Business consultants love the trope that those who got rich from the California Goldrush were not the miners, but the shopkeepers who sold picks and shovels. Another group got rich, though, and that’s the grifters.
Millions of people are losing billions of dollars following the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX and the other firms falling like dominoes behind it. While the technology may be new, this story follows the outline of every other get-rich-quick scheme.
Early movers made serious coin, greenhorns piled in, and opportunists fleeced the newbies.
I’ve always admired blockchain technology’s promise of an immutable ledger of ownership rights. Imagine a global accounting system that makes embezzlement and expropriation impossible, and you see blockchain’s potential.
What I’ve always doubted, though, was blockchain’s premier application to create digital currencies, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Doge. These digital coins have no physical substance and only have value in people’s imaginations, and as we all know, people are fickle.
Today, millions of people believe Bitcoin is worth about $16,200, Ethereum is $1,170, and Doge is 9 cents. But at their all-time highs, Bitcoin was $63,800, Ethereum was $4,720, and Doge was an astonishing 69 cents, considering the founder started it as a joke.
Demand determines crypto’s…
