The promise of crypto has not lived up to its initial excitement

“Two years ago everyone wanted to be us. Now everyone hates us,” laments a 24-year-old crypto founder at a gathering in New York. After once seeming as if it might threaten to remake the entire financial system, crypto has gone through a spectacular decline. The market value of all cryptocurrencies ballooned from $250bn at the start of 2020 to $3trn by late 2021. But it has since fallen back to just $1.3trn. Even more important, public trust in crypto has hit rock bottom after a string of high-profile swindles and crashes, notably the downfall of FTX, a popular cryptocurrency exchange, in November 2022.