One easy way to tell that cryptocurrency won’t ever be real money is to see how Venmo talks about it. I got an email not long ago from them about crypto.
If it were real money, the email would have bragged about how using crypto meant my Venmo transactions were faster and more secure! They would have mentioned on the INTERNAL deck that it was cheaper, too, but they won’t share that with customers because they would absolutely not pass those savings on.
What did Venmo ACTUALLY send me? A plug to invest in crypto. They want as much of your money managed in the Venmo app as possible, that’s how they make money (this makes sense, I’m not arguing they shouldn’t do this).
But if crypto was really a good way to move money around, either Venmo would be using it, or another company using it would have come in already and eaten their lunch. ACH is archaic. Instant transfers like Zelle are implemented so poorly that I suspect most of their day-to-day is dealing with fraud. If the crypto-pushers were right, this would all go away.
If you want to invest in an unregulated, unsecured magic bean, be my guest. There are definitely opportunities there. But you have to go in knowing it’s very risky, and that’s the part people usually skip over.