Written by: Vitto Rivabella, AI engineer at the Ethereum Foundation

Compiled by: Chopper, Foresight News

I have been working in the blockchain industry for many years, and I need to confess something: every time someone says at a dinner in Milan or Berlin, "cryptocurrency is a casino," I politely nod, change the subject, and continue my dinner.

I no longer argue.

Not because they are right, but because the argument I need to make requires them to imagine a life they have never experienced, which is difficult to do while enjoying wine and appetizers.

But I am tired of this polite phrase. Because the words of the smartest people I know in Europe and the reality I see in Lagos, Buenos Aires, Nairobi are so different that I feel it is irresponsible to remain silent.

So here is what I have been holding back. It is not a marketing pitch, not a white paper summary, but my real thoughts when you say to me, "blockchain is just a solution looking for a problem."

You say you don’t need it, that’s fair. But when you say no one needs it, then you are wrong.

A dinner changed the way I discuss this

About three years ago, I attended a conference in Lisbon. It was one of those events where people from forty countries sit in the same room pretending everyone is discussing the same thing. One of my colleagues—let's call him Emeka—works at a cryptocurrency exchange operating in twenty African countries. He is Nigerian, based in Lagos, and among the frenetic people in this industry, he is one of the calmest I have ever met.

After a panel discussion, a group of us went out to dinner. A fintech founder from Amsterdam made a cliché remark: "I really can't see what problems cryptocurrency can solve that banks can't."

Emeka put down his fork.

He was not angry, did not roll his eyes, simply said calmly, "Last year, my cousin in Port Harcourt wanted to send money to our aunt in Cameroon. It took six days, and the fee was nearly 10%. His bank froze the transfer twice due to compliance reviews. My aunt is seventy-three, has no bank account, and has to walk forty minutes to the nearest Western Union point. By the time the money arrived, she had already borrowed money from a neighbor to buy medicine."

He paused.

"She doesn’t know what blockchain is and doesn’t care. But you tell me about a well-functioning system? It doesn’t work for her at all."

The table went quiet. Not because Emeka was being dramatic, but because he wasn’t being dramatic at all.

This is also a point I keep returning to: those who loudly proclaim that cryptocurrency is a scam are often using a system that is very friendly to them. Their banks function normally, their currencies are stable, their governments don’t freeze accounts arbitrarily, salaries arrive on time, and the household goods available next month are similar to those of this month.

But most people on this planet do not live like that. Unless you understand this, you will never grasp what blockchain truly means.

Invisible Privilege

There is a number that should fundamentally reshape your understanding of this discussion.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest remittance costs in the world. The average cost of sending $200 is close to 8%. This means a family receiving $200 from overseas has already lost about $16 before the money arrives. In some remittance channels, the situation is worse, with fees exceeding 10%, and transfers taking several days.

Think about it: Nigeria alone received about $19.5 billion in remittances in 2023, with 8% going into the pockets of intermediaries. This is not a rounding error; it is a system extracting billions of dollars from some of the poorest families on this planet each year. And most Europeans think this system works well just because it benefits them.

When you transfer money from a German bank account to an Italian account and it arrives the same day for almost no cost, you probably don’t think twice about it. This experience is not universal; it is merely an accidental consequence of geography and infrastructure. It is a subtle privilege to the extent that you mistakenly believe this is how the world operates.

But this is not how the world works.

In 2021, the Central Bank of Nigeria banned commercial banks from processing any cryptocurrency transactions. They froze accounts, cut off exchange channels, trying to suppress it.

But it didn’t work.

Nigerians did not stop. They turned to Telegram, engaged in peer-to-peer transactions through WhatsApp groups, and met with local agents offline to exchange cash for USDT, a stablecoin pegged to the dollar. The demand was so urgent, crucial to daily survival, that the government ban did not slow its momentum even a bit. Students, freelancers, small businesses—they built an underground stablecoin economy because not doing so would mean watching their savings evaporate.

By 2024, Nigeria has become the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency economy by transaction volume. 85% of the transaction volume is below one million dollars, meaning it is the common people driving cryptocurrency trading, not Wall Street speculators.

The government eventually lifted the ban. Not because they changed their ideology, but because they realized they could no longer monitor the unlicensed financial system their citizens had decided to build.

Now I want you to try something: go to a dinner in Lagos, tell others that cryptocurrency is a casino, and see what the results will be.

An Angle You’ve Never Considered

When people from Europe or North America hear the term "cryptocurrency," they think of the Bitcoin price charts, someone in a Discord group throwing rocket emojis to hype meme coins, the collapse of FTX, and speculation.

They are not completely wrong. Speculation does exist, scams do exist, and many people have lost money investing in things they do not understand.

But simplifying blockchain to speculation is like reducing the internet to spam. There is some truth to it but misses all the truly important aspects.

Here are things that most people in developed countries never need to think about.

What Happens When Your Currency Collapses

In April 2024, when Javier Milei took office as Argentina’s president, the annual inflation rate was around 200%. Imagine your grocery money doubling in a year, imagine your savings being halved while you sleep.

Argentines do not sit down to debate the philosophical values of decentralization; they buy stablecoins. According to Chainalysis, Argentina is the second-largest cryptocurrency market in Latin America, with a trading volume of about $94 billion. Of the transactions made with Argentine pesos at exchanges, over half flowed into stablecoins. Not Bitcoin, not Ethereum, but stablecoins, digital dollars. Because what they need is not a speculative asset, but a currency that will still be money tomorrow.

Three-quarters of Argentine workers receiving their salaries in cryptocurrency choose stablecoins. Not because they are crypto enthusiasts, but because they need to eat next month.

In Venezuela, the situation is even more extreme. The New York Times reported that President Nicolás Maduro has effectively shifted the national economy to stablecoins. Venezuelans have given it a name: "Binance Dollar." When your national currency devalues by 80% in a year, with an inflation rate close to 500%, you do not need a white paper to explain what a dollar-pegged digital token is good for. You just need a smartphone and five minutes.

Small merchants accept stablecoin payments for goods and services, freelancers receive payments from international clients via blockchain, and families use stablecoins to receive remittances from relatives abroad. In some communities, stablecoins act as a parallel financial system—rent, groceries, transportation, all settled through digital wallets.

This is not adoption driven by hype; it is driven by survival.

What Happens When the Government Freezes Your Funds

Do you remember Emeka's story about the bank freezing his cousin's transfer? This is not an isolated case. In Nigeria, about one-third of adults completely lack access to formal financial services—33 million people—without bank accounts, credit cards, or savings instruments that retain value.

For those with bank accounts, capital controls make it nearly impossible to obtain dollars through official channels. The disparity between the official exchange rate and the black market rate can be enormous. At the beginning of 2024, when the naira fell to historical lows, Nigeria's quarterly stablecoin trading volume approached $3 billion. People are not gambling; they are escaping a burning building.

Mercy Corps Ventures executed a simple pilot in Kenya: sending money to freelancers using stablecoins instead of traditional remittance channels. Fees dropped from 29% to 2%. Freelancers saved more money and received income faster—this is true even without bank accounts.

I hope you really grasp this number: 29% to 2%; this is not a gradual improvement; it is a stark contrast between a system designed to extract value from those least able to bear the loss and a totally functional system.

The Picture of Scaling

Stablecoins currently account for about 43% of all cryptocurrency trading volume in Sub-Saharan Africa. Specifically, in Nigeria, stablecoin USDT accounts for nearly 89% of trading activities on one of Africa's largest crypto exchanges, Yellow Card. 70% of users utilize stablecoins for personal needs: remittances and savings, rather than trading.

In Latin America, 61% of cryptocurrency users are under 34 years old, with the primary purposes being the same: protecting funds, cross-border transfers, survival.

In 2024, global stablecoin transfer volume reached $27.6 trillion, surpassing the combined transaction volume of Visa and Mastercard. Not due to speculation, but practical value.

When someone from Amsterdam tells me that blockchain does not solve real problems, I think of these numbers, and I have only one thought: you have no idea because you never had to know.

Two Worlds

I have seen a pattern in this industry over and over again, and once you notice it, it feels ironic.

In developed countries, discussions about blockchain are philosophical: Is it decentralized enough? Is the technology elegant? Is it regulatory compliant? Is it a security or a commodity? People write deep analyses, debate at panels, adopt a somewhat evidence-based skeptical attitude, and feel profound for it.

In developing countries, discussions about blockchain are pragmatic: How do I exchange it before the peso devalues? Which platform offers the lowest fees for sending money to my mom? Can I pay my suppliers with USDT so my profits don't get eaten away by exchange rate fluctuations?

Do you see the difference?

In one world, blockchain is a topic; in another, blockchain is a tool.

And those who use it as a tool: store owners in Lagos put their working capital into digital dollars because the naira has crashed; freelancers in Nairobi receive payments in USDC and exchange it for M-Pesa in minutes; families in Caracas receive remittances while traditional channels would charge them a quarter. These people have no doubts about the value of blockchain.

They know it has value because they use it daily.

Emeka said something at that dinner in Lisbon that has stayed with me. He said, "In Nigeria, people don’t care about cryptocurrency. People care about what cryptocurrency can do."

This distinction is everything.

The people in Lagos, Buenos Aires, and Nairobi are not believers in some technology; they are not part of any team; they do not belong to any circle. They found something that solves problems the government and banks cannot or will not solve, and then they used it. Not because someone convinced them, but because of survival needs.

And for those in wealthy countries who think they see through the hype, the unsettling fact is this: the behavior you dismiss as speculation is actually the most rational economic behavior on this planet. When your currency is collapsing, exchanging it for a digital asset pegged to the dollar is not gambling; rather, it is the only rational course of action.

The Rebuttal You're About to Present

I know what you're thinking because I’ve heard it a hundred times before.

"Okay, but what about the scams? What about the exit scams? What about people losing their life savings on meme coins pushed by influencers?"

You’re right; these things exist, they are real, and they are very bad.

But the issue is: the existence of bad actors exploiting a technology cannot be a reason to condemn that technology. It can only be a reason to advocate for better regulation, better education, and better infrastructure. People get scammed through email, but no one advocates for abolishing email; people get robbed at ATMs, but no one advocates for abolishing banks.

The existence of scams in the crypto space is real and significant, and the industry needs to take it seriously. But using scams as a reason to dismiss an entire technology is intellectual laziness. It is a way to feel clever without doing any real research.

And who pays the highest price for that laziness? Not you; you have normal functioning banks in a stable country. The cost is borne by people in Lagos, Caracas, and Buenos Aires, who could benefit from better infrastructure, better regulations, and more institutional support for the tools they are using but are treated dismissively by those in power who could influence global policies.

Your skepticism comes at a cost; someone is paying that price.

What You Can Really Do

I am not asking you to buy cryptocurrency, not to become a blockchain evangelist, not to change your investment strategy, and not to change your profile picture to laser eyes.

I ask you to do a simpler yet harder thing: update your cognitive model.

Do not conflate speculation with utility. When you hear "cryptocurrency," do not automatically think of price charts. The most important things happening with blockchain right now are not the price of Bitcoin, but freelancers in Nairobi receiving their wages in seconds instead of waiting weeks; it is Nigerian families preserving their savings in digital dollars while the naira loses a third of its value; it is shopkeepers in Venezuela being able to receive stablecoins because the national currency has failed. Speculative layers do exist; they are loud and occupy the headlines, but beneath them lies an infrastructure layer quietly becoming an essential financial pipeline for billions.

Go talk to the people who genuinely use it. Not the crypto traders in New York, not the people trying to sell you tokens. Talk to people from Nigeria, Argentina, Kenya, or Venezuela. Ask them what stablecoins mean to them; ask how they lived before. You will hear many stories that make your view of "cryptocurrency is a scam" seem narrow and awkward. If you do not know anyone from these countries, read Chainalysis's "Crypto Geography Report"; it will change your perspective on this issue.

Become aware of your privilege. Next time you open a banking app and complete a transfer within three seconds for free, take note. Realize that you live in a world where all this is possible, and recognize that it does not hold for one-third of humanity. Then ask yourself whether your view of blockchain comes more from a life you have never needed to experience rather than from something you truly understand.

Push for better regulation, not dismissiveness. If you genuinely care about scams, exit frauds, and hurt people, the answer is not "ban" or "ignore"; the answer is wise, moderate regulation that makes this technology safer for those who need it most. Europe’s MiCA framework is a start, but regulation drafted by those who see blockchain as a scam will only protect incumbents, not users.

A Window

Let me tell you what happened after that dinner in Lisbon.

Emeka and I talked for another two hours at the hotel bar. He told me about his mother who lives in Abuja. She is sixty-seven, doesn’t know what blockchain is, but uses USDT to receive money from her son, learning how to exchange it via a mobile app taught to her by people in her church.

She used to receive money through Western Union and would have to wait several days with fees close to 10%. Now it arrives in minutes, almost at no cost. She has no idea she’s using blockchain; she just knows the money arrives faster and she gets more.

Then Emeka said something that impressed me.

"Do you know what my mom calls it? She calls it 'the new way.' That’s it, not crypto, not blockchain, just 'the new way.' Because for her, the old ways no longer worked, but now there is this."

I have kept thinking about this phrase: "the new way." No ideology, no circle of belonging, no investment portfolio—just something that wasn’t working before and is working now.

What I need you to understand is this: we are in a window of opportunity where some people still remember how the old ways felt. People like Emeka's mom have lived for decades in a financial system with high fees and poor service; people in Argentina remember that 200% inflation is not just a number in a textbook, but a reason their families can’t afford school fees; people in Venezuela have watched their life savings become worthless again and again, generation after generation.

These people have found a useful tool. It is not a perfect tool, not a risk-free tool, but this tool has done something that no other has ever done for them: it has provided them with stable currency, borderless transfers, and the ability to participate in the financial system without being exploited.

While they build entire lives upon this technology: paying rent, saving for their children, sending money to elderly parents, you sit at a dinner in Berlin and declare it a casino.

I understand, truly. From your position, it looks like mere noise.

But from their position, it appears to be the first time in their lives they are being treated fairly.

The question has never been whether blockchain works; billions of people have provided the answer. The real question is: will those who are most influential, most wealthy, and the loudest voices help it get better or continue to disregard a revolution they truly do not need because they were born with too much privilege.