A defense of blockchains and crypto, as they go through growing pains in a bid to transform the US payments industry, which has been stagnant for decades
Matthew Green / A Few Thoughts on Cryptographic Engineering : Tweets: @matthew_d_green , @nikitabier , @rjcc , @mattdesl , @mmasnick , and @zornsllama Tweets: Matthew Green / @matthew_d_green : I wrote a thing defending cryptocurrency, but I may delete it later on. https://blog.cryptographyengineering.co m/ ... Nikita Bier / @nikitabier : Look, just because: • Ethereum is down 66% from its highs • All of DeFi “yield” ended up being a Ponzi scheme • NFT “art” ultimately was just speculation • The biggest real world use-case of crypto is *still* buying cocaine online Doesn't mean that web3 isn't gonna happen Richard Lawler / @rjcc : That an optimistic/realistic take for crypto is yes, it is useless and wasteful and bad and most of the applications promoted based on it are from people trying to profit on speculation but it might not always be that Is the best defense you can make for it Isn't great! https://twitter.com/... Matt DesLauriers / @mattdesl : pretty balanced overview of three main areas of common concern in crypto, and their engineering solutions: energy → PoS privacy → ZKPs scalability → ZKRUs/ORUs written by Johns Hopkins cryptographer @matthew_d_green. 👇 https://twitter.com/... Mike Masnick / @mmasnick : This is worth reading. I hope he doesn't delete it. https://twitter.com/... Eleanor / @zornsllama : This is worth a read if you are interested in understanding the actual facts about what cryptocurrency is and could be, and are sick of hype both positive and negative https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Matthew Green's defense arrives at the trough of a cycle his own timeline documents: the token structures that let VCs offload onto retail peaked in late 2021, and by June 2022 even sympathetic voices like Garbage Day were conceding that Web3 currently sucks — arguing that saying so isn't an anti-blockchain conspiracy.
Green's move is to separate the technology from the speculation: whatever happened to DeFi yield and NFT prices, the underlying target remains the US money-transfer and payments stack, which computer networking has yet to restructure. That pitch now has to clear both skeptical lawmakers — who resisted the Fidelity-led push for Bitcoin-linked ETFs — and a public whose last crypto memory is a drawdown.
First-order effects
- Green forces the debate onto utility grounds: defenders can no longer cite price appreciation, so the case rests on whether blockchains actually improve payments and money transfer.
- Nikita Bier's widely shared tally — Ethereum far below its highs, DeFi yield exposed as unsustainable, NFTs reduced to speculation — becomes the checklist any defense, including Green's, has to answer point by point.
Second-order effects
- Institutional entrants like Fidelity face a harder regulatory sell: lobbying the SEC for crypto products while retail sentiment and media framing have turned hostile gives lawmakers more cover to resist.
- Critics such as Mike Masnick and the Garbage Day line gain leverage — conceding current failures lets them attack specific uses rather than dismiss the whole space, which is a more durable rhetorical position.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the industry splits into two tracks: a speculative token economy that keeps drawing Ponzi-style comparisons, and a narrower settlement/payments case judged on cost and reliability rather than asset prices.
- The decisive variable becomes regulation: whether the SEC treats crypto as an investment product to be gated or as payments infrastructure to be chartered will determine which track survives.
The trend: The crypto argument is migrating from price and speculation toward a test of whether blockchains can rebuild US payments infrastructure — with regulators, not markets, holding the gate.