It's fair to say that Nouriel Roubini - the noted economist whose bleak predictions have won him the nickname 'Dr. Doom' - is no fan of cryptocurrencies or blockchain technology.
For the good Doctor, '99% of crypto is a scam' and distributed ledger technology (which enables self-policing hyper-efficient databases) is no more exciting an innovation than a shared document.
There's no doubt that crypto has been the object of a great deal of speculation since 2020. Many ordinary folk then took a big hit when the bubble burst and they deserve every sympathy.
And yet, even a cursory analysis of the market would prove that Roubini is guilty of hyperbole.
Coin Gecko, a data aggregator, estimates crypto's current market capitalisation at over $1 trillion with industry leaders Bitcoin and Ethereum contributing nearly 60%.
The pair may have taken a shellacking over the past year, but they're still there and have consolidated their market share as smaller coins perished over the crypto winter.
Adoption has also continued at pace. A range of different surveys and research papers show that usage is still increasing across the US, EU, Middle East, and Asia from a strong base.
From Morgan Stanley to Charles Schwab, every major bank now has a dedicated crypto desk - evidence enough that finance's behemoths think the market is here to stay.
The firms still standing, those that depend on or even just leverage blockchain, also prove that the technology is the basis of many viable business models.
While Roobet isn't a crypto firm, our community still uses (and still loves) crypto, so maybe we can explain why they do.
In essence, consumers see cryptocurrencies as the means, while distributed ledger technologies (DLT) are the ends.
They understand that blockchain acts as a decentralized database, allowing for the instant transfer of ownership of a given asset - saving consumers and businesses time and money in the process.
In turn, crypto is the gas money, as it were, that makes these asset transfers possible in the first place. Crypto is therefore a distinguishable utility in its own right and the only currency that can be used to run decentralized networks.
As a result, while the value of a particular coin may fall to zero, that's always and everywhere a reflection of human error at the corporate or financial level, rather than a flaw in DLT.
This makes implicating blockchain in last year's crypto collapse no different from blaming your bank when you buy a faulty Xbox online.
Indeed, it's clear that while many have taken to blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies are seen as a troublesome burden. The irony is that you cannot have one without the other.
It goes without saying that blockchain's potential is not limited to online transactions and network effects, far from it.
At Roobet, the transparency afforded by blockchain allows us to monitor deposits and withdrawals to and from the platform, giving us the ability to detect suspicious activity.
Blockchain has also been applied in the manufacturing sector to digitally track physical assets as they pass along a supply chain. In healthcare, it has been leveraged to store and transfer medical records, protecting anonymity while providing single platform simplicity.
The emergence of DLT-based central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) - already implemented in China and with the West on its tail - is evidence enough that DLT holds an attraction even for those who seek to regulate it.
And regulate it they should.
If 2022 taught the crypto faithful anything, it's that the dream of self-regulation is exactly that: a dream.
Instead, crypto firms (and firms that rely on crypto) should be proactive in working with regulators to design frameworks that get the best out of nascent technologies while clamping down on the financial theatrics epitomized by FTX.
Conversely, regulators should seek a deeper understanding of the value this technology is bringing, and make sure they don't clip out its most valuable components out of fear.
Regulatory action will be of little consolation to those sitting on big losses. The bubble's bursting, however, has at least knocked a load of bad apples from the tree.
On that note, while we might not have seen the last scandal, the future looks brighter with every business model that's proven to be rotten.
Why? Because trust in the industry will begin to return and because its underlying technologies (being an inanimate mix of soft- and hardware) are unbothered by human error and scandal.
So, get after SBF et al by all means, but don't pin their failings on DLT like blockchain. That would truly be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
