Crypto delivers useful functionality: a trustless decentralized ledger. It's also fungible and un-inflatable by design. While it doesn't possess more typical tangible alternate uses in the way that gold or silver does, the functionality it does have is *exceptionally* useful. Try conducting trustless transactions without it. Sure, you can show up with bags of fiat or gold coins, but the security and transport costs are high and become egregious once you try to do so internationally. Trust-based ledgers have existed for years and are relatively affordable compared to completing transactions in cash or gold, but they're still far more costly than crypto (go wire some money internationally) and slow (e.g. wires can take days). They also require you to trust the intermediary bank, payment processor, etc to not ban you for political reasons. Which isn't to say that treating crypto as a moon shot is wise. It's not. I'm perfectly happy if crypto goes up in nominal value with real inflation. That real inflation is *also* rocketing to the moon is the only reason crypto should see gains that exceed the modest efficiency advantages over legacy ledgers and transaction mechanisms.