Why ordinary people still avoid cryptocurrencies

Why ordinary people still avoid cryptocurrencies

Why does the majority of the population, including those with education and assets, view cryptocurrencies like watching a roulette wheel in a casino? The question is not trivial: Bitcoin was originally proposed as a medium of exchange, not a speculative asset, yet the ecosystem has turned into a market where memecoins are the latest trend. The uncomfortable thesis running through the discussion is that average citizens don't participate because they don't understand the product, don't need it to buy groceries, and find the risk outweighs any convenience lost.

Bitcoin isn't money; it's an asset almost no one accepts

The most repeated argument concerns acceptance. One forum user argues that an asset is only money when everyone accepts it as payment, noting that less than 1% of the world accepts Bitcoin for monetary exchange today. While one can debate whether gold, the dollar, or the yuan are better or worse, the fact remains that an individual can receive euros without explanation, whereas receiving Bitcoin requires an exchange, a wallet, and a conversion process that costs time and fees.

Some argue the issue is the learning curve: managing keys, seeds, and addresses is not user-friendly. People prefer spending hours earning money that vanishes rather than learning technology that doesn't solve their daily problems. According to this view, Bitcoin remains for those wanting to protect wealth or escape with a seed phrase in their head, not for those wanting to pay for monthly groceries.

The casino: VCs turned a payment method into a gamble

The harshest criticism targets not the technology, but who populated it. Bitcoin’s initial proposal was a medium of exchange, but what trinc, according to several analyses, is worse than the original: thousands of projects aimed at specific audiences—teenagers and gamblers—while venture capital funds take the lion's share. The dominant perception is that cryptocurrencies have become material for compulsive gamblers, despite their original design pointing elsewhere.

The parallel with casinos is explicit: if you want to gamble, there are more honest places to do so. Most people don’t bet their salary immediately after getting paid, and this risk aversion isn’t ignorance—it’s asset management. Volatility is also symmetric: the same asset that multiplies by a thousand in months can wipe out half a portfolio in a week.

Lack of regulation stifles real-world use cases

Contrasting the casino diagnosis is another explanation: what’s missing isn’t technology, but a legal framework. Examples include businesses wanting to finance themselves by issuing tokens granting rights to a percentage of profits from a new store, or companies paying employees with tokens convertible to euros in five years. It’s the logic of stocks or executive incentives, but without the paperwork that currently limits such actions to a handful of firms.

The lingering question is why the market itself hasn’t generated standards, as peine with ISO norms or technical frameworks. The suggested answer is that any regulation reduces risk, and reducing risk lowers returns: the market prefers a dynamic casino over a conservative, boring marketplace.

The tax wall and real-world on-ramps

Even those paid in crypto end up going through banks. A detailed case involves a professional billing a foreign company and receiving ETH, converting it immediately to euros. According to their accountant, for the Spanish Tax Agency (Hacienda), the criterion is the conversion value, treating it as if paid in another currency. Having an employment contract changes the treatment: with one, labor taxes apply; without it, only capital gains tax.

The bottleneck is the exit. Buying a house or car requires notarized deeds, raising questions about the source of funds. Those who accumulated significant amounts must document traceability or face a tax bill that could consume much of the profit.

What if the problem is lack of interest, not access?

The most uncomfortable hypothesis is that the masses don’t enter because they aren’t interested in what lies behind it. Privacy, decentralized economies, blockchain itself: most people don’t care. Mass adoption occurred solely for speculation, and the general public, faced with the Library of Alexandria, sits down to read sports newspapers.

The counterpoint is that universities, think tanks, and independent entities haven’t been early adopters of alternative ideas. Everything other than speculation seems controlled by the establishment, including the narrative around Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). If central banks issue their own digital currencies, the citizen’s counterpart in that war remains unwritten.

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In the end, the question remains unanswered. Bitcoin has defenders viewing it as a store of value and critics predicting its demise once halvings stop rewarding miners. Meanwhile, ordinary people continue paying in euros, watching the casino from the doorway, undecided about entering. Perhaps, as someone said, there are better odds of winning something in sports betting.