And I mean LITERALLY explain like I’m 5, I literally know nothing of the technical terms and such
In: Economics
At its core crypto tries to provide money without needing to trust individual humans. Anyone can participate as a miner, validator, etc. But that requires safeguards against bad faith actors. With “normal” fiat currencies, societies create governments with people administrating the currency and national banks and they vet the people who work these jobs. They still require safeguards, but it’s much easier to do with people showing up to an office in person than unknown computers on the internet.
So inherently crypto is much less efficient, because of these additional safeguards. This shows in much higher transaction fees, inequities benefiting those already rich, and a severe lack of legal protections (e.g. against fraud).
BUT: Some people with decent wealth are unhappy with their level of wealth and would rather be ultra-wealthy. And so they want to disrupt the world, toppling those currently at the top and take those spots themselves. And one way of doing that is trying to create a new financial system, which they control, and trying to force it on the world, hence crypto currencies.
So how to make money? Same as with any other bigger fool scam: Buy something worthless and hope someone else will buy it for more later. Just as there are some people making money from fraudulent investment schemes. And because crypto has a staggering lack of protections against fraud and makes it harder for governments to tax people, you can also try to make money by defrauding others, laundering money, evading tax, etc.
But that’s about it. As currency or a store of value it’s inefficient, so it makes no sense using it for that.
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