You cannot divorce the technical side from the garbage crypto brings. Yes, crypto has good privacy preserving properties, that unfortunately are equally effective for $5 as they are for $5 billion. The legitimate use case for that is infinitesimal compared to the abuse potential, and even if we accept the whole black-market use of crypto as legitimate, that's still a small fraction of the speculation-driven valuation.

Those who understand the technical features can see there is nothing there to justify the hype, and rightly conclude it's largely a scam on a fundamental level.

> You cannot divorce the technical side from the garbage crypto brings.

> Those who understand the technical features can see there is nothing there to justify the hype,

I'm confused, is it bad tech or is it undesirable effects?

Technical critics flatter themselves too much about their supposed understanding. It's political, not technical. We need crypto for the same reason why need to keep the cash economy alive.

Let me quote again the section relevant to your confusion:

> even if we accept the whole black-market use of crypto as legitimate, that's still a small fraction of the speculation-driven valuation.

So the major problem is the financial overvaluation relative to the real technical abilities, the minor problem is that even those features are predominately enablers of nefarious activities such as money laundry. The second problem is indeed a political objection of mine, but there is no contradiction with the technical lack of value which most HNers object to.

> We need crypto for the same reason why need to keep the cash economy alive.

But that's not the reason the crypto bubble inflated, far from it. We could talk about privacy enabling features inspired by crypto in electronic payment systems without trying to reinvent fiat currencies in the form of private money which we know full well are a bad idea.

Physical cash is to crypto what amateur rocketry is to sending ITAR info to North Korea, or personal handguns to nuclear proliferation: there is a scale where a certain behavior that is acceptable and beneficial at the individual level becomes a major problem for society as a whole.

Ah come on, crypto a "major problem for society", get real.

Just because something is overhyped doesn't mean it's total crap.