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So what have we learned?

Here’s the lead from a story I co-wrote for Bloomberg News on March 24, 2014, “Tera Group Inc. created a framework for buying and selling swaps linked to Bitcoin that would let investors hedge risk from trading the digital currency.”

As I’ve said before, I was early to covering crypto but certainly not anything like the first reporter on that beat. But by the fall of 2017, when Bitcoin gained mass recognition, I was well placed to tell that story -- and to try to explain blockchain tech to a succession of beleaguered editors. Just for fun, and to make you kick yourself, here’s another line from that story: “Bitcoin’s closing price has swung between $534.71 and $951.39 this year after ending 2013 at $757.50, with volatility spurred by the collapse of the Tokyo-based Mt. Gox exchange.”

Bitcoin hit a record $109,000 earlier this year. Bitcoin bought for $951 in 2014 had a 11,361 percent return at the all-time-high. That’s not bad.

This is not really about Bitcoin, however. As I mentioned last week, Decential is shutting down and this is the last Web3 Rewind newsletter. So I began thinking about what I’ve learned about crypto over the past 11 years.

It’s not early. Anyone in the space has heard “it’s early” probably a billion times, as in blockchain adherents have since the genesis block been tempering expectations with the reminder that’s it’s still early. That’s no longer true. It’s been 16 years since Bitcoin had its stealth launch. Ethereum spun up in 2015. There are some great blockchain applications, which I’ll get to, but it’s nowhere near mass adoption. Not even close. A decade is not a short time, though. I want there to be more in my everyday life that I do on chain.

It's all about money. It started as digital money with Bitcoin, then became programmable money with Ethereum. This is incredibly powerful no matter how long it’s taking to hit broad use. Wall Street has woken up to what instant, malleable money means to their bottom line and they like it. Banks have to set aside capital to back their trades until they settle, money that can’t be used for other stuff. If it’s instant and digital, however, then the trades settle immediately (or not at all) and that capital that was set aside can be put to better use. The public chains are on this page too, they’re just not as focused as the guys who want partner at Goldman.

It's all about money. We tried here at Decential to put a spotlight on the people making web3 a reality. And we sure did, for about three and a half years. So no prices, no memecoins, just hundreds of stories about blockchain builders and what they’re trying to do to change the world. Problem is, there’s not much of an audience for that. People want to know prices and whether and what they should buy or sell. That’s about 85 percent of the crypto audience, I’d say.

It's shady af. While the actual amount of malicious use of blockchain is around 1 percent of all on-chain activity, there are hoards of scammers and skevie types. Such as, please keep texting me randomly, I will fall for it eventually. I was speaking to one of my reporters, MacEagon Voyce, and he mentioned how he’d like it if all the memecoin bs and naked speculative frenzy was the afterthought of a vibrant web3 world. As though because the other blockchain stuff was so vital we could wink at the scammy stuff and say something like boys will be boys. But if only that were true.

It's all about money. It’s hard to find an exact number on this, which surprised me, so I can’t tell you how much in crypto is sent in remittance payments every year. The market is about $630 billion according to the World Bank, and in Venezuela in 2023, 10 percent of its $5 billion in remittances used crypto. An unstoppable global open payments network is pretty fucking cool if you haven’t gotten the memo yet. It’s just taking a while for blockchain tech to expand beyond money uses. I believe it will hit that point, though I’m clueless as to where in the wide web3 world that breakthrough will come from.

It has been a wild ride covering crypto. It’s never boring and there’s still enough altruism sticked into its DNA to keep me interested. Decential has been a blast, thank you for reading and supporting us. Until next time. – Matthew Leising, editor in chief, Decential Media

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After writing about Gen X last week I saw this on IG and felt it worthy to share. Enjoy. — ML

Have you read the definitive history of Ethereum? No? Well then get your copy of Out of the Ether while you can.