The Three-Trillion Dollar Industry That No One Understands

As cryptocurrency continues to grow in popularity, the general ignorance around it has lingered

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In recent years, the subject of cryptocurrency has grown difficult to ignore. What began as only sparse headlines back in the 2010s has grown into a more and more focal discussion as Bitcoin’s price has continued to reach soaring new records. And as a slew of competing new e-coins and currencies have sprouted up — each attempting to emulate that same success — this intangible new trade has reached a new level of prominence.

In some circles, conversation about “crypto” is harder to avoid than commiseration about the results of the 2024 election. And while you can’t expect your grandpa to grasp “the blockchain” just yet, even he’s probably had to fend himself off from a healthy share of “Doge” and Bitcoin-related propaganda by now.

There are few who truly understand cryptocurrency, and fewer still who can unpack the topic comprehensibly. Even outside the burgeoning world of meme-inspired e-coins, though, we’ve found ourselves dealing with more and more of these innovations that we struggle to make proper sense of. How the internet works is a subject I doubt I’ll ever really understand. The inner machinations of the phone in my pocket will…