Rehashing this Point
The scary conflation of Bitcoin and crypto in the eyes of the general populous
Bitcoin is called “crypto” because it was the first “cryptocurrency” as the only successful iteration of digital cash which cryptographers were able to achieve - true irreplicable digital scarcity.
Due to the fact that there are around 20 000 cheap imitations of Bitcoin known as “altcoins”, people coined the term crypto to refer to all of them as well as Bitcoin as a collective, but I pose that this is not only illogical but also harmful.
I like to alleviate some of my frustration about the issue of referring to Bitcoin as crypto and vice-versa by imparting it onto others by completely feigning ignorance when the wrong term is used based on the context.
I usually find that since it is well known by most people that know me in person that I am a bitcoiner. This ignorance has proved infuriating - so if you have experienced this I’m glad that you can sympathise with my frustration at the perpetual conflation of two distinct ideas.
This however is not the best approach at getting the point across. I hereby pose an analogy and explain why I think it is apt.
The relation between Bitcoin and crypto is akin to the relationship between astronomy and astrology.
Bitcoin is Astronomy because it fundamentally provides information and can prove useful to people in society, should they choose to use it. It requires work to understand and calculate the astronomical events that are intriguing and have potentially major impacts on our understandings of the universe and what possibilities the human mind and ability is capable of; just as it requires work to produce, verify and use Bitcoin. Both Astronomy and Bitcoin are honest, logical pursuits of knowledge and development. Both expand the horizon of possibility for the human mind beyond its current potential.
Crypto is Astrology because it essentially rides on the confusion and conflation of the two terms with one another; provides no functional purpose except to extract wealth from those who are unfortunate enough to fall victim to it. In more direct terms, both Crypto and Astrology require no work or effort to perpetrate, and should be seen for what they clearly are: scams.
Yes, it is true that both Astrology and Crypto are seen as fun and not taken seriously for some people; but in the case of crypto it is severely damaging as people continue to lose their life savings by buying things they do not understand in the slightest. Buying various “crypto” tokens which are quasi-decentralized generally result in devastating consequences. It is deplorable, and the air of “fun” that we see in the form of memecoins and NFT’s are the distraction from the cut-purse’s sleight of hand in the entirety of the crypto space.
The issue is in the fact that when crypto inevitably fails; as more and more people lose their livelihoods and savings, the conflations between Bitcoin and crypto will push people away from Bitcoin because they think of it as the same thing.
I was speaking to a colleague who owed me some money and I told her she could repay me in dollars, or more preferably with bitcoin. Her response was to ask if I “Played” Bitcoin. Which is a turn of phrase I have come to understand is used to imply the concept of gambling my money with Bitcoin, as opposed to the far more logical concept that I simply save in Bitcoin, and choose not to lose my money due to inflation and gamble at how high that will be this month or any.
Because of the degeneracy that is so prevalent in crypto; the value of honest money that cannot be manipulated by anyone for their personal gain at the expense of others is becoming conflated with a joke which causes severe harm to individuals. Of course people can make their own decisions at the end of the day; I believe in a free market - however I still believe that scamming someone is immoral, and I will call it out every opportunity I get, and I would prefer to live in a society where scams are exposed and rendered useless before rather than after they have done their damage.
Bitcoin is not crypto, and crypto is most certainly not Bitcoin; decide for yourself whether crypto or fiat are worse because they’re both centralised scams, it is simply the magnitude and speed at which they occur that is different.