. Gen Z realizes this and (silently) opts out of the job market.

If they only knew what crypto could bring to their lives…

However, I think crypto is a great way to highlight our mission, why we need crypto, and why we need it. Why getting rich from cryptocurrencies isn’t evil is a poor job. Here’s a top comment from the Financial Times that sums up the crypto skeptics’ view:

If you watch Reddit, you’ll know that the average person hates cryptocurrencies, but I’d like to see more positive portrayals of cryptocurrencies in the mainstream media.

To be fair, the Financial Times has always been skeptical about cryptocurrencies, but Bloomberg’s coverage has improved over time and provides a lot of valuable insights.

Interestingly, there’s a crypto influencer in one of the seemingly innocent Bloomberg articles, “Meet America’s Seven Top Personal Finance Influencers.”

He’s primarily focused on memecoins and promotes his own memecoin Telegram group, so while I’m glad Bloomberg is willing to cover cryptocurrencies, I’m still surprised they shared him!

Yes, people really do hate us

Since this is still a “research” blog, here’s some remarkable research data on crypto sentiment.

Many surveys show that non-investors view cryptocurrencies as risky speculation rather than legitimate financial instruments.

In the UK, 64% of respondents believe that “investing in cryptocurrencies is basically gambling.”

“Attitudes towards investing in cryptocurrencies”

A 2024 Pew Research Center survey found that 75% of Americans do not trust the reliability or security of cryptocurrencies due to scams and market volatility.

In Edelman’s 2023 global survey, all demographic groups expressed distrust in cryptocurrencies. The coup de grace is that cryptocurrencies are trusted even less than the banks we are supposed to disrupt.

Sure, FTX did damage crypto’s reputation in 2023, but memecoins didn’t help us this year either.

Consensys does excellent research every year, and their 2024 report shows the decline of the crypto “future of money” narrative. Sentiments of speculation, scams and phishing attacks, crime and money laundering are as prevalent as sentiments of crypto being a “traditional financial alternative.”

The message is clear: outside of the crypto community, there is widespread skepticism that digital assets can be a secure financial instrument.

While writing this blog, I came across the following tweet that nicely sums up the public’s perception of cryptocurrencies:

Why Crypto Culture Matters

Our public image may seem unimportant because the masses “can’t get it.” They are afraid of being saved from the 9-5 rat race and influenced by the mainstream media’s hype about cryptocurrencies.

Nevertheless, public perception has changed and more people are willing to buy cryptocurrencies than in the past. I believe that this change in cryptocurrency perception can attract millions of new community members.

I believe we can do better and should do better. We need to convince people of the vision and mission of cryptocurrencies.

Cryptocurrencies envision a decentralized financial system where individuals have full control over their assets, free from intermediaries such as banks or governments. It aims to create a borderless, censorship-resistant, trust-minimized ecosystem where anyone can transact, store value, and build economic systems without relying on centralized authorities.

Our vision is being drowned out by the noise of meme coins and speculation.

Worse, the public no longer sees cryptocurrencies as a revolutionary way to improve the financial system. As the post below mentions, “The Bitcoin ecosystem has become the same thing you all despise.” Wealth and power are concentrated in the hands of a few, extracting wealth from people who are struggling financially.

Worse, due to Trump’s public support, people now associate crypto with the MAGA movement, which is not popular in its outer circles. Not surprisingly, the EU sees Trump’s support for crypto as a threat to Europe’s monetary sovereignty.

Don’t get me wrong – the previous US administration’s halt to regulatory scrutiny was a boon to the crypto industry. However, the crypto industry is walking a tightrope under the current Trump administration.

How to change the perception of crypto to make it more open and fair

The reputation of crypto is not going to repair itself. We need to reshape the narrative if we want mainstream adoption.

Easier said than done, but this has to start from within: even crypto natives are losing faith in crypto.

I think we need to focus on three key points first:

Make Crypto Great Again

In previous cycles, new entrants into crypto were able to make money. However, certain groups and VC-backed memecoins with low circulation, high FDV were abusive and exploitative, leaving new entrants with little room for profitability.

We successfully resisted low circulation, high FDV projects in this cycle, but still fell into the trap of memecoin groups.

Legion and Echo are making progress by adopting fairer funding models, but they are still too exclusive. We need to create and promote games that create value, not destroy it, so that early entrants can benefit together.

Kyle has a more detailed plan based on "first principles" for how to rise again from the market chaos.

But due to extreme short-termism, a culture of maximum exploitation, and people with low integrity, we have fallen into this self-defeating cycle of eternal financial nihilism - when everyone thinks it's a good idea to continue rushing into random scam coins, everyone thinks "I'll get out before he scams".

We need to self-regulate bad actors. The industry must do more to expose scams and hold influencers accountable for misleading propaganda. ZachXBT used to do this, but the level of crime got out of control, and even he himself ended up throwing away a meme coin that was sent to him.

I need to do better in this regard myself and stay away from value extraction activities. People need to actually make money while expanding the market share of crypto.

Right now, new entrants often get financially hammered, or worse.

2. Shift the narrative from speculation to utility

Crypto is more than just gambling — it provides real-world benefits.

We need to shift our focus to real-world use cases like remittances, financial inclusion, and transparent governance, rather than meme culture.

DeFi is expanding, and emerging social networks are also bringing innovative profit models, such as Lens, Abstract, and Farcaster. In addition, the increased adoption of stablecoins and RWAs (real-world assets) helps preserve and grow wealth, rather than destroy it.

KOLs on X platforms may not care about this, but Crypto X represents only a small part of the broader crypto culture.

I am happy that Bitcoin is doing well as "digital gold", but Ethereum and Solana are seen as speculative chains rather than foundational platforms for an open digital economy.

If we use meme coins as a representative of crypto culture, I bet that Pudgy Penguins will become the strongest Web3 export to Web2, rather than meme imports from Web2 (such as Doge, Pepe, etc.).

3. Recapture the narrative of Bitcoin and Ethereum

Crypto is not a unified culture; it contains multiple subcultures. The most notable of these are Bitcoin and Ethereum.

I am bothered by the idea that Bitcoin has become everything it was meant to destroy. Only those who store their Bitcoin in cold wallets can truly understand the peace of mind that comes with self-custody and being off the grid.

ETFs are good for our wallets, but they are a double-edged sword because ETF buyers cannot experience the sense of freedom that comes with self-custody.

I also hope that Bitcoin will successfully distance itself from the MAGA movement. Bitcoin is global and should remain neutral.

This is why I love Ethereum. Many people have criticized the Ethereum Foundation for not getting close to the Trump team, but this will prove to be a successful strategy in the long run.

In a world where privacy and democracy are being eroded, AI blurs the line between reality and illusion, and ownership of digital assets is not guaranteed, Ethereum provides a safe haven.

Ethereum unabashedly demonstrates the following characteristics:

Trusted Neutrality

Apolitical

Decentralized

Global

People outside of crypto don’t understand it, so it’s our responsibility to spread the word and build products that truly demonstrate the value of Ethereum.

Optimistic Future

Today, the entire cryptocurrency market has just reached a market cap of $2.7 trillion. But do we deserve this achievement?

Since Vitalik published this post in 2017, cryptocurrency has evolved, and it is not all speculation and negative play.

As I wrote in a previous post, 1.4 billion people in the world do not have a bank account. Even in the United States, this percentage reaches 4.5%. Research from the Federal Reserve found that high-income people view cryptocurrencies as an investment tool, while low-income people mainly use them for trading. 60% of traders earn less than $50,000 per year, and 13% do not have a bank account.

Venezuela ranks 40th in the Chainalysis Crypto Adoption Index 2023. Stablecoins have become a lifeline to combat severe inflation. Similar to Argentina, when its national currency plummeted, stablecoin purchases surged - indicating the widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies.

Cryptocurrency is not just a response to inflation, it is also used to resist oppressive regimes. During the COVID-19 pandemic, cryptocurrencies were used to send aid to doctors and nurses in Venezuela, bypassing the interference of the corrupt regime. Ukraine raised $225 million in donations via crypto when the war broke out.

DeFi’s total locked value (TVL) has reached $88 billion! Decentralized exchanges (DEX) are now challenging centralized exchanges (CEX), and platforms like Maker are bringing real world assets (RWAs) to the blockchain.

Non-speculative decentralized social applications are also growing. Farcaster and Polymarket have tens of thousands of users every day and the number of users is still growing. Now we really have usable dApps.

However, all of this progress seems to be ignored in the timeline of the X platform, and we have done a poor job of spreading the mission.

Nevertheless, I believe that as I type this article, this wave of market decline will help the crypto industry recover and progress will continue. We first need to clean up our own mess and focus on promoting the positive aspects of crypto.