Then there is the increasingly disconcerting social side. I've always steered my own life towards doing fun and interesting things with smart people in happy and positive communities. Bitcoin, at the moment, is in a slump, with a community that has become its own parody. While the underlying cryptocurrency is quite interesting and the wallet software is fairly good, the exchanges are based on layers upon layers of bad software, run by shady characters. The Bitcoin masses, judging by their behavior on forums, have no actual interest in science, technology or even objective reality when it interferes with their market position. They believe that holding a Bitcoin somehow makes them an active participant in a bold new future, even as they passively get fleeced in the bolder current present. And as if the world does not have enough schmucks with Macbooks who call themselves entrepreneurs, we have the term "Bitcoin entrepreneurs" used unironically by mainstream media. The community has designated a Nobel leaurate as its nemesis, solely because he asked some inevitable questions every thinking person in his profession ought to ask. As far as I'm concerned, the only winning move is to not play this game. Sure, you may make money, perhaps lots of it, on the inevitable ups and down that are sure to come, but you'll be associating with the wrong kinds of people. If your life goals did not include some amount of pride and self-respect for you and your community, there were tons of other, easier ways of making money fast that you could have taken.
It would have to be although there is not a Nobel prize in economics.