Letter: Crypto Investors Should Ignore His Instagram Stars

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Jemima Kelly (Opinion, June 24) is right to point out that crypto has attracted its fair share of scams and financial speculation. He has serious technological challenges. There is the about-face of the high priest of crypto, Elon Musk. But is the reality so black or white that crypto and decentralized finance (DeFi) are the solution to all the inequalities in society or a great Ponzi scheme?

The irrational exuberance of crypto is no different from other markets. We must not forget that the fragility of the crypto ecosystem is compared to larger, benign financial markets that are more distorted by government intervention than at any time in living memory.

DeFi struggled to provide enough real-world use cases. But cross-border payments remain expensive and much of the world is unbanked. And surely, isn’t the increased divergence in our society between the haves and have-nots, be it businesses or individuals, just or sustainable in the long run?

Technological breakthroughs can take time, as we’ve seen with Tesla. Ever since I did IPOs during the dot-com bubble, I remember ideas like delivering content to phones that didn’t come true until years later. Clayton Christensen taught that disruptive innovation comes from small emerging markets with initially lower product quality than incumbents. And tomorrow’s winners may be different. For example, Nokia, AOL and Yahoo have given way to the current crop of multi-billion dollar tech companies.

Crypto has a lot to prove, but we have to look for the right signals among the noise. Ignore the Instagram stars and focus on improvements in governance and technology. Kelly deplores the lack of credible lawyers. Maybe she should interview Jack Dorsey. Crypto is a small part of his net worth. Whether it’s democratizing other industries with Twitter and Square or his time in Africa, he’s definitely someone not to be ignored. Those of us born in the Gen X era owe it to Gen Z people to be open-minded!

Rupak Ghose London SW5, United Kingdom

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