Thoughts from a Bitcoin Conference

What is hype vs. reality in the crypto and web3 world?

I remember coming across Bitcoin back in 2011 at a startup event in NYC. Someone mentioned it in passing to me as this thing you “mine” on a computer and create a “currency” from scratch. He seemed quite excited about it. I thought he sounded unhinged.

The next day I checked it out. The price of Bitcoin was about $1 USD at the time. It did not seem obvious how to acquire any Bitcoin though, so I ignored it. Even as the price soared to $30 that year, I was…